I've been using 7950 tri-fire for months.
Most games seem to scale very well for me. The only issue that I've run into was Far Cry 3 not scaling in tri.
Again, 13.1=12.11b11
Obviously newer games scale better with newer drivers. Maybe other tri-fire users only use WHQL drivers from windows update.
I await your next condescending, arrogant response.
I think that AMD moving away from the monthly whql and releasing more betas is a good move. I still think that the review is flawed.
Got some benches? I don't even get decent scaling with two 7-series cards, like 60%. 6-series AMD Crossfire was the best, efficiency-wise, but 7-series is garbage.
And I'll agree with you that the current way of doing drivers is nicer, and that the revie3w is a bit flawed, however, the data is sound, to me, since my own testing confirms that what they see, I see.
FYI, AMD beta drivers can crash, and then corrupt BIOSes. Look around, see reports of people with ASUS boards and stuck multis...unable to overclock, or, unable to go back to stock, and stuck with an unstable overclock. ASUS isn't the only brand with this problem, and for me, AMD's drivers crashing is the cause. WHQL certification ensures that drivers crash properly, prevent BSODs, and BIOS corruption from happening.
What makes it even more interesting is that my 7950's, clocked up to the same speeds as the 7970's....get exactly the same results, in all benchmarks, and all games, as a pair of 7970. That's right, with current drivers, a purchase of a 7970 was wasted money, since it performs EXACTLY the same as a 7950 at the same clocks. Good job AMD for not using all of the resources available to you.
With those aforementioned beta drivers you like.
And actually, since I include 3DMark in my memory reviews, I've got very recent betas is my reviews, too, 13-2 beta 5, actually. I try every driver, and ever 13.2 beta 5 doesn't work for 3-cards in 3DMark. 3DMark11 works fine, but 1 card gets 11.5k, two gets 16.5k, and 3 gets 17.8k.
Of course, I run these cards with either a 3960x @ 4.6 GHz, a 3770K @ 4.6 GHz, and a 8350 @ 5.0 GHz, so there's no real CPU limitations left.
In each config, the frame latency is horrible with two cards, adding a third adds nearly no performance, but does seem to smooth things out a bit in some apps.
And yes, I can be condescending and arrogant. This is the internet, and you don't hear the tone of my words as the come out of my mouth, you hear the words as your mind reads them.
IN the past week, I have run 1000's of benchmarks, with literally 100's of driver combinations, built from this list:
All these tests...say that triple-card is broken. This also means I have 1000's of benchmarks to show this. See, because this is what I do, find issue, and report them to OEMs. This ASUS BIOS issue... I reported back in September. Shamino just got around to confirming it, 6 months later. Fixing issues, replicating them, etc, takes time, and AMD is hard at work trying to fix things.
To me, this is all very basic. AMD admits that this framerating issue is a real one. End of discussion. Single-card...it's not a problem...and for AMD, Crossfire is horrible. They'll fix it, and soon, I imagine. The whole reason you see so many sites covering this problem now is that they've tested, confirmed problems, and together, are ensuring that people are aware of the issue, so that AMD is forced to deal with it, or take a pie in the face. NO big deal, really.
Nvidia, likewise, has some issues...but they have already taken big steps towards ensuring this is not a problem with their other cards...they'll fix it too, and soon, too.
Oh, one more important thing. I'm using Windows8. If you aren't...well..then our experiences aren't comparable, now are they?
I could care less about Windows7...that's 2008 stuff.