7850 CF or some other graphics card?

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elias444

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Apr 30, 2012
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Hey guys,

Last summer I built a system with the i7 3770, 16gb of ram, and a radeon 7850. At some point in the near future I would like to upgrade the graphics card on this system and I am wondering whether I should buy one more 7850 and crossfire them, or buy a 7950 or a different card instead. I don't think I'll be able to spend any more than ~300$ on the replacement card. One last thing, my current 7850 has been pretty good overall, but I have noticed some screen flashing and a few other odd artifacts as well, I have not overclocked the card. What would you do in my situation, crossfire the 7850, or opt for another single card, and if so, which one?

Thanks, I look forward to reading your answers!

Elias
 
Solution
iam2thecrowe
too many issues with crossfire on mid range and low end cards, benchmarks will show higher average fps but you will get random fps drops and stuttering. since you have noticed artifacts, get rid of it, or return it if its still under warranty. 7950 is ok but may have some frame latency issues which may or may not be fixed with a new driver release, or you could go to the nvidia camp and get a gtx670.
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ozzman1997

ozzman1997

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Oct 7, 2012
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If your PSU is at least 750 watts, and if you have a card that is functioning just fine, I would say go Crossfire if you want to. Or you could just pick up a GTX 660 ti for $285 which will perform roughly the same as the 7950 in most games, maybe a little better in some. ;) Considering your screen flashing, you don't want to Crossfire another card with the one you already have--which is messed up somehow. It will only cause problems. The 660 ti also draws less power so if you wanted, it would be easier to SLI them in the future.


 
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iam2thecrowe

iam2thecrowe

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Jul 4, 2010
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too many issues with crossfire on mid range and low end cards, benchmarks will show higher average fps but you will get random fps drops and stuttering. since you have noticed artifacts, get rid of it, or return it if its still under warranty. 7950 is ok but may have some frame latency issues which may or may not be fixed with a new driver release, or you could go to the nvidia camp and get a gtx670.
 
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elias444

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Apr 30, 2012
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Ok, both of you seem to pretty much agree so I guess I'll start looking into single gpu options. It seems to me as though the 7970 and 660 ti are the 2 front runners, both being virtually the same price and having pretty much the same performance on the anandtech benchmarks.

So: Which of the two would you all recommend? My psu is 620w by the way.

 
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iam2thecrowe

iam2thecrowe

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if its between 7970 and 660ti, the 7970 is far better. are you sure your not thinking of 7950? 7950 and 660ti are similar performance and the 670 and 7970 are similar performance. The only problem i have with the 7950 is AMD's drivers at the moment, a couple sites report poor frame latency and stuttering on 7950. there is a beta driver which fixes this in some games. gtx660ti does not suffer this frame latency prolem.
 
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iam2thecrowe

iam2thecrowe

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Jul 4, 2010
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its memory performance isnt "flawed" but it does suffer more of a performance hit when you add 8x AA, 4x there is no difference though. For the most part the narrower memory bandwidth has no amazingly negative effects.
 
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elias444

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Apr 30, 2012
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I'm sorry, yes I did mean the 7950. Thank you guys for your answers, I think it will come down to the price at time of purchase, to see which I will get though I am definitely leaning towards the 7950. Thanks!
 
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