Best dual gfx card per/$

[hahallur]

I'm thinking about replacing my HD 4890 crossfirex setup with a pair of new cards.

The HD 7870 Tahiti LE in crossfirex looks like the best performance I can get for under 500$.

Is there anything else I should consider in this price range? (400-600$).

No matter the manufacturer.

 

[Jimzz]

Why dual? Just get a 7950 and overclock or a 7970 and be happy.

 

[dragantoe]

I'm assuming you're gaming, at what resolution are you gaming and how long do you expect to use this setup? if it's just 1080p I would go for the 7870's, but if you are willing to spend $100 more you can get dual 7950's which would be better for 1440p, and would probably age better than a 7870 or 660ti

 

[hokies83]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc..._-14202030-L0A

Be 200$ each after selling games.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Either go single or sli, but not cf.

 

[jacktesterson]

I'd go with a pair of 660 Ti 's - 3GB models


Or just get a 7970

 

[TakeNoPrisoners]

At that price it isn't worth it to go Crossfire or SLI. Just get a nice 7970 or a GTX 680 and call it a day.

By nice I mean get a highly overclockable one.

 

[hahallur]

Why dual? Just get a 7950 and overclock or a 7970 and be happy.

But that isn't nearly as powerful as dual 7870s is it :hmm:

As for crossfire being bad, I've had no issues with my dual HD 4890s.

I was also wondering if I should get the 660 Ti although its slightly more pricey.

The resolution I'm currently using is 1920x1200.

At that price it isn't worth it to go Crossfire or SLI. Just get a nice 7970 or a GTX 680 and call it a day.

By nice I mean get a highly overclockable one.

How's that.... the "best" cards are pretty expensive, the dual 7870s would pretty much beat any single core card wouldn't it?.. and the best cards are close to 500/600$

 

[Face2Face]

I can't comment on 7 series vs. 4 series crossfire experience, but you are correct, the HD 7870 Tahiti LE X 2 is the most performance for the dollar at under $500. If you have $600, then a 7950 would obviously be better -(Assuming crossfire drivers are to be improved shortly)

 

[hahallur]

I can't comment on 7 series vs. 4 series crossfire experience, but you are correct, the HD 7870 Tahiti LE X 2 is the most performance for the dollar at under $500. If you have $600, then a 7950 would obviously be better -(Assuming crossfire drivers are to be improved shortly)

Yeah, I've been reading through the gfx section of this forum and people seem to think Crossfire is pure shit, so maybe getting a single card is wiser.

I'm not a AMD fanboy so I don't mind getting nvidia in SLi setup if thats getting me similar perf. per dollar. But the 660 Ti is not as good as 7950 and its about 20-30 more expensive so thats a horrendous choice as a SLi setup.

As for getting a 7970, thats only slightly more powerful than a 7950 and its a 150$ more which in my mind is 150$ extra for bragging rights. Buying the top card in either line being GTX 680 or 7970 isn't such a good value I think.

What I take from all of this is that the best thing to do to get most for my money and the least amount of driver issues is to get a single 7950... am I right ?

 

[Face2Face]

Yeah, I've been reading through the gfx section of this forum and people seem to think Crossfire is pure shit, so maybe getting a single card is wiser.

I'm not a AMD fanboy so I don't mind getting nvidia in SLi setup if thats getting me similar perf. per dollar. But the 660 Ti is not as good as 7950 and its about 20-30 more expensive so thats a horrendous choice as a SLi setup.

As for getting a 7970, thats only slightly more powerful than a 7950 and its a 150$ more which in my mind is 150$ extra for bragging rights. Buying the top card in either line being GTX 680 or 7970 isn't such a good value I think.

What I take from all of this is that the best thing to do to get most for my money and the least amount of driver issues is to get a single 7950... am I right ?

Pretty much. I can't speak for Crossfire, since I don't use it. There are however a couple members here that claim they have little issues and use RadeonPro, works great for them. As for a single card, the 7950 @ $300 has no equal at that price point. With a decent overclock 1150/1600 you are already beating a GTX 680 and 7970. I know overclocks can vary and the top tier cards can overclock too, but seriously

EDIT: Oh yeah and free games you can sell it you want..

 

[hahallur]

Yeah I was just hoping to get a slightly more powerful system to last long, but I guess I can just get the next card 1 or 2 gens after this one.

The reason I stuck with the HD4980 so long is that in crossfire the single cards only caught up with it in HD 6 series, its about as powerful as 7850 at moderate settings it seems, although the gap gets bigger when you go 1920x1200 or 2560x1200 with lots of AA.

On a side note, why get the 7950 when the 7870 LE is pretty much breathing down its throat.

 

[hokies83]

Same gap as 7970 Vs 7950...
And like i said above u can get the 7950 for 200$

 

[Face2Face]

Yeah I was just hoping to get a slightly more powerful system to last long, but I guess I can just get the next card 1 or 2 gens after this one.

The reason I stuck with the HD4980 so long is that in crossfire the single cards only caught up with it in HD 6 series, its about as powerful as 7850 at moderate settings it seems, although the gap gets bigger when you go 1920x1200 or 2560x1200 with lots of AA.

On a side note, why get the 7950 when the 7870 LE is pretty much breathing down its throat.

What Hokies83 said and the extra VRAM. Your 4890's would still probably be decent if they were DX11 and had 2GB of VRAM. Same goes for the GTX 570 and 580 - Still pretty quick, just need more VRAM. Which reminds me I gotta get my old 4890, my friend still has it in his PC

 

[jacktesterson]

Same gap as 7970 Vs 7950...
And like i said above u can get the 7950 for 200$

Where can you get a 7950 for $200?

 

[hahallur]

Yeah, cheapest I've seen it is 290$ w/ 3GB ram.

And how is the gap between 7850>7950 same as 7950>7970... even if you go by their titles it doesn't make sense.

 

[Rvenger]

Where can you get a 7950 for $200?

Hokies meant after you do the rebate and sell the Games it will equal out to ~$200. I personally think around $220 since the bundle devalued a little.

 

[blastingcap]

Yeah, I've been reading through the gfx section of this forum and people seem to think Crossfire is pure shit, so maybe getting a single card is wiser.

I'm not a AMD fanboy so I don't mind getting nvidia in SLi setup if thats getting me similar perf. per dollar. But the 660 Ti is not as good as 7950 and its about 20-30 more expensive so thats a horrendous choice as a SLi setup.

As for getting a 7970, thats only slightly more powerful than a 7950 and its a 150$ more which in my mind is 150$ extra for bragging rights. Buying the top card in either line being GTX 680 or 7970 isn't such a good value I think.

What I take from all of this is that the best thing to do to get most for my money and the least amount of driver issues is to get a single 7950... am I right ?

Crossfire definitely has issues and I would recommend against getting two AMD cards to string together.

There are numerous threads detailing this, and forumers can tell you more if you want to know, but the summary is that frametimes and thus stutter aren't any better with two cards than with one, in many popular games.

A dual GPU card like 7990 faces the same problem since it's just internally crossfired

 

[Face2Face]

A dual GPU card like 7990 faces the same problem since it's just internally crossfired

We all assume this, but we really don't know until it's released and tested. I doubt AMD would release a Flagship card with all of these Stuttering and runt frame issues in effect. Well..... I would hope not.

 

[Redmenace]

The reason I xfired my 7950 was to achieve a performance target that would get me around 60fps at 1440p with high graphic settings on the current pc games. My single 7950 could not achieve that and it would have been a stretch on some games for a single top end card. So with the rebates and selling the bundled games I was under $500 to achieve my desired performance level. I'm not seeing the xfire issues that people mention in the games I'm currently playing (Crysis3, Bioshock Inf, BF3) but I normally run vsync.

 

[blastingcap]

We all assume this, but we really don't know until it's released and tested. I doubt AMD would release a Flagship card with all of these Stuttering and runt frame issues in effect. Well..... I would hope not.

So they are going to do something new after years and years of AMD ATI and NVidia doing internal CrossfireX and SLI? I doubt it. 7990 will be internally crossfired. You can bank on that.

 

[smithkt]

So they are going to do something new after years and years of AMD ATI and NVidia doing internal CrossfireX and SLI? I doubt it. 7990 will be internally crossfired. You can bank on that.

I don't think he was suggesting the hardware wouldn't be simply internally crossfired. I think he is suggesting AMD will release with an updated driver to resolve the stuttering/runt frames stuff everyone is going on about. Thus a card without the current crossfire issues.

 

[blastingcap]

I don't think he was suggesting the hardware wouldn't be simply internally crossfired. I think he is suggesting AMD will release with an updated driver to resolve the stuttering/runt frames stuff everyone is going on about. Thus a card without the current crossfire issues.

Ah okay, I see it now, sorry for my mis-read.

 

[Face2Face]

I don't think he was suggesting the hardware wouldn't be simply internally crossfired. I think he is suggesting AMD will release with an updated driver to resolve the stuttering/runt frames stuff everyone is going on about. Thus a card without the current crossfire issues.

Bingo - sorry was a little late to the party

 

[smithkt]

Ah okay, I see it now, sorry for my mis-read.

So, is this where I am supposed to accuse you of being a member of the Green Team? Just kidding of course. Just seems like the thing to do these days....

I'm actually very eager to see how this works out and if it will have any impact on the crossfire situation as a whole. I'm keeping an eye out for a deal on another 7970 to pair with my existing card. I'm also curious to see if the release of this reference card means other vendors might release their own 7990s based on this reference.