CF 7950 Vs 7970 Ghz

yabadaba2177

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Sep 13, 2011
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Hey all, I've made up my mind it's time to upgrade and I'm looking for some direction from those who may have used these cards. Currently my wife and I are using identical rigs running MSI TF 7850s pushing 2560x1440 monitors. While happy with the performance I'm looking for more. So whatever I do she'll be getting the 7850s in CF at the end. (primary game is GW2)

I've got a budget of ~$500 and my debate right now is for that price I could get a single 7970 Ghz or CF 7950s and I'm torn. While I know both would be great, doing CF now stops my upgrade path but a single 7970 gives me room to CF down the road. The long term goal is to push 3+1 Eyefinity on 2560x1440 monitors (the +1 won't be this res and maybe not at all) and hopefully get around 35-40 FPS. I'll try to do this on my wife's system as well (with the CF 7850s) but she's not as critical on the video as I am so I think on medium settings she'll be happy.

So I guess the question is what will I be lacking by having a single 7970 while I save the funds for a second vs doing CF 7950 now and start saving for the other 2 monitors.

EDIT : Just realized there is already a couple theards on this I didn't see earlier going to keep reading them and post back later

Ok still torn question stands Thanks all
 
Solution
Well for multi monitor set ups I would recommend the 760 SLI more than 7950. Since AMD 13.8 drivers are not yet capable of keeping issues like Micro Stuttering out with their Eyefinity. You would get far superior performance with the 760 SLI when it comes to Multi Monitors, so I would recommend it more over the 7950 Crossfire.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 760 2GB Video Card (2-Way SLI) ($249.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 760 2GB Video Card (2-Way SLI) ($249.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $499.98
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-08-20...
Well for multi monitor set ups I would recommend the 760 SLI more than 7950. Since AMD 13.8 drivers are not yet capable of keeping issues like Micro Stuttering out with their Eyefinity. You would get far superior performance with the 760 SLI when it comes to Multi Monitors, so I would recommend it more over the 7950 Crossfire.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 760 2GB Video Card (2-Way SLI) ($249.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 760 2GB Video Card (2-Way SLI) ($249.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $499.98
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-08-20 12:55 EDT-0400)

But if you prefer to Crossfire the 7950, then get this one instead. For multi Monitor set ups, the 7950 crossfire would give better performance than the single 7970. But you should really consider the 760 SLI instead.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 3GB Video Card (2-Way CrossFire) ($199.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 3GB Video Card (2-Way CrossFire) ($199.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $399.98
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-08-20 12:58 EDT-0400)

Note : The price difference is about 100 dollars, so you might prefer the 7950 Crossfire. They would give similar performance but the 760 SLI would keep the issues off the bay.

Anyways if you are already comfortable with the Eyefinity then go for the 7950 Crossfire. It is much more powerful than the single 7970 and is also 100 dollars cheaper than the 760 SLI.
 
Solution

yabadaba2177

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Thanks for the feedback guys. Right now I'm leaning toward doing a 7970 and getting a second in a few months. While I liked the price of the OC w/ Boost on Amazon it only has 1 display port. I'd like to be able to run the 3 monitors on DP right off the card and not need a MST hub but at the same time the increased price across 2 cards is higher than buying the lub 3D Dp hub.
 

AdioKIP

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Out of the options you gave, I wouldnt even consider a 7970 vs 2x 7950's in crossfire. The 7950 is less than 20% behind a 7970 ghz edition and if you get a good 7950 you can EASILY overclock to match the performance of a stock 7970. My 2x 7950's in crossfire give me more than enough power, but when I really need more I can easily overclock both of them to 1100/1450. With the recent price drops of the 7950 down to $199 after mail in rebate, its by far one of the best cards to get right now as far as perforance for the price.
 


Well.. I agree on the price part but I do not agree on the Performance part.

Yeah, I know two 7950s are more bang for buck but they are nowhere near the two 7970s in terms of performance. The 7970 Crossfire is still way better than 7950s in crossfire.
 

bowzef

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Oct 18, 2010
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agree, HD 7970 1000 core 1600 or 1500 on memory in crossfire wil out perform HD hd 7950 in crossfire overclocked at 1100 core 1450 memory , due to extra SMU's
HD7950
28 Compute Units (1792 Stream Processors)
112 Texture Units
128 Z/Stencil ROP Units
32 Color ROP Units
HD7970
32 compute units (2048 Stream Processors)
128 Texture Units
128 Z/Stencil ROP Units
32 Color ROP Units
 

AdioKIP

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The difference between 7970's in Crossfire and 7950's in Crossfire wont be anywhere near what you're thinking. Yes stock the 7970's will be faster but not as drastically as you're thinking, and the overclock example I gave was just what I run mine at, technically I could push it higher but dont have the need to. When it comes down to it, most 7950's can overclock as high as a 7970 can overclock. Also with the recent price drops, you can get 3x 7950's for the price of 2x 7970's.
 
Who said that you cannot overclock the 7970. If you are considering the performance of the overclocked 7950 then you should also consider the performance of the 7970 overclocked as well..

As for 3 x 7950. The scaling would be really bad. I would never considering going above two GPU's in multiple GPU configuration.