CF 6950's

[Consciencekills]

How much of a performance boost will i see with 2 crossfired HD Radeon 6950's from 1 6950?

Here's my card http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161372

Is it even future proof?

 

[bystander]

It all depends on the rest of your system, resolution and number of monitors. There is no such thing as future proof.

 

[englandr753]

what do u use ur 6950s for ? not that u dont use them......mind shipping them to me ?

That provided a good laugh for me just before bedtime, lol! I could also use one of them providing its an XFX 6950 2G with a dual BIOS, lol. It would fill the 3rd slot on my system and make me feel justified to have a corsair 1000 watt psu.

Getting back to the OP's Q, I read up on several benchmarks THG did a little while back and id say in 75~90% of the time you will get a 20~90% performance boost in most cases with most games in several resolution settings. But as others stated, it will partially depend on if the rest of your system is up to par to not bottleneck those cards. There was also a 5~10% of the time you will get less frame rates than with a single card. I never got a solid understanding on the reason why but that was the experience they had with it. But overall it is a great setup and it prompted me to pick up a 2nd to CF myself and it is very nice.

What is the system specs that you want to put these cards in?

 

[englandr753]

BTW, the link to your card appears to be broken...

 

[Consciencekills]

My system specs as of now:
Cooler Master HAF X case
ASUS Formula V mobo
AMD 1100T stock cooler not overclocked
800 watt cooler master silence gold edition
8gb of 1600 G skill Ripjaws

I dont think any of that will bottleneck it but i wanna make sure first
and i already have my first 6950 overclocked past the pre-overclock does this suck up alot more power?

 

[bystander]

What resolution do you play at?

At lower resolutions, ones which allow you to hit 40+ FPS with a single 6950, will occasionally be bottlenecked by your CPU.

 

[Consciencekills]

i play at a 1080p so its probably gonna be pretty demanding on high graphic games

 

[bystander]

Most the time, you won't see an advantage with two 6950's, unless seeing a higher number from FRAPs is considered seeing an advantage. Unless you have a 120hz display, 60 FPS is the max your monitor can show.

If you are playing games like Metro 2033, Crysis 2 in Dx11, or other demanding games, the two cards will make a difference.

In a few games, you won't see much more FPS due to your CPU bottlenecking the system. Most of these times it wouldn't really matter, as over 60 FPS is not able to be seen on your system, most likely.

 

[Consciencekills]

yeah my monitor is 60hz
but if i overclocked my CPU would i have no bottlenecking at all?
because i have a 212 cooler master hyper laying around but havent wanted to deal with removing the mobo to install it

 

[bystander]

Let's say that if you did overclock, it would be rare that you'd be bottlenecked at FPS below 50-60. After that it wouldn't really matter.

 

[englandr753]

Change your CPU cooler and OC as close to 4.0ghz as possible and that will minimalize the CPU bottleneck. You have a formula V board, don't be afraid to throw in a BD CPU the 1st quarter of 2012 to eliminate any CPU bottleneck you may have with the two cards.

I vote to get the 2nd card simply fro your upgrade options with the good hardware you already have...

 

[englandr753]

That's a true statement but seriously, it's going to outperform the current top end AMD CPUs. The specs on the CPUs being released Q1 2012 are stock 3.6 & 3.9ghz. The main Q would be, how well do they overclock?

If you can hold out 4-6 months on your upgrades, you will be able to find out. If not, I feel it's a fair assumption that the new gen CPUs will offer at least a moderate upgrade...

 

[Consciencekills]

BD may outperform but it will most likely put a huge dent in my pocket
i'm a 15 year old who works for minimum wage so my budgets pretty low lol
im probobaly gonna put in my cooler master hyper 212 cpu cooler and try to get as much performance out of it as i can
Thanks for the answers

 

[englandr753]

I can understand but if you already have a system that most people on the planet hopes to have and are considering spending 300.00 on a second card, another 300.00 for a CPU that may add 20~30% performance boost to justify your previous investment in your system only makes sense.

If it's too much to pay right now, I'd hold off until all the hardware is available and you save more money and then see what the best option is for you...

 

[Consciencekills]

Best answer selected by ConscienceKills.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey