Worth it to crossfire a 6970 at 8x vs one at 16x

[thefisherman]

Hey guys,
Im getting about 33fps on my maximus 4, 2600k (overclocked to 5.1), with one 6970 sapphire Sr2. Is it worth it to crossfire and get a second card, even though they will have to run at 8x 8x? Between decreased lanes and scaling do you guys think I will get a noticeable difference? Keep in mind these cards are 350$$ right now. If any one has this set up or insight please let me know. My cut off is 50fps if you guys think I can get that ill buy it.
16 gigs gskill 1600
Corsiar 1200 psu
Windows 7 x64 ultimate
2x vertex 3s raid 0, in SATA 3 (benched at 1.2 gigs read speed a second! Love em worth the 420$)

Thanks in advance

 

[COLGeek]

You will definitely see an increase in performance by CFing 2 HD6970s. What games are you playing? Also, I assume you are running the graphics settings maxed out. Correct?

Last (for now), are your drivers up to date and are you OCing your GPU at all?

 

[farrengottu]

even the best GPU cant fully use 8x. you will tend to get 5% or so more performance with a 16x but thats due to the card being able to more quickly saturate the available lanes.
now dual GPU cards might be able to need more than 8x but i havent checked. you will get pretty much full performance out of that second card.

 

[farrengottu]

i checked a few benchmarks you should expect 70-95% increase in performance. dependent on resolution,game and driver.

 

[thefisherman]

Ya my bad I'm running 5200x1080 eyefinity set up on three 27 inch Samsung syncmasters. I play dragon age, counter stake, dead island, can't wait for skyrim. I think I'm gonna do it you guys seem sure it will help. Thanks a lot for the advice its a lot of money I wanted to make sure it was worth it.

 

[thefisherman]

@farrengottu could you post a link to that site brother I'd love to check it out.

And that again guys I feel 1000% better about spending all thus cash. For the games I play defiantly seems worth it

 

[COLGeek]

Ya my bad I'm running 5200x1080 eyefinity set up on three 27 inch Samsung syncmasters. I play dragon age, counter stake, dead island, can't wait for skyrim. I think I'm gonna do it you guys seem sure it will help. Thanks a lot for the advice its a lot of money I wanted to make sure it was worth it.

Good luck. Yep, you are asking a lot for a single 6970. 2 will be much stronger. Good luck!

 

[tomskent]

as farrengottu said, 8x lane isnt even fully used. So if you crossfire another 6970 you will be using 95%+ of the card. With a 3 monitor eyefinity monitor you will see a big difference. the 2gb on the 6970 will help a lot at those resolutions.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

a 6990 is essentially 2 x 6970's sharing the bandwidth of one slot, and they work pretty well, so it will be fine.

 

[thefisherman]

Ya I didnt consider all that. Very cool I'm not the kind of guy that has 350$ laying around so buying a second is a big buy But I am tierd of things getting choppy. Thanks a lot everyone feeling good ill order it tomorrow. I didn't even think it would be as good as 95% its gonna be awesome!

 

[thefisherman]

Best answer selected by thefisherman.

 

[thrakazog]

Hey guys,
Im getting about 33fps on my maximus 4, 2600k (overclocked to 5.1), with one 6970 sapphire Sr2. Is it worth it to crossfire and get a second card, even though they will have to run at 8x 8x? Between decreased lanes and scaling do you guys think I will get a noticeable difference? Keep in mind these cards are 350$$ right now. If any one has this set up or insight please let me know. My cut off is 50fps if you guys think I can get that ill buy it.
16 gigs gskill 1600
Corsiar 1200 psu
Windows 7 x64 ultimate
2x vertex 3s raid 0, in SATA 3 (benched at 1.2 gigs read speed a second! Love em worth the 420$)

Thanks in advance

Using the DX11 AVP benchmark max'd, I went from 56fps avg to 120fps avg.......X-fire will make a difference. =)

 

[k1114]

I know this is solved but I'm suprised no one posted this 3 part article Tom's had about this topic. Here's for future searchers: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/crossfire-sli-3-way-scaling,2865.html

And pics for the OP:

(though its the 6950 not 6970)