6850 Crossfire, concerned about microstutter

[Gonad the Barbarian]

I'm contemplating adding a second 6850 since that would seem to be the best performance boost for my buck but have concerns about microstutter. I'm pretty sensitive to framerate fluctuations and this seems like something that would really bother me. Do folks here with crossfire setups run into this? Have there been any driver improvements regarding it? Can future improvements be expected? Are there any surefire workarounds to eliminate it? Thanks for your feedback.

On a related note I just got a 23" 1920x1080 monitor after staring at a 19" 1440x900 monitor for five years and let me say... WOW.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Nobody can say whether your particular system would have microstutter or not or how bad.

From what I have read, every dual GPU setup has microstutter to different extents in different games. However, different people notice it to different extents, some people can't even notice it, while others may find it nearly unplayable with the same microstutter and same situation.

The exact reason I didn't buy a second 6970 and updated to a 7970 instead.

Honestly, you should sell your 6850 and go for a 7850/7870, after overclocking even a 7850 will beat a 6850 CF, because it can easily overclock 25-30% with 100% performance scaling, which makes it compete with a GTX 580 which is faster than 6850 CF. Also,

with CF, you will need to experiment whether you get microstutter or not, whether it is acceptable or not, with a single 7850 you are perfectly safe and after selling your 6850 the difference isn't that much more than another 6850, considering the single overclocked 7850 will also be faster.

 

[TakeNoPrisoners]

I would not get a 6850 crossfire setup.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

i heard that 6850 cf is the worst for microshuttering