RADEON HD 7750 Crossfire?

[Arswaw]

I have an MSI RADEON HD 7750 in my computer. The problem is, it sucks. I was a graphics card noob back when I bought it and I thought since it was a 7xxx series and had 2GB written in it's title then it must be good right?

Well, the problem is the fact that this is a discount card, about 100 dollars. I'm barely pulling 20 FPS in Bioshock Infinite. Similiar results occur in Witcher 2, Skyrim, and Grand Theft Auto 4. I really can't hope to be ready for the next generation of gaming when I have such poor performance with current-gen games.

So I need some advice. I'm on a budget, and while I could drop $200 if I really have to, I would prefer to save some money. I don't know as much about Crossfire as the rest of you I'm sure, but I was wondering. If I buy another one of these Radeon 7750 cards and put them in my motherboard's second PCI-E x16 2.0 slot, will I get a noticeable performance boost that would at least let me have 60 FPS on medium or would I be wasting my time?

Or is it another problem? If you could recommend me a decent graphics card that would get 60 FPS in Bioshock Infinite that's less than 200 dollars, that would be helpful in case doing a Crossfire would be a bad idea.

Also, my specs:

Motherboard: ASRock 970 EXTREME3 AM3+ AMD 970 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

Processor: AMD FX-8350 Vishera 4.0GHz (4.2GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ 125W Eight-Core Desktop Processor

RAM: CORSAIR VENGEANCE 8GB (2X4GB) DDR3 RAM

2 SATA HARDDRIVES.

I'm new to this forum and computer building in general so any help would be appreciated.

URL for card:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127709

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Save yourself, just say no to cf.

 

[Durvelle27]

Not worth it at all. I recommend you sell it and get a HD 7850 or GTX 660 and have much better performance

 

[xbanzai89]

IMO you are wasting your time. 7750 CF is a bad option, especially if you can put in $200 on a new card. You can recoup even more by selling off your current one. For your price range I would look into a GTX 660 or 7870, but if you want to stretch it a GTX 760 isn't a bad option. All those will easily double your FPS, if not more.

 

[Plimogz]

7750 is an ok solution for some systems. But apparently not yours. You'll be better off selling your card to someone looking for a low-power card for lower resolutions, lower settings or older games, and pooling your resources to get a faster card.

Putting the money you get for your current card with that "up to" $200 will buy you something between 7850 and 670. I'd say that your options will include 660, standard or TI, 7850, 7870, 7950 and GTX 670/760.

 

[Arswaw]

Thanks for the replies. But what I would really like to know is why does crossfire suck? And how does this card differ from other 7000 series cards?

 

[Plimogz]

Multi-card solutions have their issues (in particular Crossfire). And given that you're looking at a pair of low-end cards which could be replaced with one faster card which would get you most of the performance of the pair with none of the issues, that's the best way to proceed.

 

[Avalon]

Well, if you did do crossfire, just note that it's not a perfect doubling of performance. It's somewhere in the 70-80% range depending on the title and settings. On top of that, just going multi card in general has its problems. If you're more interested in the inherent problems with crossfire/SLI, I'd hit up google.

With that being said...you could probably get a 7870 for <$200 on sale. That'd do it.

 

[f1sherman]

Thanks for the replies. But what I would really like to know is why does crossfire suck? And how does this card differ from other 7000 series cards?

Here's the latest investigation on SLI/CF from computerbase.de.

Conclusion:

• SLI - all right.
• CF - not recommended.
• Single GPU - microstuttering is a non-issue.

​

 

[laputan machine]

I'm afraid you likely fell victim to marketing gimmicks. There are 2 very different versions of the 7750, one has gddr5 memory and one has ddr3 memory. DDR3 is much cheaper to implement, and it's the one you got. You do have double the amount of (most?) 7750's with gddr5, but that does you little good for gaming. A gddr5 7750 lets you game in 1080p on medium or above settings usually. It sounds like your best bet is to sell the 7750 and buy a more powerful card, but the good news is that a decent <200 bucks card should let you game comfortably for some years.

 

[Arswaw]

I'm afraid you likely fell victim to marketing gimmicks. There are 2 very different versions of the 7750, one has gddr5 memory and one has ddr3 memory. DDR3 is much cheaper to implement, and it's the one you got. You do have double the amount of (most?) 7750's with gddr5, but that does you little good for gaming. A gddr5 7750 lets you game in 1080p on medium or above settings usually. It sounds like your best bet is to sell the 7750 and buy a more powerful card, but the good news is that a decent <200 bucks card should let you game comfortably for some years.

So the best route is to just drop $200? I just want to know if this is the best decision. It's just that, I'm not sure what the difference between DDR3 and GDDR5.

 

[laputan machine]

DDR3 reaches a memory bandwidth bottleneck much earlier than GDDR5, which operates at a faster speed.
It's up to you how much you want to spend, A 7850 or a 650ti boost should give you good performance for quite a bit less than $200. Out of the current\last gen I've used the 7750 and 660ti. The latter is what I have in my gaming computer, and it's a bit overkill for me at 1080p.

 

[AnonymouseUser]

2GB DDR3 = cheaper = slower performance = you'll never use all 2GB, ever = it's a marketing gimmick to sell low-end cards

1GB GDDR5 = faster performance = you may actually use all 1GB = it's less RAM but faster card

Sell the 7750 and get either an HD 7790 with 2GB GDDR5, or, if your PSU (power supply) can handle it, an HD 7850 2GB.

If you aren't sure if your PSU can handle a 7850, just post the model and we'll help you figure that out.

 

[Jimzz]

Yep the DDR3 is killing that card. The 7750 is not a powerhouse to begun with but what little it had the DDR3 is holding it back.

a 7790 or 7850 are 2 good lower priced options.

 

[tweakboy]

IMO buy a single card. 7970

 

[RaistlinZ]

If you're looking for 60fps minimums you'll want some real GPU power to work with.

I'd say go with a 7850 2GB or 650 Ti Boost 2GB at the very least.

If you can go up to $200.00 the 7870 Ghz or 660 2GB are good options.

That MSI 660 in particular is a great deal right now at $175.00 after rebate, with free Splinter Cell game. :awe:

 

[Yuriman]

I don't think you need to drop $200.

Here's a 1GB HD7850 for $130 AR - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...4131482&amp;cm_sp=

A 7850 is almost exactly twice an HD7770, and might be as much as 4x faster than your DDR3 HD7750 (which loses almost half its performance due to slow vram). Sell your card and you can recoup most of it.

OR

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...4131473&amp;cm_sp=

^ 2GB version if you feel $30 is worth the extra vram. I did, but sometimes budgets don't allow it.

 

[BrightCandle]

+1 on the above advice, go no where near crossfire with these low end cards. Heck avoid it completely right now regardless. Sell the card for as much as you can get for it, chalk up your error and buy a card based on the advice above. Tell these guys a budget and let them give you the AMD and Nvidia options around that price point.

Its a shame AMD chooses to screw people with marketing on these low end cards, its my hope one day they will stop doing it. DDR3 is just a bad idea and cripples the performance.

 

[AnonymouseUser]

Its a shame AMD chooses to screw people with marketing on these low end cards, its my hope one day they will stop doing it. DDR3 is just a bad idea and cripples the performance.

I'm sure you meant to say AMD, Nvidia, MSI, Asus, Sapphire, PowerColor, HIS, EVGA, Gigabyte, Galaxy, Visiontek, PNY, Jaton, Zotac, XFX, ECS, Diamond Multimedia, HP, and Sparkle, but we'll let it slide.