Crossfire setup VS single card

[garra432]

Hello Tom's

This is my setup:
motherboard: Gigabyet 970a ud3
PSU: Corsair 750W Tx V2
RAM: 8 GB corsair vengeance 1600 - 2 sticks 2GB - 1 stick 4 GB
Windows 7 ultimate
Crossfired: 6870's sapphire/XFX dual fan edition both 1GB
CPU: Phenom 1090T @ 4Ghz

I heard people said single cards are always a better choice than crossfire.
So i'm thinking of selling my 6870's and buy a 5970 for it.
Is this a good idea?

Playing games:
Dirt 3, Battlefield 3, AC revelations ect ect.
Programs i use:
Just internet and Windows live messenger.

Greetz

 

[garra432]

Hello Tom's

This is my setup:
motherboard: Gigabyet 970a ud3
PSU: Corsair 750W Tx V2
RAM: 8 GB corsair vengeance 1600 - 2 sticks 2GB - 1 stick 4 GB
Windows 7 ultimate
Crossfired: 6870's sapphire/XFX dual fan edition both 1GB
CPU: Phenom 1090T @ 4Ghz

I heard people said single cards are always a better choice than crossfire.
So i'm thinking of selling my 6870's and buy a 5970 for it.
Is this a good idea?

Playing games:
Dirt 3, Battlefield 3, AC revelations ect ect.
Programs i use:
Just internet and Windows live messenger.

Greetz

 

[JackNaylorPE]

No....one I wouldn't buy a 5970 as its now 2 generations old...6970 and 7970 out.

Two 6870 (get 701 in Guru3D's game test suite.....one 6970 gets 526 fps ....why spend money to lose 25 % of your performance ?

Peeps like to say that single cards are always a better choice but the numbers don't hold up that argument depending on your point of view.

As we see above .... two 6870's cost $300 which using the 701 fps above shows a cost of 42.8 cents per frame.... That $320 6970 would cost ya 61 cents per frame .... if that's a better choice, I'm missing something. Yes, it is true that you can add a 2nd 6970 later but.....

1. Until ya do, you are only getting 75% of the performance you'd get w/ the CF'd 6870's
2. When ya do add the 2nd 6970, it will have cost ya 78 cents per frame..... that's 82 % more expensive for a measly 17.7% increase in performance.
3. It's worse with the nVidia 560/580's ..... twin 580's get just 10% more performance than twin 900 Mhz 560 Ti's at 2.3 times the price.....going from $430 -> $1,000 for a 10% performance increase will be hard fr many peeps to get behind. Though competitive gamers will certainly be willing to do so.

 

[garra432]

No....one I wouldn't buy a 5970 as its now 2 generations old...6970 and 7970 out.

Two 6870 (get 701 in Guru3D's game test suite.....one 6970 gets 526 fps ....why spend money to lose 25 % of your performance ?

Peeps like to say that single cards are always a better choice but the numbers don't hold up that argument depending on your point of view.

As we see above .... two 6870's cost $300 which using the 701 fps above shows a cost of 42.8 cents per frame.... That $320 6970 would cost ya 61 cents per frame .... if that's a better choice, I'm missing something. Yes, it is true that you can add a 2nd 6970 later but.....

1. Until ya do, you are only getting 75% of the performance you'd get w/ the CF'd 6870's
2. When ya do add the 2nd 6970, it will have cost ya 78 cents per frame..... that's 82 % more expensive for a measly 17.7% increase in performance.
3. It's worse with the nVidia 560/580's ..... twin 580's get just 10% more performance than twin 900 Mhz 560 Ti's at 2.3 times the price.....going from $430 -> $1,000 for a 10% performance increase will be hard fr many peeps to get behind. Though competitive gamers will certainly be willing to do so.

Thanks for your awnser but, ain't my motherboard bottlenecking my crossfire because i've read somewere that it's only 16/4x?

 

[Motopsychojdn]

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3907#sp

Yup, that mobo is gimping your crossfire, Cheaper to buy new mobo than a single card though
What resolution are you playing at and how many monitors?
Moto

 

[garra432]

How mutch % in performance should it give me if i would get a 16/8x instead of this 16/4x?

 

[Motopsychojdn]

Go for a x16/x16 or x8/x8 so both cards are equally loaded, but dependant on res you might see 30% improvement,
again, its dependant on resolution and the actual games you are playing, some games aren't coded well for Cf, if at all
Moto

 

[garra432]

Thank you guys for your awnsers!
I'm about to go from a Gigabyte 970A UD3 to a Gigabyte GA 990XA-UD3 since that one supports 8/8x slots.

 

[Motopsychojdn]

Cool, I believe that one will hold you through a bulldozer upgrade as well in the future,
*Edit, yup, just checked its an am3+/fx socket

Moto

 

[rage33]

+1 get the Gigabyte 990xa-ud3

 

[vexun11]

I added a second 5830 to my i7 930 setup and am loving the performance gain, especially since radeon 5800 cards are so cheap now.

 

[assasin32]

People generally consider single GPU > two GPU because you don't have to worry if a game supports crossfire/sli and in general is just less hassle (heat comes to mind). This is assuming that they are both the same price and performance. But this is not always true so you have to weigh things for what you want and willing to pay and put up with.

 

[blackshadowzx]

i think multi gpu is better for nvida at least

the pros
two cheap cards might give more preformance than a more expensive one

might cost less than a single expensive card

some good feature like sli antilasing but you will need a strong card

cons
some games dont supprot xfire or sli but i think most famous games do

need a good power supply which support xfire and sli and more power(but you only buy a psu every 3-5 yrs)

heat can be a problem but a good air flow usally solves that

need a mobo that supports xfire or sli and fits the gpu s


i would go with multi gpu hope this helps

 

[rimartic]

Hi
Fist of all you should see whats the bandwith of PCI-E. On your board because one of the important things is number of lanes witch amd has better options. in some board's. Such as 990 or 890 fx - you can use 32 lanes (@16 for each card) but sadly And unbelievably. Amd still doesnt support PCI-E3.0 !!
But with your cards thats not a problem.
Im not agree with those whom believe single is "always" better than cross because with new generation of vga'sand late games cross is one of the best solutions but the most important part is. Crossfire usually is best with mid range high end cards such as 5850~7870~r9 270 and270x and ....
As you might know. Cross of high end cards is sort of waste and mostly with those kind. Of cards i said , you should have around (%70~%85) more Efficiency.
About your current cards ,highest efficiency in crossfire would. be gained if you choose exactly 2 same cards or at least w same specification. For best performance i would rather use cross of R9-270X witch its quite similar to R9 290X.
R9 270X is a bit higher than 7870
Your ram complex is not so good because in this form you cant use dual channel performance. Its always good to use dual channel rams with not only same specification but also with consecutive serial numbers

 

[Aleksandar Gradina]

Hi
Fist of all you should see whats the bandwith of PCI-E. On your board because one of the important things is number of lanes witch amd has better options. in some board's. Such as 990 or 890 fx - you can use 32 lanes (@16 for each card) but sadly And unbelievably. Amd still doesnt support PCI-E3.0 !!
But with your cards thats not a problem.
Im not agree with those whom believe single is "always" better than cross because with new generation of vga'sand late games cross is one of the best solutions but the most important part is. Crossfire usually is best with mid range high end cards such as 5850~7870~r9 270 and270x and ....
As you might know. Cross of high end cards is sort of waste and mostly with those kind. Of cards i said , you should have around (%70~%85) more Efficiency.
About your current cards ,highest efficiency in crossfire would. be gained if you choose exactly 2 same cards or at least w same specification. For best performance i would rather use cross of R9-270X witch its quite similar to R9 290X.
R9 270X is a bit higher than 7870
Your ram complex is not so good because in this form you cant use dual channel performance. Its always good to use dual channel rams with not only same specification but also with consecutive serial numbers

I am also thinking of crossing R9 270X (powercolor PCS+ edition). I already have one, and here in Serbia that GPU costs about 160 euros when converted.
I have a fair framerate with only one 270X, BF3 is 50 fps, MoH Warfighter is 90 fps...only games like GTA4 (30-35 fps) and shitty Watch Dogs (20-25 fps) work very bad...In watch dogs, it doesnt matter if i go for ultra high or low settings, i always get the same framerate...Frames vary maybe 3-4 fps. So, something is bottlenecking the GPU, processor is AMD Athlon II x4 641 clocked @ 4.0ghz, 4gb of ram (single channel) and shitty MSI motherboard.
Today im going to buy new mobo, cpu, cpu cooler and ram memory:

990X Asus M5A99X EVO R2.0
AMD FX-6300
CM 212 Evo
Kingston HyperX predator @ 1866mhz