Another hd6950 or

[scorca]

Hey guys,

I've been saving some money enough to get another second hand hd6950. Atm I have a sapphire hd6950 oc 2gb. Should I get another hd6950 or should I get a newer generation card?

 

[newconroer]

Have you done crossfire before?
Are you particularly interested in it?
Do you ever play games in Windowed mode?

I would suggest you sell that and get a GTX 670/680 or AMD 7970.
You'll get near the same performance as two 6950s on average.

 

[scorca]

No, haven't done xfire and I am interested but I've heard that it just bring problems.

I might just go for hd7950 or gtx 670 other than that it seems waste of money in my case.

 

[manofthem]

I had 2 6950s and they gave me very little issues at all. I'm currently running 2 7970s, again with very little issue. It's pretty straight forward if you intend to go that route: shut down, install new card and crossfire bridge, turn on and make sure cfx is enabled in CCC. If you add another card, make sure your PSU can handle (since I don't know your specs).

Or you can sell the 6950 and grab a single card, as you said. I'd say the 7970 is pretty awesome with the deals they have going, with the free games . That would be my vote.

But a 7950, 7970, or 670 will treat you well.

this looks like a great deal
SAPPHIRE 100351SR Radeon HD 7970 3GB 384-bit GDDR5...

 

[scorca]

I have a fx 8120, 8 gb ram and tx850.

That's trully mouthwatering deal, unfortunately I live in europe so those great deals arent for me.

 

[Phusius]

I have a fx 8120, 8 gb ram and tx850.

That's trully mouthwatering deal, unfortunately I live in europe so those great deals arent for me.

sad day... yeah that is a great deal.

 

[newconroer]

I had 2 6950s and they gave me very little issues at all. I'm currently running 2 7970s, again with very little issue. It's pretty straight forward if you intend to go that route: shut down, install new card and crossfire bridge, turn on and make sure cfx is enabled in CCC. If you add another card, make sure your PSU can handle (since I don't know your specs).

Or you can sell the 6950 and grab a single card, as you said. I'd say the 7970 is pretty awesome with the deals they have going, with the free games . That would be my vote.

But a 7950, 7970, or 670 will treat you well.

this looks like a great deal
SAPPHIRE 100351SR Radeon HD 7970 3GB 384-bit GDDR5...

Yes, Crossfire is not a nightmare to setup, nor is it a nightmare to maintain. It has come a long ways and most people do fine with them. However there are some inherent issues that you cannot avoid no matter how lucky you are with your Crossfire installation.
That's why I asked earlier if you play in windowed mode and etc.

670 won't be as fast as two 6950 but you'll get a quieter, cooler and more efficient product and it will be a good upgrade to your single 6950.

And if you play at 1080p or lower resolution, two cards would be over doing it.

 

[BlackOmega]

No, haven't done xfire and I am interested but I've heard that it just bring problems.

I might just go for hd7950 or gtx 670 other than that it seems waste of money in my case.

What you've heard is probably wrong or the issues were caused by an inexperienced user. I've been running multiple card configurations since 2005 and have very little issue. And I switch my hardware A LOT.
Ironically enough I've had way more issues with Nvidia cards than ATi cards.

Yes, Crossfire is not a nightmare to setup, nor is it a nightmare to maintain. It has come a long ways and most people do fine with them. However there are some inherent issues that you cannot avoid no matter how lucky you are with your Crossfire installation.
That's why I asked earlier if you play in windowed mode and etc.

670 won't be as fast as two 6950 but you'll get a quieter, cooler and more efficient product and it will be a good upgrade to your single 6950.

And if you play at 1080p or lower resolution, two cards would be over doing it.

I'm not even sure what you're talking about with "getting lucky" with installations. Luck has nothing to do with it. Microstutter is a thing of the past. I've run CFX 4870, 5850, 5870, 6870 and 6950's, and I've yet to see any microstutter out of any of those configurations.
True there are some games that don't support it or actually play worse with CFX, however they're far and few between.

As for dual 6950's being overkill, hardly. Dual cards improve everything, even at 1080p. Minimum FPS, maximum FPS and average FPS. The power draw on 6950's aren't bad either.
I'd say just get a second 6950 and game it up. You won't be disappointed.

 

[MT Alex]

What you've heard is probably wrong or the issues were caused by an inexperienced user. I've been running multiple card configurations since 2005 and have very little issue. And I switch my hardware A LOT.
Ironically enough I've had way more issues with Nvidia cards than ATi cards.

I'm not even sure what you're talking about with "getting lucky" with installations. Luck has nothing to do with it. Microstutter is a thing of the past. I've run CFX 4870, 5850, 5870, 6870 and 6950's, and I've yet to see any microstutter out of any of those configurations.
True there are some games that don't support it or actually play worse with CFX, however they're far and few between.

As for dual 6950's being overkill, hardly. Dual cards improve everything, even at 1080p. Minimum FPS, maximum FPS and average FPS. The power draw on 6950's aren't bad either.
I'd say just get a second 6950 and game it up. You won't be disappointed.

Agreed. I have no idea where all the microstuttering comments come from I've never experienced it. Same with screen tear, nada. The only reason I'll run single card systems again is because I'll still be saving for a second card.

 

[Lazzer408]

I gave up on SLI and CF. I've found a single good card to be much better. I used the money saved on SSDs. Why spend 100% more for 20-80% FPS gain? That's 20-80% loss.

 

[manofthem]

I gave up on SLI and CF. I've found a single good card to be much better. I used the money saved on SSDs. Why spend 100% more for 20-80% FPS gain? That's 20-80% loss.

Well your arithmetic is incorrect, for me atleast.

ie: i have 2 7970s. the second was 76% the cost of my first, but I have seen 75-95% performance increase, http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/HD_7970_CrossFire/5.html
No loss there.

 

[Lazzer408]

Well your arithmetic is incorrect, for me atleast.

ie: i have 2 7970s. the second was 76% the cost of my first, but I have seen 75-95% performance increase, http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/HD_7970_CrossFire/5.html
No loss there.

Your average score single is 77.1fps. Average score CF is 118.76. You have a 54% improvement.

Results will vary by game, resolution, resolution/detail/features. On average, my testing in the past shows 20-80% improvement based on games that support SLI/CF.

Having crunched the numbers, It was always more cost effective to sell my old card and buy one good card then to buy another of the card I had.

 

[manofthem]

I agree everything depends on game, settings, resolution....

But looking through W1zz's own review on immature drivers, I see much better than 50% increase (in games that matter to me), which is what I've seen through my own gaming.

But whatever, it's all good, I'm content with my 7970s. After all, what other single card solution would be better?

Sorry OP for being slightly off topic.

 

[eidairaman1]

cadaveca had 2 6950s

 

[King4x4]

OP just sell that card and buy a 7950. OC and just enjoy your new card.

As for Lazzer... It becomes a habit of just going dual cards every iteration.

Dual 4870s, Dual 4890s, Dual 5870s, Dual 6970s and Dual 7950s (Bypassed the 7970s since the 7950s are just gems).

Also never had any major issues with crossfire. Had a few games popup with no support but after trying a couple of profiles I always found a good one for it.

Hell some of those of profiles are better then AMDs sometimes (./poke WoW)

 

[Jetster]

Fill out your specs

 

[scorca]

Fill out your specs

My specs:
FX 8120 @ 4ghz
Asrock 890fx deluxe 4
Vengeance 8gb
Sapphire hd 6950 2gb
Corsair tx 850

I play on 1080p monitor mostly bf3, dragon age, pes 2012.

 

[Aquinus]

Fill out your specs

My specs:
FX 8120 @ 4ghz
Asrock 890fx deluxe 4
Vengeance 8gb
Sapphire hd 6950 2gb
Corsair tx 850

I play on 1080p monitor mostly bf3, dragon age, pes 2012.

I think Jester meant that you should fill out this.

 

[newconroer]

You needn't take our word for it only; There's plenty of benchmarks and testimonies/threads on EVGA, Tom's, Hard Forum, Anandtech etc.

General consensus is that a single 6950 2gb is fine for 85% or more of 1080p gaming.
It's also known that in these 'common' games, a single 670 will perform just about as good as the 6950, without windowed mode drawbacks, the need for Crossfire application profiles, or having to do misc things like disable ULPS in the registry each time you do a driver install.

Going with another 6950 is fine. Point being given the performance is relatively the same, the other benefits of a single card or Nvidia in particular, are things to consider.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

IMO, having had 4870s, 5850s and 6970s in xfire and suffered performance and driver issues with some older and newer games, AMD has gone through a really rough patch with their drivers for the last year and crossfire has been hit and miss. I think the only time when xfire worked and worked well for me personally was when I was using 4870s and 5850s.

Both SLI and Xfire has issues but IMO SLi just works better.

Im upgrading to Nvidia cards at the end of the year.

If you want to stay AMD then I recommend waiting for the 8xxx series first before parting with your cash. At least see what the new series has to offer first, either way. a 7950 or 7970 should be cheaper when that time comes so its not as if you are losing out.

 

[BlackOmega]

Agreed. I have no idea where all the microstuttering comments come from I've never experienced it. Same with screen tear, nada. The only reason I'll run single card systems again is because I'll still be saving for a second card.

Microstutter was an issue with the 3xxx series, especially with any of the x2 cards(3870x2). However, this wasn't only an issue with ATi. Nvidia had their fair share of issues too. The main ones that come to mind are the 9800GX2 and the dual PCB GTX 295. The 9800 especially had really bad microstutter.

In regards to screen tearing, screen tearing is not solely a multi-card problem. Screen tearing occurs when the FPS coming out of the GPU exceeds the refresh rate of the monitor. I get screen tearing even with single cards.
As a matter of fact, I was playing Spore with my boy earlier today, and on a single 6870 I noticed a lot of screen tearing.
Vsync alleviates screen tearing as it locks the FPS output to the monitor refresh rate.