2x Radeon HD 7850 vs 1x Radeon HD 7950

[Jam00dle]

which will perform better?

2x Radeon HD 7850
or
1x Radeon HD 7950



My other system spect will be:

PSU: 850W PSU - POWERCOOL Modular 80+ & 12CM Fan

Intel Core i7 4+4 Core 3770K 3.5Ghz 8MB L3 CACHE (IvyBridge)
ASUS P8Z77-V LX OR GIGABYTE Z77-D3H
PATRIOT VIPER RED V3 16GB 2133Mhz
OCZ 120GB SATA3, 6Gb/s
SEAGATE 2TB SATA3, 6Gb/s
HITACHI Blu-Ray & DVD+/-RW Combo

 

[daswilhelm]

1 powerful card is always better than 2 mid range cards.

 

[timil]

For the price of 2 7850s you should be able to get 1 7970 which will be better.

 

[stickmansam]

They are actually really similar in performance though 1 7970 will be better overall in a larger number of games, crossfire is scaling really well with at least 2 cards

I myself will be getting another 7850 soon since I don't feel like upgrading my case and I have a friend willing to sell his 7850 to me for cheap

Given a choice I would pick a single 7970 over 2 7850's

These are quite old drivers though (7850 are at 1ghz), most of the other games in the review reflect similarly

But if you look at this review of 7970ghz scaling, over a much larger sample of games. the scaling drops to between 33-50% so crossfire set ups are a gamble especially with mid range cards

The pricing of a 2 good 7850 2gb (900mhz) is at $340
The pricing of a decent 7970 3gb (925mhz) is at $370

The 7970 will perform better on average over a large number of games
On average I would put the average performance of 2 7850's over a large number of games at about the same as a 7950 which costs about $290

 

[nathannev]

the 7850 will have more raw fps BUT they have a problem called micro stuttering which is a cfx problem so i would say a 7950

 

[James Ancheta]

I think they have fixed most MS for crossfire, I myself have 7850 crossfire no MS whatsoever, and it blows 7950 out the water.