R9 280X trifire

Axzevos

Honorable
Jun 12, 2013
628
0
10,980
Hello. I'am gonna buy a gaming build soon, and a well known norwegian site put the R9 290X on 5999 nok which is 1000 dollars. I was first going to buy two of them, but since it was more expensive then I tought I was thinking to buy R9 280X quadfire or trifire. I was wondring what will run best? I have heard that crossfire runs alot better now!

So what will be best at 5760x1080p display? R9 290X crossfire or R9 280X trifire or quadfire? Which will give me highest fps?
 
Solution

BigMack70

Distinguished
Mar 16, 2007
141
3
18,715
Trifire is really, really buggy. It only scales in about half the games. Make absolutely sure that your desired games behave well with trifire. Quadfire is worse.

The problems with crossfire that have been fixed had to do with microstutter, but the problems tri- and quad-fire have are related to performance scaling and game compatibility, not microstutter (which hasn't been fixed yet for eyefinity, anyways).

Really, you should only ever consider two card setups for gaming. 3-way and 4-way setups often create more problems than they solve.

Here's an example review including tri-fire:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_Titan_SLI/

Note that because tri-fire often shows zero or negative scaling, it winds up on average not being any faster than two cards:
perfrel_2560.gif


I recommend a pair of 290s or 290Xs, if you are willing to wait for AMD to release their driver that fixes stutter at eyefinity resolutions. If you are not willing to wait for that driver release from them, you should get a pair of 780s in SLI after their price drops in the coming weeks.
 

Axzevos

Honorable
Jun 12, 2013
628
0
10,980


Hello. That was pretty interesting. But in some benchmarks tri fire 7970 gives sometimes 20-30 fps increase. Anyway, R9 280X has a pretty good price in Norway. You can get one for 2299 nok which is 383 dollars. It sounds like a bad price, but compared to all other graphic cards it's beast! Heres some examples. Help me out to get the best deal :).

GTX 770: 399 dollars - Norwegian price 504 dollars
GTX 780 650 dollars- Norwegian price 773-840 dollars 840=normale
R9 280X 299 dollars - Norwegian price 383 dollars
AMD 7970 299 dollars - Norwegian price 470 dollars

I can get 4x R9 280X for the same price as GTX 780 2-way SLI.
 

BigMack70

Distinguished
Mar 16, 2007
141
3
18,715
Like I said, you can do tri-fire (or even quad-fire if you wanted), but you'd better be dang sure that the games you play behave with it. You can expect something in the ballpark of a 50% failure rate for Trifire across all games, and more than that for quadfire.

As a result, I don't know why you would opt for a trifire 280x/7970 setup when you will probably be able to get similar performance from a pair of 290 or 290X cards but with way less issues (not to even mention less heat/noise/power draw).
 

AdioKIP

Distinguished
Jul 10, 2008
789
0
19,160
You mentioned that you're gaming at 5760x1080 (EyeFinity). While AMD has issued a driver update that addresses the frame pacing issue in Crossfire setups, it currently only works for single screen setups. EyeFinity setups still have the frame pacing issue. AMD has said it will be addressed in a future update, but for the time being you should know the issue still exists before jumping into a Crossfire EyeFinity setup.
 

guggi4

Honorable
Jun 24, 2013
635
0
11,160

I guess he is aware of that, but with this prices in his country its hard to recommend nvidia.
 

Axzevos

Honorable
Jun 12, 2013
628
0
10,980


I think I will go for R9 280X crossfire and only one 144hz screen. I will get another one later for skype and another stuff :).
 

AdioKIP

Distinguished
Jul 10, 2008
789
0
19,160


Not a bad choice, but honestly, dont be scared off of EyeFinity by the frame pacing issue. I run an EyeFinity setup (5760x1080) with 2x 7950's in crossfire. Overall I'm more than happy with my setup, while there are games that I can definitely tell I should get smoother performance from, overall pretty much every game that supports EyeFinity has run well enough to be playable to me at mostly high settings. If I had my choice between 144hz or EyeFinity I'd probably take EyeFinity. Rather than 144hz have you considered going with one of the 2560x resolution monitors? The extra resolution looks great, and the crossfire framepacing issue has been mostly fixed for single screen setups.
 

JustNeedSomeHelp

Honorable
Oct 22, 2013
347
0
10,790


Have you ever tried a monitor like this? http://www.komplett.no/k/ki.aspx?sku=775670
Would you prefer it over a 144hz monitor?
 

AdioKIP

Distinguished
Jul 10, 2008
789
0
19,160


The monitor you pointed to is nice, but an oddball. Its one of the new super wide screens, but its an odd resolution and I dont think a lot of games will support it. If you go with a screen above 1080p you want one of the 2560x1440 screens for gaming. As far as resoltion vs hz (refresh), I personally would take resolution. The 144hz screen may feel a little smoother, but the look of a 2560x1440 screen is a thing of beauty, just be sure you have enough video power to push it.
 
Solution