HD7950 - R9280 Crossfire Q&A

[AlbusDlx]

Hi everyone. This is a thread long time coming, or else I have missed something.
I am planning on buying a 280 (non X) next week and I have searched high and low for answers to my questions and general info all together on this particular setup. All I ever find is on the 7900 series and the 280X. I dont see the point in getting a 280X since it will recalibrate to my 7950 either way and running it solo is simply not worth the money.

I was wondering how this setup is going to perform. I would love some user input from other owners of this setup. Do I have to run my old card as the primary card or can i take the signal from the 280? Does it work well, owners out there, are you happy you went this way?

I have the windforce edition from gigabyte and are planning on getting the same cooler/model again. Can I expect this card to OC as well as my 7950, since it more or less is the 7950 with a new name. I can hit 1200mhz on the core and 1385 on the memory, 1400 has been achieved but are too close to the crash limit of 1420mhz. So I rather keep it a bit under. =) Would be sweet to run both cards at these speeds! =)

Rest of my specs are: i7 4790k, Asus z97 Pro Wifi, 12gb 1866 ram (OC´ed 1600 dimms) 250gb Samsung Evo and a nice 240 AIO on top of it all.

 

[AlbusDlx]

Let me tell you guys. This combo rocks!
I cam max out Far Cry 3 with 8x AA, if it ever goes under 60 it´s only for a second. Average framerate around 85fps. I can play Crysis 3 at the same settings, different AA but the same amount. Around 60 fps with zero problems. I hit hit above 100 fps average on the new Tomb Raider game and so on. This is a combo that really packs a punch and probably hard to beat the price vs performance as well. Extremely happy. Only bad thing is that my i7 4790k only has 16 pci-e lanes but it does not seem to affect gaming very much.
All in 1080p of course.