Any graphics card I can pair with my old one to Crossfire?

ItsMrNumb

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So I'm looking to add a few more monitors to my setup that I built a bit over a year ago. The problem is, it seems as though they have discontinued my graphics card so I am unable to outright purchas a new one of the same model. My question is which gpu's can you guys recomend me for my build in order to crossfire with my old card if at all possible? I'm looking to run another 1, at most possible 2 screens ontop of the two I am already running. the fourth however, will rarely be in use as it will be my gaming monitor. So when I'm on console the screen wont be in use by the pc and when I game on my pc it willl be. Below is a list of the parts in my rig, however I am considering upgrading the CPU aswell. At first the intention was to upgrade to the broadwell chipset when it released but now I am having second thoughts so if you would like to recomend a CPU you think would suit my build please, by all means. As of rn my i5 handles what I need it to do but as I plan on streaming more and such, I find myself wanting to lean towards the i7 aswell.

PC Specs:
CPU- Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor
Motherboard- ASRock Z97 Extreme3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
Memory- G.Skill Sniper 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Video Card- XFX Radeon R9 270X 2GB Double Dissipation Video Card
Case- NZXT Phantom 530 (White) ATX Full Tower Case
Power Supply- XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply
Operating System- Microsoft Windows 8.1 OEM (64-bit)
 
Solution
Try 512MB for starters, and if you notice any visual lagging just bump it up to 1GB. An identical 8GB kit of RAM wouldn't be too expensive anyway if you find 7GB to be too little for your needs.

ItsMrNumb

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Dumb question, but going with the RX 470 would be different... How? doesn't it still limit the screen outputs the card can handle? I can have 3 screens hooked up to my 270X but it will only detect 2 of them even though all three ports have been tested and work
 
Newer cards have greater monitor support. The Rx 470 supports up to 6 displays in total (fewer if some of the displays have a very high resolution). I am not certain if it will support 6 independent displays, but it is rated at 6 for Eyefinity. It will definitely support 4. It is also a much more powerful card (we're talking 50%+ improvement over the 270X).

Strange that you couldn't get more than 2 displays detected with the 270X though. In theory it supports up to 3 displays.
 
Just for the sake of it cards that you cannpair with a 270x with no issues

HD 7850
HD 7870
R7 265
R9 270
R9 270x
R7 370

Running crossfire will drop the performance of that single 270 to a lower tier if paired with any card apart from a 270x.

I would argue that if this is just for multi monitor use you don't need to enable crossfire.



 


the 265 is pitcairn the same mate (essentially a 7850 )
the 270x IS a 7870
youve always been able to pair across those cards

The 370 is the one I would have had doubts about but there are plenty of people running it in crossfire with a 270/x
 

ItsMrNumb

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I have tried this before and it seems that the motherboard outputs have become disabled once I began running my GPU. I suppose there should be a way to enable it in the Bios system however I cannot find it if there is
 
The setting you're looking for in the UEFI:

Advanced->Chipset->iGPU Multi-Monitor

Set this to Enabled to initialize the iGPU as well when booting. I recommend configuring the "Share Memory" setting as well, because by default it might be something like 64MB, which isn't enough VRAM to smoothly render even the Windows Desktop. Keep in mind the iGPU utilizes memory from the RAM as VRAM, so any amount entered in this setting will become unusable as RAM.
 

ItsMrNumb

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Ok so I'm literally doing this as I'm typing this to you so the sooner the response the better haha, I just enabled he IGPU Multi-Monitor but now I'm looking for the "Share Memory" as you said to, to configure the VRAM. How much would you allot to it in order to run smoothly? I'll be using the MoBo output for strictly school work/texts and more than likely some video displaying swell. Thanks for the help, as you can tell I'm still pretty deficient at this contrary to owning this for over a year now lmao

EDIT: This is not to make you feel rushed, as I have my MBP that I'm using in the mean time until I figure out how to set it up. And as I said before, thanks again for the help!
 

ItsMrNumb

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I appreciate the help, Just did it, will hook my 3rd monitor up to it in a bit and will post back here with the results. Thanks!