6870 CF or 7970

hmm, i'm not really a fan of Nvidia. mostly haven't had much experience with them other than on board and old pci usage many years ago.

from what i've seen games have gotten more support with nvidia physx. the witcher 2 has absolutely no support for triple display through amd as oppose to supporting not only 3d from nvidia but also vision surround.

with that being, i could actually go back in time and experience RE5, even though i don't have 3D capable monitors. still a tough debate. i've always wanted to experience a dual card set up, and one thing i don't really care about what amd has done with the 6000/7000 series is the abandoning of the display-port in favor of mini-display port. not that big if an issue i guess, if i buy a doggle for the cable, but still annoying, considering that the gtx 670/680 [not sure on 690] both have original display port output.

I see people write this all the time, but what specifically is wrong with AMD's drivers?

OP, Crossfire 6870s are probably a little slower than a single 7970. 6870 ~= 5850. 2x5850 ~= 5970. 6xxx series do scale a little better in crossfire than 5xxx series. 2x6870 is probably somewhere between gtx580 and hd7970.

From a value standpoint, you're comparing gaining a slight performance advantage for +$150. If you're willing to spend $500, I say go with 2x7850 instead. Power usage for 2x7850, 1x7970, and 2x6870 is going to be ~300W for all three setups, with performance in that order.

yeah, i forgot the about the micro-stuttering. maybe i am better off with just one card then since these cards i ordered only have 1gb of vram each and probably won't benefit any at all on high end games like bf3 or crysis 2.

edit: also i dont really plan to play online. i'm more of a single player approach, especially for rpgs.

I've had ZERO issues with micro-stuttering. Logged a couple hundred hours in BF3, across different driver releases. Personally, I think it's less a problem than the media makes it out to be.

The thing that does hold back the XFire setup is the lack of sufficient VRAM when in EyeFinity. I can't play BF3 on very high settings if I play in that, over a single display. Unless you plan to run more than one monitor, you should be fine with the 6870s.

Micro-stuttering is an issue if you have low fps. If your fps is +60 on a 60hz monitor, you shouldn't (or won't) see any micro-stutter. A choppy framerate is a choppy framerate regardless of if you have one or two cards. With two cards, you get micro-stutter because of the choppy framerate combined with your cards not outputting frames in the exact same intervals. That doesn't mean single card setups can't have choppy framerates. You still need to adjust your game settings according to your hardware. People assume they can murder every game on ultra with their multi-card setups, then scream about micro-stutter. Lower your settings to within your hardware's capability and you'll find it goes away.

On my setup, I don't see it until <50 fps. In practical terms, that means I run BF3 on medium w/ 2xMSAA at 1920x1200 to keep +60 MINIMUM fps (mainly on the Karkand maps). 2x5850 is supposed to be ~= to gtx580, and I do see people say they run omgwtf ultra settings in BF3, but they're not getting +60 minimum fps. I guarantee they're getting <30 fps frame dips during explosions on Karkand maps. Yes, they won't have micro-stutter, but it's still not a completely smooth experience. Most games I can run at ultra settings with no micro-stutter (e.g. SWTOR, BF:BC2), a couple I run at high + AA (e.g. Metro 2033).

2x7850 should have no problems with ultra settings or micro-stutter in any current games. That's still my recommendation for $500.