2nd card needed to xfire existing 280x (advice please!)

Jonathan Cave · Jan 21, 2014

i already own a sapphire toxic 280x and i understand i can xfire this with either another 280x or a 7970.

i have done my homework and i think i've narrowed it down to one of these cards from a price / performance POV.

280x - Gigabyte GV-R928XOC-3GD £225 delivered 1.0Ghz STOC
280x - Sapphire Radeon R9 280X Toxic £269 delivered 1.1Ghz STOC
7970 - XFX FX-797A-TDFC £205 delivered 925mhz STOC

Questions:

1) If i got the toxic would both cards run @ 1.1Ghz?

2) If i bought the gigabyte 280x @ 1.0Ghz would the existing toxic in my system under clock itself to 1.0ghz?

3) Is 100mhz worth £45?

4) If i bought the 7970 would the would the existing toxic in my system under clock itself to 925mhz and if so could you justify the drop of 175mhz in the toxic? i.e. would the performance be noticeably different if i went xfired a toxic 280x / 7970 combo compared to a toxic 280x & gigabyte 280x?

5) Why is the gigabyte 280x so cheap when compared to other cards? am i missing something ? is the memory speed slower? confused.com!

6) i have an XFX 850w bronze PSU - should be ok ?

7) i've o/c'd my toxic to 1.2ghz if i gota 2nd toxic and o/c'd that one to 1.2ghz would they both run at that speed?

8) can i overclock the gigabyte to 1.2ghz to xfire and run at 1.2ghz with the existing toxic?

sorry lots of questions, but any help appreciated.

Rams Anirudh · Jan 21, 2014

Jonathan Cave :

The best option is to xfire the same gpu, i had the same doubt earlier with my 270 but i got it clarified here.
The price differs according to each manufacturer because of their own GPU cooling tech and according to the material. I hope I have answered your concern ^_^

fruiten2 · Jan 21, 2014

Jonathan Cave :

Easy 280x crossfire with 850W bronze psu should be good.

and you should get a second toxic 280x indeed.

It's Always better to get the same card again. Then you don't have to worry on different clock speeds and incompabilities.

You'll probably get both toxics at 1,2ghz, but not all gpu's are the same some overclock better some less

Good luck!

Don't forget to pick a solution

Jonathan Cave · Jan 21, 2014

Thanks for the replies.

So forget it 7970.

it's a 280x race now then.

So still need some answers to these questions:

2) If i bought the gigabyte 280x @ 1.0Ghz would the existing toxic in my system under clock itself to 1.0ghz?

3) Is 100mhz worth £45?

5) Why is the gigabyte 280x so cheap when compared to other cards? am i missing something ? is the memory speed slower? confused.com!
(performance wise is there a benchmark of this card vs the toxic???) tried google not sure if i have the right card. http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/gigabyte_radeon_r9_280x_windforce_review,1.html

Rams Anirudh · Jan 21, 2014

Jonathan Cave :

Hi,
You can get a gigabyte but the clockrate will be taken for the lowest, so for example both your GPUs will be performing at 1.1 even if 1 is at 1.2 and other is at 1.1
And regarding your price question I already answered, it purely depends on the manufacturer as each will have their own cooling tech, for eg Sapphire has dual line x and vapor x cooling msi has twin frozer, etc.. Sapphire has good quality board for GPUs. So its slightly higher then gigabyte.

Jonathan Cave · Jan 21, 2014

Rams Anirudh :

Jonathan Cave :

Hi,
You can get a gigabyte but the clockrate will be taken for the lowest, so for example both your GPUs will be performing at 1.1 even if 1 is at 1.2 and other is at 1.1
And regarding your price question I already answered, it purely depends on the manufacturer as each will have their own cooling tech, for eg Sapphire has dual line x and vapor x cooling msi has twin frozer, etc.. Sapphire has good quality board for GPUs. So its slightly higher then gigabyte.

Thanks for the answer, are the memory speeds the same on the gigabyte vs toxic?

im leaning towards the gigabyte due to price point saving £45.

Rams Anirudh · Jan 21, 2014

Jonathan Cave :

Rams Anirudh :

Thanks for the answer, are the memory speeds the same on the gigabyte vs toxic?

im leaning towards the gigabyte due to price point saving £45.

For Sapphire its 6400 MT/s and for Gigabyte its 6000 MT/s
If you have no more questions you can choose it as the best answer

Jonathan Cave · Jan 21, 2014

Toxic Core : 1100 Boost : 1150 Memory Width / Speed: 384 bit / 6400MHz
Gigabyte Core : 1050 Boost : 1100 Memory Width / Speed: 384 bit / 6000MHz

Does anyone know how the boosting will work if i would xfire these cards?

it's all getting a little confusing when it comes to core speed but it's worth while investing time investigating to save £45 if there's gong to be little performance difference.

so what speed would this combination run at at STOC XFire?

relax fella as soon as i've got the correct information to enable me to make my purchasing decision i'll choose a best answer

Rams Anirudh · Jan 21, 2014

Jonathan Cave :

It will always take the lesser one. The toxic would be performing according to the gigabyte one. Its not actually Mhz it should be MT/s. Few websites make this mistake often.

Jonathan Cave · Jan 21, 2014

So will the toxic deboost itself to 1050 (gigabyte core) or 1100 (gigabyte boost)

whats MT/S?

Rams Anirudh · Jan 21, 2014

Jonathan Cave :

You can over clock gigabyte to 1100 if it can work properly else toxic will become 1050, thats how it usually works

Jonathan Cave · Jan 21, 2014

I thought the boost was enabled by default.

My toxic runs at 1150 stock as it's factory clocked 280x if the gigabyte card is factory clocked to 1100 wouldn't the toxic run @ 1100 also?

Does anyone actually own this card?

heero yuy · Jan 21, 2014

if you fancy a gamble you could buy the cheaper card and over clock it to the higher cards clock speeds

Jonathan Cave · Jan 21, 2014

Here's the specs for both cards:

The main differences i see are:

-50 Mhz Core
-100 Mhz Ram
-1.6 pixel fillrate
-7.6 texture fillrate
-19.2 bandwidth

Questions:

1. is it worth spending £45 more and buying a 2nd toxic or saving £45 and loose that performance above from the existing toxic card to match the gigabyte card.

2. How feasible is it to clock the gigabyte card an extra 50mhz and 100mhz?

i know some of you may be thinking it's only £45 but to me it's alot of money.

heero yuy · Jan 21, 2014

unfortunately it depends on the card you get

you might be able to get a card and put 200 Mhz on the core but sod all on the ram

if £45 is a lot of money then get the cheaper card - its still an upgrade and if it does overclock to the speeds of the faster card (or close to them) and stay stable then that is an added bonus and you saved yourself £45

Rams Anirudh · Jan 22, 2014

You can get the gigabyte itself. If you match its performance it should work for you. I agree £45 is a huge amount. The overclocking of gigabyte if you look at it for a long run, it reduces the lifetime of card slightly, but you will get the best out of it as performance which only we require.

Avro Arrow · Jan 24, 2014

You asked for me and here I am! ;-)

1) Yes, two exact same cards would run at their default clocks together with no changes.
2) Yes, but you could overclock the Gigabyte to 1.1GHz as well. The only thing is that you'd void your warranty. The exta 100MHz is probably not worth it anyway.
3) 100MHz isn't even worth $45 to me, let alone £45 considering that it's nothing more than a rather mild overclock.
4) The HD 7970 at 925MHz can still hit 1.1GHz easily. Hell, my twin Gigabyte Windforce HD 7970s are factory overclocked at 1050MHz right out of the box.
5) AMD/ATi has a history of being friendlier to the consumer than Intel and nVidia. They believe in open standards and not having their customers complaining about rectal agony from buying their products. The R280X is nothing more than a re-branded HD 7970, AMD doesn't deny this at all and perhaps doesn't believe in charging top dollar for two-year old technology, even if it is still the best that they have. So the situation is not "Why is AMD so cheap?" but "Why is nVidia so expensive?". I don't consider GeForce prices normal and Radeon prices low, I consider Radeon prices normal and GeForce prices generally in the butt-rape range.
6) The XFX 850W 80-plus Bronze-Certified PSU is more than enough for two HD 7970s/R9-280Xs.
7) Yes, but not because they're Toxics. ANY R9-280X clocked at 1.2GHz will run at that speed.
8) I don't know if the Gigabyte can overclock to 1.2GHz but honestly, who cares? I don't have my cards overclocked and wouldn't do so until their warranty is over. Until then, I won't need the overclock anyway. If you're running two of these cards in Crossfire, they will max out all games, regardless of whether they're 925MHz Powercolor Vanilla HD 7970s or Sapphire Toxic R9-280X's.

Hope this helps you out!

Jonathan Cave · Jan 24, 2014

Thank's all for your input.

i'll buy a gigabyte card in due course.

Avro Arrow · Jan 25, 2014

You'll be happy with it. My Gigabyte cards have made me very happy. Thanks for the best answer!

Jonathan Cave · Feb 6, 2014

Avro Arrow :

Avo Arrow,

do most games now support xfire ?

i play loads of Dayz Standalone and have eyfinity running @ 5750 x 1080 @ 30 - 50 FPS on 1 280x.

2nd card needed to xfire existing 280x (advice please!)

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