crossfire questions

[Samdbugman]

new egg has a sapphire 6870 on sale, and that prompted me to start trying to understand if I can get better frame rates in games. I know my board supports it, although I think both lanes will run at 8x.
my power supply is more than enough, not sure if my processor will bottle neck 2 cards or not.
maybe the question really is could I get links from some one? ive tried the forum search and im lost in too much information.

 

[newconroer]

Links regarding how Crossfire works, or the pros and cons?

 

[Samdbugman]

both would be nice. mainly wanted to figure out if I can get a good performance gain with just another video card.

 

[digibucc]

crossfire doesn't give as much of an advantage as we'd want right now, and there are problems with it. that being said, I still choose to use it and I think I'll always go with 2x cards vs one really high end card.

it really depends on where you are coming from. if you are trying to be cost-efficient and safe, then it would probably be best to upgrade and NOT go crossfire. If you are looking to experiment and don't mind that there may be a few hiccups, go ahead and get a second card.

 

[MxPhenom 216]

crossfire doesn't give as much of an advantage as we'd want right now, and there are problems with it. that being said, I still choose to use it and I think I'll always go with 2x cards vs one really high end card.

it really depends on where you are coming from. if you are trying to be cost-efficient and safe, then it would probably be best to upgrade and NOT go crossfire. If you are looking to experiment and don't mind that there may be a few hiccups, go ahead and get a second card.

So You Like Stuttering Gameplay? Because A Single High End Gpu Will Always Offer Smoother Gameplay Then 2 Lower Mid End Gpus

 

[digibucc]

So You Like Stuttering Gameplay? Because A Single High End Gpu Will Always Offer Smoother Gameplay Then 2 Lower Mid End Gpus

seriously dude? that's a little hostile imo.

I like the flexibility, I like being able to use a single card in my second machine(instead of onboard) whenever I want and not be a machine down. sometimes I like to game in my room instead of my office, sometimes I have a friend and we lan. other times I like to crossfire and turn all eyecandy on max on a single machine. I will always buy 2x$300 cards over 1x$600 card. putting that much money into a single part is just not reasonable. I can always sell off my second card if needed, and if it breaks i'm not totally sol. so many reasons imo.

and the stuttering differs for different people. I don't have any issues with crossfire, at all. no stuttering. my problem is with the understanding that it doesn't offer as much of a benefit as it seemed to by traditional measurements. with that being said, I can max any game on my 1440p monitor, so i'm more theoretically upset than anything else.

 

[TheLaughingMan]

I will keep this simple. The second card will allow your system to respond to your input faster in game so two cards still have a benefit but not in the way we originally thought.

At this point, if your System specs are accurate, practically anything would be an upgrade. There are so many options you can pick right now to improve your system. GPU is an ok choice and your CPU will not bottleneck the cards. It will be slow in some games on its own thought.

 

[petedread]

I've not had any problems with crossfire so far. I'm loving the 110fps in battlefield 3 with 2 HD6950's. At first I was reluctant to go crossfire but a friend offered me a second card for a good price I took because I could not afford a new card. I have not looked back. I agree with digibucc, it's more fun and there are more options.

 

[Samdbugman]

thanks for the replies and points of view. I didn't realize that my machine was so out of date, but looking back it has been about 3 years since I built it.
I play games on my hdtv at 1920x1080, and like to have all the eye candy turned on, maybe I should be asking what should be my upgrade path?
my system specs are accurate except the monitor, nothing is over clocked, system is very stable. at this time I am playing skyrim, civ5, played the original final fantasy 14 quite well, looking forward to the re-release of ff14 and want to beef up my machine to play it at release. using their benchmark I get a score of 6000+ and would like to improve that.
im open to suggestion on an upgrade path, so any suggestion are appreciated. thanks all!

 

[digibucc]

unfortunately i think you are about maxed with that chipset. that means you'd likely have to replace everything to get any real improvement past crossfire. I would recommend giving overclocking a try. doing both your cpu and gpu (assuming your ram is definitely running at 1600mhz), I would think that would give you a significant improvement, add crossfire to the mix and you might make it last another year or two. worth a try imo unless you are considering upgrading the gpu before you go crossfire.

as for upgrade path, it really depends on whether you want to stick with amd or not. the truth is it's the same choice it's always been: a little more heat at a better price (amd) or a little more stability at a higher premium (intel). I haven't paid attention to amd's boards in the last few years so i only know intel's status, i went with 2011 but honestly it's overkill - i think a skt 1155/3770(k) is the best price/performance at the moment. not necessarily over the next 6 months but right now.