Need Some Advice!

[CyNiC3378]

Looking to purchase a new GPU. My question, I already own an Asus R9 270x. Would I be better off saving for a 280x or 290x or buying another 270x.

I also noticed their is a 2GB and 4GB version of the 270x. Is it possible to crossfire those as they both have different size vram.

 

[bccorrupt]

It would default to the lower ram version. Personally I think you'd be better off buying a 280x or 290x and selling your current card to put toward it, especially if your current card is a 2GB. In crossfire they will perform similar to a 290, but with only 2GB of vram(it doesn't get combined in crossfire). If you have the 4GB version now, then it might be worth considering.

 

[coozie7]

Full system specs, first, please!
A single R9 280X won't be a large enough upgrade to justify the cost: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/gaming-graphics-card-review,review-32899-7.html
The sweet spot for high end graphics is probably the R9 290, it's only a little slower than the 'X' and a fair bit cheaper and, here in the UK undercuts the GTX780 (a little faster, granted) by £70 or more depending on where you look.

 

[CyNiC3378]

It would default to the lower ram version. Personally I think you'd be better off buying a 280x or 290x and selling your current card to put toward it, especially if your current card is a 2GB. In crossfire they will perform similar to a 290, but with only 2GB of vram(it doesn't get combined in crossfire). If you have the 4GB version now, then it might be worth considering.

So what your saying is that even if I bought another R9 270x with 2GB vram And crossfire them, i'm still only getting 2GB vram insteaad of 4?

 

[CyNiC3378]

Full system specs, first, please!
A single R9 280X won't be a large enough upgrade to justify the cost: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/gaming-graphics-card-review,review-32899-7.html
The sweet spot for high end graphics is probably the R9 290, it's only a little slower than the 'X' and a fair bit cheaper and, here in the UK undercuts the GTX780 (a little faster, granted) by £70 or more depending on where you look.

Sabertooth 990fx
AMD FX 8350
8GB G-Skill Ripjaws
AMD R9 270X
SAMSUNG 840 EVO 250GB SATA 6Gb/s
Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200 RPM
Asus Xonar DG
Cooler Master GX 750W
Cooler Master CM Storm Scout 2 Advanced
Windows 7/8.1

 

[bccorrupt]

Correct. Crossfire/SLI setups use AFR (alternate frame rendering) so basically they are taking turns rendering the frames and the cards can only access their personal memory when they are rendering their frame. GPU processing power will almost double if the game is programmed well for sli/crossfire, but the vram stays the same.

This is why you see 2GB and 4GB versions and 2GB and 3GB versions of the same card for sale. With one card you would have no need for the bigger vram version because in most cases it wouldn't be fast enough to take advantage of more vram. Honestly it wasn't such a big issue until recently when the amount of vram games use went up a ton almost overnight.

Right now you would see a difference in performance with the majority of games that are already out if you were at 1080p or below, for example Bioshock Infinite is one of the high vram using games and it comes in at 1.8GB usage on Ultra at 1080p. There are already games out though like Wolfenstein that people are claiming vram usage above 3GB. Once you hit that 2GB usage with a 270x crossfire setup it will hit a brick wall if they are 2GB cards, so I wouldn't consider a 270x 2GB crossfire setup a very long term solution.

 

[CyNiC3378]

Makes sense.