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Should I go for a 7950 crossfire setup

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Another one of these questions but I haven't found that clear review that just smacks me and says get the 7950's. In my system specs you'll see I have 2 6970's in crossfire and I do play 5670 x 1080. Dead Space 3, Dishonored, and Dirt 3 have played nicely with settings all the way up but I've been toying with getting Tomb Raider and Infinite when they are released. Do you think the 6970's could handle those two new games or is it time to fork out the money?
 
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Benchmark Scores Benches are silly
Unless CF is not working properly, 2x 6970 should be enough. But if you want to play the new games just released at that res then you need to upgrade.
 
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you're talking about spending $600+ in just to max out a few new games. I play 2560x1440 and I had no problem playing tomb raider at almost max settings, looked beautiful, on 2x5850s.

I do not think it's worth it. the amount of money you are considering spending vs the performance increase you will get from it screams NO. I will upgrading soon, but coming from the 5 series that makes sense. I don't think you'll need to upgrade until the 8 series.

and infinite's recommended as per steam:
Recommended:

OS: Windows 7 Service Pack 1 64-bit
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Hard Disk Space: 30 GB free
Video Card: DirectX11 Compatible, AMD Radeon HD 6950 / NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560
Video Card Memory: 1024 MB
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<- I have 7950 crossfire, rocks the hell out of me.
My upgrade only cost me £40, because i sold my two old 570's and sold the free games on TPU.
Totally worth it, for my 120hz needs.
 
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I guess that settles it then. No 7950's since I'm not super worried about power consumption..I have a GTX 465 doing physx since I do still play Batman AC and my daughter plays Alice Madness Returns. Probably spend my funds on some more ram since I run several VM and a 256GB or 512GB SSD. Thanks guys for your input.
 

cadaveca

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I have two 6950 *unlocked* in Xfire but have thought about side grading to a 7970 due to lower power usage but these cards score higher than a stock 7970 on most benches. I would stick with what you got for now.

http://img.techpowerup.org/121009/Capture026513.jpg

You are not scoring higher than a GHZ 7970 @ stock . I can guarantee it.

I guess that settles it then. No 7950's since I'm not super worried about power consumption..I have a GTX 465 doing physx since I do still play Batman AC and my daughter plays Alice Madness Returns. Probably spend my funds on some more ram since I run several VM and a 256GB or 512GB SSD. Thanks guys for your input.

You'll be second-guessing that choice real soon. None of these guys run Eyefinity. They are speaking in terms of single-monitor. If you said single-monitor, and not 5760x1080, then I'd agree with them.


Buy the 7950's. What a bunch of asshats, they didn't even read your post fully.:shadedshu Thanks guys, for your AWESOME help.:shadedshu

In my system specs you'll see I have 2 6970's in crossfire and I do play 5670 x 1080.
 

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You are not scoring higher than a GHZ 7970 @ stock . I can guarantee it.

I was just going to comment that with a 2600K I get 10.5K stock on my 7950.
 

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yes CPU was at 4.5ghz, card was stock, should have specified.
 

cadaveca

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yes CPU was at 4.5ghz, card was stock, should have specified.

Meh. POint was made.

I paly with either 7970, or 7950, or two of each, or a mix of three, or even all four cards.

Eyefinity is a special case, and even dual 7950's aren't quite enough at times, but given the low cost, power savings, and such, they are killer cards that should not be overlooked. Get a 900+ MHz 7950, and you'll have a great card for single monitor, but multi monitor definitely requires two or more. I have a hard time recommending more than two right now, due to driver issues, but hopefully those will get fixed soon.
 
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Buy the 7950's. What a bunch of asshats, they didn't even read your post fully.:shadedshu Thanks guys, for your AWESOME help.:shadedshu

Bah I'm an asshat /sadface
This is true, 7950's got way more VRAM, and generally better with more monitors.
Microstutter is definitely noticable in skyrim however, just to bare that one in mind
 
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You'll be second-guessing that choice real soon. None of these guys run Eyefinity. They are speaking in terms of single-monitor. If you said single-monitor, and not 5760x1080, then I'd agree with them.
Buy the 7950's. What a bunch of asshats, they didn't even read your post fully.:shadedshu Thanks guys, for your AWESOME help.:shadedshu

I was thinking of purchasing the games but that would be stupid if I do purchase 7950's since they come with Crysis 3 and Infinite. Probably sell the 2nd coupon to get Tomb Raider since that game looks pretty good. Thanks Cadaveca for understanding my Eyefinity needs and especially pointing that out. You've convinced me!!!:respect::rockout:
 

cadaveca

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I'll buy your second coupon. ;)

Eyefinity set-up with 7-series seems much easier, too ,but maybe that's just in driver, I am not sure. I started using Eyefinity with 5870's, and it's come a long way now. BF3 on medium is playable @ near 60+ FPS all the time on a single card. It will dip below 20 FPS at times though.
 
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I was thinking of purchasing the games but that would be stupid if I do purchase 7950's since they come with Crysis 3 and Infinite. Probably sell the 2nd coupon to get Tomb Raider since that game looks pretty good. Thanks Cadaveca for understanding my Eyefinity needs and especially pointing that out. You've convinced me!!!:respect::rockout:

I got 16 free games for my two cards, but that included a deal that dabs did alongside the amd deal, im guessing you will get 8 if you bought 2 cards? would certainly pay for some of it if sold.
 
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I'll buy your second coupon. ;)

Eyefinity set-up with 7-series seems much easier, too ,but maybe that's just in driver, I am not sure. I started using Eyefinity with 5870's, and it's come a long way now.

Hell I'd trade you the coupon just for Tomb Raider once I get them. Gonna try to order tonight.
 
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Damn Dave, we're gonna have to start our own 7950 crossfire fan club ;)
 

cadaveca

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Damn Dave, we're gonna have to start our own 7950 crossfire fan club ;)

Please do. I have played with nearly every BIOS with every driver, and every platform(since I use a pair for my mobo reviews;)). I know these cards pretty well. I was actually hoping the AMD A10-5800K might make for a decent base platform, but the lack of cache really hurts.
 
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Please do. I have played with nearly every BIOS with every driver, and every platform(since I use a pair for my mobo reviews;)). I know these cards pretty well. I was actually hoping the AMD A10-5800K might make for a decent base platform, but the lack of cache really hurts.

I was at some point hoping to find a compatible BIOS to flash onto my XFX 7950's, but you know they're a dubious model of cards making it precarious...
Maybe the new APU's will be more sensible, jaguar seems to have 1 floating point/1 core anyway
 
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If you can sell those HD6970 easy, I would go with the HD7950's

but only with CPU OC.;) should be 10k, or just under, with stock CPU.

I do 9930pts with card at 1200/1400, with i5 2500k @ 4.7ghz.

Damn those i7 gives more score :S
 

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personally just wait for the 8 series to roll out.
 

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Dave

I based my score to the 3dmark11 page. Yes the scores range back and forth but there are a few 7970's around what my cards put out. Yes I know a single 7970 GHZ would do better and I did not see his resolution.

 
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personally just wait for the 8 series to roll out.



if he can. 8 series should be end of the year, so there's a couple of month until there..
 

cadaveca

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Dave

I based my score to the 3dmark11 page. Yes the scores range back and forth but there are a few 7970's around what my cards put out. Yes I know a single 7970 GHZ would do better and I did not see his resolution.

http://img.techpowerup.org/130322/clocks.png

bad choice of a source of info. First, they are all using older drivers. secondly, as you can see, my 7950 is there sitting with the 7970's, beating a few, too.

Now, with current betas, 7-series cards got another big boost in performance. Now the same dual-card combos can get near 16k, where that was 12.5k. The 6950's simply don't keep up any more.

What's interesting to me, mostly, is that my 7950's have ALWAYS scored with 7970s. Back then, and now. It's why I have said that AMD clearly has driver issues, since day one there has been little reason, to me, to buy 7970, if you are going to overclock, and can hit the same clocks as 7970. Today, that's still true. The extra shaders/whateveryoucall'em just aren't really getting used in benchmarks for sure, and games, it's a per-app thing. There's even MORE performance in a 7970, imho, if they can ever get it working right.

When it comes to Crossfire, scaling is only 65% right now. 6-series is about 95%. Again, if they can get things working right, there's way more potential with this current gen. Unfortunately, it's very hard for me to remain optimistic about AMD fixing their drivers, yet here I sit with four of their high-end VGAs in my rigs. :p
 
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personally just wait for the 8 series to roll out.

The problem is I have the money now and I thought AMD wasn't releasing til the end of the year which usually means we'll see them available the beginning of next year.
 

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bad choice of a source of info. First, they are all using older drivers. secondly, as you can see, my 7950 is there sitting with the 7970's, beating a few, too.

Now, with current betas, 7-series cards got another big boost in performance. Now the same dual-card combos can get near 16k, where that was 12.5k. The 6950's simply don't keep up any more.

What's interesting to me, mostly, is that my 7950's have ALWAYS scored with 7970s. Back then, and now. It's why I have said that AMD clearly has driver issues, since day one there has been little reason, to me, to buy 7970, if you are going to overclock, and can hit the same clocks as 7970. Today, that's still true. The extra shaders/whateveryoucall'em just aren't really getting used in benchmarks for sure, and games, it's a per-app thing. There's even MORE performance in a 7970, imho, if they can ever get it working right.

When it comes to Crossfire, scaling is only 65% right now. 6-series is about 95%. Again, if they can get things working right, there's way more potential with this current gen. Unfortunately, it's very hard for me to remain optimistic about AMD fixing their drivers, yet here I sit with four of their high-end VGAs in my rigs. :p

Very true, I forgot to factor in those drivers that increased the 7xxx series so much. I think the 7950s/7970s would be the way to go.
 
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