Adding a 5870 to a 6970

[PCgamer81]

Although my PSU is of great quality, it is only 650w.

I cannot support another 6970. But at reasonable speeds (maybe even slightly underclocked), maybe I can support a 5870x2 4GB.

Adding a 5870 would be much easier and cheaper than getting another PSU and a 6970 2GB.

I am wondering if it could be done seeing as how the 2 cards are from a different series - and if the power consumption of the 5870 2GB is indeed less.

Any thoughts?

 

[Supernova1138]

You can't run cards from different series and generations in Crossfire, so you would get no performance gain from doing so. You can run a 6950 with a 6970 in Crossfire, though the cards may not sync properly when rendering the frames leading to microstuttering problems. Technically a 6970 crossfired with a 6950 should slow down to 6950 speeds when paired with the weaker card, but that may not work properly in the real world. If you really need more GPU performance, you're going to have to get another power supply to properly support a 6900 series Crossfire, or buy a GTX 580 and use just that, but the small performance gain would not be worth the astronomical cost of that card.

 

[PCgamer81]

Best answer selected by PcGamer81.

 

[PCgamer81]

You can't run cards from different series and generations in Crossfire, so you would get no performance gain from doing so. You can run a 6950 with a 6970 in Crossfire, though the cards may not sync properly when rendering the frames leading to microstuttering problems. Technically a 6970 crossfired with a 6950 should slow down to 6950 speeds when paired with the weaker card, but that may not work properly in the real world. If you really need more GPU performance, you're going to have to get another power supply to properly support a 6900 series Crossfire, or buy a GTX 580 and use just that, but the small performance gain would not be worth the astronomical cost of that card.

I figured as much. I was just wondering if there was a way to make it work.