Is my spec good enough for crossfire?

[Augustgoh]

Hi i'm looking to crossfire my 7850 but i'm not sure if my cpu/psu will be able to handle or bottleneck it, please advice.

Computer spec:
Asus p8h77-v mobo
Intel i5 3570 3.4GHz (Non-K)
MSI R7850 2gb gpu
Xigmatek NRP 500w psu
8GB Ram
Stock cooling fans
1TB HDD
120GB SSD
Windows 8
Cooler Master Elite 361 Case

 

[Deleted member 362816]

I would recommend a bigger psu, It might run lower clock 7850's but not higher clocked ones.

 

[Augustgoh]

I would recommend a bigger psu, It might run lower clock 7850's but not higher clocked ones.

I overclocked my gpu to
Core clock: 1170MHz
Memory clock: 1450MHz

I will be overclocking both if i crossfire, which psu would you recommend if i do that?

 

[Deleted member 362816]

I would recommend a bigger psu, It might run lower clock 7850's but not higher clocked ones.

I overclocked my gpu to
Core clock: 1170MHz
Memory clock: 1450MHz

I will be overclocking both if i crossfire, which psu would you recommend if i do that?

Any 80+ Corsair,xfx,Seasonic.

This is a sexy psu and its on sale atm. I have the x850 and I love it

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151087&Tpk=seasonic%20x750&IsVirtualParent=1

 

[Augustgoh]

I would recommend a bigger psu, It might run lower clock 7850's but not higher clocked ones.

I overclocked my gpu to
Core clock: 1170MHz
Memory clock: 1450MHz

I will be overclocking both if i crossfire, which psu would you recommend if i do that?

Any 80+ Corsair,xfx,Seasonic.

This is a sexy psu and its on sale atm. I have the x850 and I love it

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151087&Tpk=seasonic%20x750&IsVirtualParent=1

Thanks, do you know if my cpu will bottleneck the overclocked r7850s crossfire?
And if i were to get a custom cooler, do you have any recommendations? My casing is a mini tower, not sure about the sizing.

 

[Deleted member 362816]

I would recommend a bigger psu, It might run lower clock 7850's but not higher clocked ones.

I overclocked my gpu to
Core clock: 1170MHz
Memory clock: 1450MHz

I will be overclocking both if i crossfire, which psu would you recommend if i do that?

Any 80+ Corsair,xfx,Seasonic.

This is a sexy psu and its on sale atm. I have the x850 and I love it

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151087&Tpk=seasonic%20x750&IsVirtualParent=1

Thanks, do you know if my cpu will bottleneck the overclocked r7850s crossfire?
And if i were to get a custom cooler, do you have any recommendations? My casing is a mini tower, not sure about the sizing.

A 3570 is not going to bottleneck 2 7850.

Sadly you motherboards pcie slots run at x16 and x4

1 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (blue)
1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (x4 mode, black) *

You will loose minor fps in crossfire and may have issues with micro-stuttering.

If you can afford to upgrade your motherboard I would have to say I would.

 

[Augustgoh]

I would recommend a bigger psu, It might run lower clock 7850's but not higher clocked ones.

I overclocked my gpu to
Core clock: 1170MHz
Memory clock: 1450MHz

I will be overclocking both if i crossfire, which psu would you recommend if i do that?

Any 80+ Corsair,xfx,Seasonic.

This is a sexy psu and its on sale atm. I have the x850 and I love it

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151087&Tpk=seasonic%20x750&IsVirtualParent=1

Thanks, do you know if my cpu will bottleneck the overclocked r7850s crossfire?
And if i were to get a custom cooler, do you have any recommendations? My casing is a mini tower, not sure about the sizing.

A 3570 is not going to bottleneck 2 7850.

Sadly you motherboards pcie slots run at x16 and x4

1 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (blue)
1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (x4 mode, black) *

You will loose minor fps in crossfire and may have issues with micro-stuttering.

If you can afford to upgrade your motherboard I would have to say I would.

So with the current mobo i have, it's not worth it to crossfire?
If i have to upgrade my mobo, i'll need to change my casing as it'll be too small to fit.

 

[Deleted member 362816]

You can crossfire on a x16 x4 mobo with mid-range gpu's like the 7850's with little performance loss. IMO if you are going to crossfire I would use a bigger case with more cooling. But thats just me

 

[Augustgoh]

You can crossfire on a x16 x4 mobo with mid-range gpu's like the 7850's with little performance loss. IMO if you are going to crossfire I would use a bigger case with more cooling. But thats just me

If i were to manage to crossfire two overclocked 7850s to 1150MHz with all the current components with a better PSU, at what level of benchmark will i be able to get? What will the performance be close to, compared to other cards.

 

[Deleted member 362816]

It will outperform a 7970.

 

[Augustgoh]

It will outperform a 7970.

Wow, that seems like quite a good jump.

 

[dannyboy3210]

You should be able to get away with a quality 600-700W power supply.
I am running a 1055t at 3.8GHz, a Gigabyte 7870 running crossfired with a Gigabyte 7850, 3 HDs, 2 SSDs and several case fans all running on a Corsair 650W power supply. (I went with a 650W over a 600W because I expected to keep the computer for at least a few years and it will degrade a little over the years).

Also, if you know anyone who is putting together a new computer, you could offer to sell them the motherboard at a heavy discount to help pay for a new motherboard. (That's what I did when I wanted to go crossfire, my younger brother is running all my old pieces and loves his new computer over the P4 he had before that) Note: This is just another option.

 

[Augustgoh]

You should be able to get away with a quality 600-700W power supply.
I am running a 1055t at 3.8GHz, a Gigabyte 7870 running crossfired with a Gigabyte 7850, 3 HDs, 2 SSDs and several case fans all running on a Corsair 650W power supply. (I went with a 650W over a 600W because I expected to keep the computer for at least a few years and it will degrade a little over the years).

Also, if you know anyone who is putting together a new computer, you could offer to sell them the motherboard at a heavy discount to help pay for a new motherboard. (That's what I did when I wanted to go crossfire, my younger brother is running all my old pieces and loves his new computer over the P4 he had before that) Note: This is just another option.

How much of performance loss will i get if i didn't manage to upgrade my motherboard compared to the ones you use?
And did you overclock those gpus?

 

[dannyboy3210]

My GPU came slightly overclocked to 975 mhz core clock (7870 scales down to match it).
I found two old reviews that I had seen in terms of pcie scaling. One using the 7970 and 680 and one using the 5870 (I will explain why after).

At 1920x1200 the 680gtx scaled to 87% on a pcie 2.0 x4 slot, whereas the 7970 scaled to 95%.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Ivy_Bridge_PCI-Express_Scaling/23.html

Using Tomshardware's graphics card hierarchy chart, the 7850 is one tier above the 5870, so they are close in performance.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html

At 1920x1200 the 5870 scaled to 96% on a pcie 2.0 x4 slot.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_5870_PCI-Express_Scaling/25.html

So you can see that although there will be some performance loss, there won't be very much. I am going to keep searching to see if I can find any reviews on pcie scaling and sli/crossfire and will update this post if I find.

 

[Augustgoh]

My GPU came slightly overclocked to 975 mhz core clock (7870 scales down to match it).
I found two old reviews that I had seen in terms of pcie scaling. One using the 7970 and 680 and one using the 5870 (I will explain why after).

At 1920x1200 the 680gtx scaled to 87% on a pcie 2.0 x4 slot, whereas the 7970 scaled to 95%.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Ivy_Bridge_PCI-Express_Scaling/23.html

Using Tomshardware's graphics card hierarchy chart, the 7850 is one tier above the 5870, so they are close in performance.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html

At 1920x1200 the 5870 scaled to 96% on a pcie 2.0 x4 slot.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_5870_PCI-Express_Scaling/25.html

So you can see that although there will be some performance loss, there won't be very much. I am going to keep searching to see if I can find any reviews on pcie scaling and sli/crossfire and will update this post if I find.

Thanks alot, do you have any issues using crossfirex? Like microstutter, etc.
I'm still figuring out whether if i should get another 7850.

 

[dannyboy3210]

Well, when I first got it, sleeping dogs didn't support it properly. I recently reinstalled my os, got the newest drivers and fully updated it and it runs better now. BF3 has always run well. League of legends I disable one card for and it runs fine (don't need two for it anyways). Most other games I play supported it (WoW for a while, Bioshock Infinite, Diablo 3, MW2, Borderlands 2)(Planetside 2, I alone was having some issues with, but I couldn't figure out if it was just me, the internet speed, the crossfire or my processor)
A good idea would be to post what games you play/intend to play the most and then we can take a look at how well they support crossfire.

Keep in mind, if you really aren't sure, you can sell the 7850 and get one strong card, or get the 7850 and if you really think the motherboard is holding you back, borrow someone else's/buy a new one, the crossfire will give you better performance than a single 7970 in games where it is well implemented. That's why a list of games you intend to play would be useful.

Edit: Oh yeah, microstuttering, I've heard all about it, but I have no basis for comparison. Most games run very smoothly when they are at 60 fps for me and yeah, there might be some, I really don't know without anything to compare it to.

 

[Augustgoh]

Well, when I first got it, sleeping dogs didn't support it properly. I recently reinstalled my os, got the newest drivers and fully updated it and it runs better now. BF3 has always run well. League of legends I disable one card for and it runs fine (don't need two for it anyways). Most other games I play supported it (WoW for a while, Bioshock Infinite, Diablo 3, MW2, Borderlands 2)(Planetside 2, I alone was having some issues with, but I couldn't figure out if it was just me, the internet speed, the crossfire or my processor)
A good idea would be to post what games you play/intend to play the most and then we can take a look at how well they support crossfire.

Keep in mind, if you really aren't sure, you can sell the 7850 and get one strong card, or get the 7850 and if you really think the motherboard is holding you back, borrow someone else's/buy a new one, the crossfire will give you better performance than a single 7970 in games where it is well implemented. That's why a list of games you intend to play would be useful.

Edit: Oh yeah, microstuttering, I've heard all about it, but I have no basis for comparison. Most games run very smoothly when they are at 60 fps for me and yeah, there might be some, I really don't know without anything to compare it to.

Ah, one of the reason i'm trying to crossfire is that i don't really know where or who i can sell my 7850 to.

Here is the full list of games i have in alphabetical order:
Age of Empires 3
Arma 3 Alpha
Assassin's Creed 3
BioShock Infinite
Borderlands 2
Chivalry: Medieval Warfare
Devil May Cry
Diablo 3
Dirt 3
Dishonored
Dota 2
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Far Cry 3
Guild Wars 2
Hawken
Hitman: Absolution
Just Cause 2
League of Legends
Mass Effect 3
NBA 2k13
Need for Speed: Most Wanted
Path of Exile
Saints Row: The Third
Sleeping Dogs
Sniper Elite V2
Tomb Raider 2013
Trials Evolution: Gold Edition
Worms: Revolution
XCOM: Enemy Unknown

I'm playing alot of Skyrim with quite a heavy amount of mods.
Dota 2, League of Legends, Arma 3, Bioshock too.

 

[Deleted member 362816]

You could list you 7850 for sale in the deals section and see if anyone is interested.

 

[dannyboy3210]

Age of Empires 3 - I wouldn't worry about too much. It has never been a demanding game.
Arma 3 Alpha - According to user reviews, this game doesn't well support crossfire/sli yet.
Assassin's Creed 3 - Does not support crossfire well at the moment. Read Here
BioShock Infinite - I'm getting between 50-60 fps most of the time (dips down into the 40s when there is LOTS to look at) (Note: You might need to update drivers to the most recent (non beta))
Borderlands 2 - Appears to work well with crossfire, mine is running well, but a few people are having issues
Chivalry: Medieval Warfare - I couldn't find anything recent to indicate it has fixed its crossfire problems from a half year ago (some people were running it fine with crossfire, some weren't)
Devil May Cry - It says it will support crossfire, I haven't found any proof or reviews/comments.
Diablo 3 - So long as you are in full screen it should run well
Dirt 3
Dishonored
Dota 2
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Far Cry 3
Guild Wars 2
Hawken
Hitman: Absolution
Just Cause 2
League of Legends
Mass Effect 3
NBA 2k13
Need for Speed: Most Wanted
Path of Exile
Saints Row: The Third
Sleeping Dogs
Sniper Elite V2
Tomb Raider 2013
Trials Evolution: Gold Edition
Worms: Revolution
XCOM: Enemy Unknown

Skyrim
Dota 2
League of Legends - Can Disable one card if it proves to be slightly buggy like mine (this is also not a demanding game)

I will update this post as I check out the games, gotta head off for a bit though.

 

[Augustgoh]

You could list you 7850 for sale in the deals section and see if anyone is interested.

Thanks, i actually didn't know there was a deals section.
I made a thread on selling them, hopefully in the right format.

 

[Augustgoh]

Age of Empires 3 - I wouldn't worry about too much. It has never been a demanding game.
Arma 3 Alpha - According to user reviews, this game doesn't well support crossfire/sli yet.
Assassin's Creed 3 - Does not support crossfire well at the moment. Read Here
BioShock Infinite - I'm getting between 50-60 fps most of the time (dips down into the 40s when there is LOTS to look at) (Note: You might need to update drivers to the most recent (non beta))
Borderlands 2 - Appears to work well with crossfire, mine is running well, but a few people are having issues
Chivalry: Medieval Warfare - I couldn't find anything recent to indicate it has fixed its crossfire problems from a half year ago (some people were running it fine with crossfire, some weren't)
Devil May Cry - It says it will support crossfire, I haven't found any proof or reviews/comments.
Diablo 3 - So long as you are in full screen it should run well
Dirt 3
Dishonored
Dota 2
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Far Cry 3
Guild Wars 2
Hawken
Hitman: Absolution
Just Cause 2
League of Legends
Mass Effect 3
NBA 2k13
Need for Speed: Most Wanted
Path of Exile
Saints Row: The Third
Sleeping Dogs
Sniper Elite V2
Tomb Raider 2013
Trials Evolution: Gold Edition
Worms: Revolution
XCOM: Enemy Unknown

Skyrim
Dota 2
League of Legends - Can Disable one card if it proves to be slightly buggy like mine (this is also not a demanding game)

I will update this post as I check out the games, gotta head off for a bit though.

Thanks alot, can you elaborate on how you disable one card? Like, a click of a button? or do we have to actually unplug something.

 

[dannyboy3210]

Oh, you can just search up ccc (Or find a link to the catalyst control center), set it to advanced (don't know if you need to, its what I have set up), go under the gaming tab, click on the crossfire one and click to enable or disable crossfire. I advise against doing so with a game open, because it will crash it. Close most things when switching to avoid complications.

 

[Augustgoh]

Oh, you can just search up ccc (Or find a link to the catalyst control center), set it to advanced (don't know if you need to, its what I have set up), go under the gaming tab, click on the crossfire one and click to enable or disable crossfire. I advise against doing so with a game open, because it will crash it. Close most things when switching to avoid complications.

Ah, that's great news. I do have the CCC installed, just didn't fully inspect the functions. Thanks!