Crossfire or Full GPU Upgrade?

Carpathian

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Feb 3, 2014
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Hey, guys. I'm looking to either upgrade my GPU completely or to crossfire with an identical GPU. I'm currently running an HD Radeon 7870 and the card works great, its just that when I do things like live stream I lose some FPS. So I was just wondering if I should crossfire with another 7870 or completely upgrade to a better card. The reason I would consider crossfiring is just to save a bit of money, but I have read that there are some bugs with crossfire that actually cause the user to lose FPS in certain instances. So should I crossfire and save some money or just bite the bullet and buy a better, more expensive card? If it is the latter what type of card would you recommend? Also, just so you all know, I am currently running my rig on a 750W PSU. Thank you all for your help :)
 

clutchc

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Almost any capable card should have no issue with live streaming. I would suspect you have other issues. gfx cards are only maxed out by 3D gaming where there is massive frame rendering taking place. Live streaming is simply canned footage being reproduced on-screen. Is your internet connection slow or in heavy use by others at the time you stream?
 

Carpathian

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My internet connection is only used by my PC and my cell phone. No other devices were connected. Here is a speed test of my connection so you know exactly what it is: http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/3698179557

Perhaps the FPS loss I was experiencing was merely an in game lag spike or some other factor.
 

clutchc

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Almost identical to mine. Comcast?
I may have misunderstood you. I assumed you were talking streaming something like videos. Are you talking about online Multiplayer gaming?
Your internet speed is more than sufficient. Can you give an example of what game and how busy the server was?
And are you talking streaming videos or something while trying to game?
 

Carpathian

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Yea, Comcast is my ISP. What I meant was that while I was streaming my gameplay to Twitch.tv I experienced some frame loss. The game that I was playing was Star Wars: The Old Republic and I was just doing a game of PvP. The server that I play on usually does not get very heavy. Usually between the light to medium range in terms of players.

 

Carpathian

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Oh it performs pretty solidly. I usually average about 60-70 FPS and in the Fleet area (where players meet to sell items, get pvp quests, etc) when there are about 175 people in one area i'll get about 20 FPS. Like I mentioned before, though, the FPS drop I experienced may have just been a temporary spike or something within the server.
 

clutchc

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Just to eliminate the possibility of system issues, run CCleaner and do the Clean and Registry cleaner both. That will eliminate most registry errors, junk files, and software conflicts that can slow things down, https://www.piriform.com/CCLEANER
I use it at least once a week.

Another thing to do is disable as much stuff in your tray when gaming as possible. Everything running in the background steals clock cycles.
And if you have a 2nd monitor running off the HD 7870, even a 2D desktop display will steal a few clock cycles from the GPU.
 

Carpathian

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Yea, I do run a dual monitor set up. That's another reason I was thinking of possibly crossfiring or updating my GPU. Thank you for directing me to CCleaner, though! Hopefully that helps with some performance issues on my PC a bit.