2x 7950, or 1x 7950 w/ core i5

[Guest]

Hello, I currently have an fx 4100 with a mobo that supports 16/x4 pcie 2.0.
Should I grab two 7950's. Or should I get a new mobo. cpu, and only one 7950

 

[richi3d10]

You will see a bigger gaming improvement from getting two of those graphics cards, however if I were you I would upgrade to the i5 which will give you a better future upgrade path.

 

[Guest]

You will see a bigger gaming improvement from getting two of those graphics cards, however if I were you I would upgrade to the i5 which will give you a better future upgrade path.

But wouldn't x16/x4 pcie 2.0 bottleneck the 2nd card. I would eventually get an i5. But If I get one now I wouldn't be able to get 2 7950's in crossfire untill next year.

 

[wanderer11]

You don't want to do crossfire with that mobo. If you want to crossfire you want x8 x8. So in your case get a 7950 and an i5. If you want to overclock and crossfire get a 3570k/asrock extreme 4/212 evo.

 

[Guest]

You don't want to do crossfire with that mobo. If you want to crossfire you want x8 x8. So in your case get a 7950 and an i5. If you want to overclock and crossfire get a 3570k/asrock extreme 4/212 evo.

I'm looking at the v pro

 

[wanderer11]

I'm pretty sure that z77 and x8x8 right? That would work fine.

 

[bjaminnyc]

Hello, I currently have an fx 4100 with a mobo that supports 16/x4 pcie 2.0.
Should I grab two 7950's. Or should I get a new mobo. cpu, and only one 7950

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Ivy_Bridge_PCI-Express_Scaling/4.html

You can Crossfire with that MB and shouldn't see any discernible vid-card bottleneck. There's very little difference in FPS from x4 - x16.

As other posters have said you may want to address a processor upgrade before buying a second card. Why not grab an FX-8320 which is far less expensive than a 7950?

8320 + SSD & 1 7950 would be a nice machine.

 

[Guest]

I'm pretty sure that z77 and x8x8 right? That would work fine.

sadly it will be a while to get a crossfire setup with 7950's if I get a new mobo and cpu. buyt i think a single 7950 will be fine for gaming.

 

[wanderer11]

If you don't think you will crossfire you could go for the cheaper Asus z77-v lk or an Asrock Pro 4.

 

[Guest]

If you don't think you will crossfire you could go for the cheaper Asus z77-v lk or an Asrock Pro 4.

I plan on crossfiring in the future.

 

[Guest]

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Ivy_Bridge_PCI-Express_Scaling/4.html

You can Crossfire with that MB and shouldn't see any discernible vid-card bottleneck. There's very little difference in FPS from x4 - x16.

As other posters have said you may want to address a processor upgrade before buying a second card. Why not grab an FX-8320 which is far less expensive than a 7950?

8320 + SSD & 1 7950 would be a nice machine.

So i should just get another card if the frames are so little of a difference. I have a fx4100. I know it's not exactly a good cpu, but unless I'm playing a very intensive cpu game I should be fine right. And I am not interested in upgrading to another amd cpu.

 

[bjaminnyc]

So i should just get another card if the frames are so little of a difference. I have a fx4100. I know it's not exactly a good cpu, but unless I'm playing a very intensive cpu game I should be fine right. And I am not interested in upgrading to another amd cpu.

Personally, staying in the same budget, I'd get an fx8320, 1 7950, and a SSD. I think you'll hit the point of diminishing returns quickly with the vidcards and your processor. If you decide in the future that one 7950 isn't enough you'll know you have the pieces in place to utilize their full potential.

Take the 4100 and make a nice HTPC or sell it. It's not a bad processor but you're talking about a rather high end video card so you need to address the potential bottlenecks. I'm always of the opinion a well rounded machine is far more enjoyable, and you'll have 8 cores to tackle any heavy compute tasks. (Encoding Rendering, etc....)

I don't know what resolution you're planning on gaming at. The 7950 is going to be really fast unless you go really high res. I run a single 6950 for 5040 x 1050. I have to turn down the details a bit, but still seems fast and eyefinity is awesome. I thought I was going to want to purchase a second 6950, gotta say I'm plenty happy with the performance of the single card.

 

[bjaminnyc]

And I am not interested in upgrading to another amd cpu.

Didn't catch this part. Well if that's the case then going with an i5 or i7 might be your best route.

However, my issue with Intel for builders is the constant socket changes. With your existing AM3+ board you know you've got at least one more FX revision before AMD possibly moves away from AM3+. I own quite a few Intel machine, one of them is a really high end 2p 12 core Xeon workstation. My entertainment PC is Phenom x6, that will be upgraded to an 8320 at some point, its feels faster and is more enjoyable to use when compared to my $10k workstation. I know the Xeno PC crushes the x6 for data processing, but daily use no discernible difference. IMHO monitors and SSD's are the biggest difference makers in user experience if you have decent components.

 

[Guest]

Didn't catch this part. Well if that's the case then going with an i5 or i7 might be your best route.

However, my issue with Intel for builders is the constant socket changes. With your existing AM3+ board you know you've got at least one more FX revision before AMD possibly moves away from AM3+. I own quite a few Intel machine, one of them is a really high end 2p 12 core Xeon workstation. My entertainment PC is Phenom x6, that will be upgraded to an 8320 at some point, its feels faster and is more enjoyable to use when compared to my $10k workstation. I know the Xeno PC crushes the x6 for data processing, but daily use no discernible difference. IMHO monitors and SSD's are the biggest difference makers in user experience if you have decent components.

I socket changes are a downfall, but I doubt that upgrading to a 8350 will do anything for gaming. Most games don't use more that 2 cores. And intels have better faster cores with hyperthreading. And my board is kind of crappy. So if I get a new board for crossfire might as well cough up a few extra bucks and go intel. And I have been getting issues with the fx series in gaming. Even after a bios update crysis 1 doesn't work as well as pretty much all crtek games. and this was an issue that was mostly exclusive with fx cpu's.