6870 CF Vs. 7950

[N4g4rok]

I've heard the 7900 serires bottlenecks a little bit with a Phenom II. If i wanted to upgrade the GPU on a Phenom II platform, would i be better off with a 7900 series card, or going with two of a 6800 or 6900 series?

 

[jpeyton]

It really depends on the price point.

The 7950 is so new and in-demand, you'll pay $450.

On the other hand, I've seen used 6950s for $190, 6970s for $240, and 6870s for $110.

A pair of used 6870s in CrossFire for $220 will give you much more bang-for-the-buck than a 7950 for over twice the price.

If you don't want to bother with CrossFire, a single 6950/6970 is a great value as well.

 

[chimaxi83]

What resolution will you be playing at? CPU bottleneck becomes less of a concern the higher you go. At 1080p, a decent quad core will work well for you.

Guru3D did a CPU scaling review with 7900 series, you can check it out here. Phenom didn't do bad.

 

[N4g4rok]

Last year i got two 5830s on sale, but they're definitely beginning to show their age.

I play everything at 1080p with Vsync enabled. I plan on building a new rig within six months, and figured i could re-use a nice graphics card if i bought one now.

How does the 7950 handle tessellations as oppossed tot he 6870?

 

[BallaTheFeared]

here.

Also keep in mind that many of those tests are notoriously gpu bound, BF3 SP, AvP, Metro 2033, and even Crysis 2 at those settings will be gpu bound at 1080p.

Another thing to keep in mind is that while in GPU bound tests a Phenom II is just behind in a few of those tests, it's already at 3.5GHz.. Meaning you don't have a ton of performance left in the tank. Meanwhile the 7950 has a decent amount of overclocking headroom as well as good scaling performance wise from said overclocks.

$450 is a lot of toss at a rig that isn't going to perform at top levels, especially in more cpu intensive games with an overclocked gpu.

figured i could re-use a nice graphics card if i bought one now.

How does the 7950 handle tessellations as oppossed tot he 6870?

You can and should, so long as it's not too far out, or you can wait on it. The price will drop, so that means you should probably wait for a better deal... So long as you can live with your 5830s until you actually do upgrade.

79xx is much better at tess than any previous AMD card, it's no longer really a factor. It can handle anything out including Crysis 2.

 

[N4g4rok]

So long as you can live with your 5830s until you actually do upgrade.

I haven't really had any complaints with them, except for Crysis 2, and Assassin's creed, lately. AC doesn't support crossfire, and i'm not so sure ACIII will, unless they overhaul their engine. More recently, Deus Ex gets a little choppy when loading new areas.

It most certainly isn't a necessary upgrade, but i'm still torn on whether i could get it now and enjoy the immediate benefits while re-using it later, or do the sensible thing and wait for prices to drop. Always a difficult decision. Haha.

 

[Ieat]

What resolution will you be playing at? CPU bottleneck becomes less of a concern the higher you go. At 1080p, a decent quad core will work well for you.

Guru3D did a CPU scaling review with 7900 series, you can check it out here. Phenom didn't do bad.

I really wish they would have done a 2nd cpu scaling article with 2 7970's in crossfire just for curiosity's sake.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

I haven't really had any complaints with them, except for Crysis 2, and Assassin's creed, lately. AC doesn't support crossfire, and i'm not so sure ACIII will, unless they overhaul their engine. More recently, Deus Ex gets a little choppy when loading new areas.

It most certainly isn't a necessary upgrade, but i'm still torn on whether i could get it now and enjoy the immediate benefits while re-using it later, or do the sensible thing and wait for prices to drop. Always a difficult decision. Haha.

I'd verify your problems are caused by your gpus, before sinking $450 into it.. But even if it isn't gpu related, it won't be any worse than it is now :thumbsup:

As far as 6950 CF vs 7950, I'd probably lean into the 7950 with plans to CF later of course I'd wait for a price drop though

 

[3DVagabond]

Whether you'll be CPU bound or not will depend on the game. That said, I'd go with the 7900 now, or wait to see what comes out in the near future (next month or so).

Unlike others, I don't think we're going to see any large drops in 7900 prices. IMO, $50.00 or so when GK104 launches (7950 3gig ~ $400.00) with the release of the 7950 1.5gig at ~$350.00. I have a real bad feeling about any price wars erupting between AMD and nVidia. I think there'll be a "silent agreement" between them. They're only hurting each other while Intel rakes in the cash.

 

[biostud]

Personally I would go for one single card:
Less hassle (no profiles/scaling problems)
Less heat/power consumption = less money over time

I would only use CF/SLI if I had to run multiple screens or very high resolution.

 

[BD231]

Buying a 7950 is pretty much asking to be ripped off, you could get the same performance out of a gtx 480 at half the price.

 

[Dark Shroud]

Right now your HD 5830s are worth money to bitcoin miners. Somewhere around $120 a piece. Sell them while you can and put that money towards a 7950 or 7870. Maybe wait until the end of the month just to see if any of the nvidia launch rumors are true.

 

[Jhatfie]

Buying a 7950 is pretty much asking to be ripped off, you could get the same performance out of a gtx 480 at half the price.

lol, no you cannot. 7950 outperforms a GTX580 and once overclocked destroys a OC'd 580. Although I will agree it is a bit over priced, the 7950 should have come in at $399 instead of $450. But no competition will do that.

I used to run OC'd 6870's in crossfire and my OC'd 7950 is a lot faster in some games while some others, it is pretty close performance wise. Depends on the game, but more recent DX11 games or games with tessellation the 79xx series really pulls away. One thing I did not like about my 6870's was the stuttering they had, which was much more pronounced that my 6950's in crossfire. Personally I prefer single card solutions if they can give you the performance you need.

However, back to your original question. What resolution will you be running at? I think at lower resolutions the 79xx may be hamstrung by a phenom II some, but as the GPU is stressed more at higher resolutions with all the eye candy on, it will be less of a problem.

 

[njdevilsfan87]

7950 for sure. At 1080p, you really should have 2GB of more of VRAM. A lot will say you don't need, but most modern games I play with at least 4xAA and 16xAF use around 1GB, and then some more if I start using SSAA or adding texture mods (like in Skyrim, where if I run 1080p 2xSSAA and 16xAF, I'm around 1800-2000mb of VRAM used).

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Once you overclock the 7950 it will be at least as fast if not faster without the hassles of crossfire

 

[N4g4rok]

Ended up with a small deal on a 7950 today. After comparing some of Anand's and a couple others' benches, the price was not as unreasonable in comparison to the 7970.

I'm actually kind of excited about not having to worry about Crossfire. It was great on games that could use it, but when it wasn't available, i was lucky to stay above 30 FPS on anything pretty. Not only that, but when crossfire messes up, it can be a brutal experience. Haha.

At the very least, when you take 1080p and Vsync use into consideration, i think the 7950 will have a much better longevity to it whereas i was sure i would have seen the end of the 5830's usefulness by the summer. if i do decide to build another rig at the end of the summer, it will be more than adequate to re-use.

 

[BD231]

lol, no you cannot. 7950 outperforms a GTX580 and once overclocked destroys a OC'd 580.

You've got a screw loose. The overclocked 580 is just as fast or faster in most benches as the overclocked 7950. Proof ~> http://www.anandtech.com/show/5625/...-7850-review-rounding-out-southern-islands/19.

We all know the 580 isn't that much faster than a gtx 480, so yeah, LOL, yes you can. Way to help a guy waste his money.

 

[BD231]

dp

 

[N4g4rok]

Way to help a guy waste his money.

I did take what you said about the 580 into consideration, and i was looking at this rather than the overclocking bench you posted there. They do seem to edge each other out here an there. Prices seemed about the same, if not a little higher for the 580.

 

[BD231]

I did take what you said about the 580 into consideration, and i was looking at this rather than the overclocking bench you posted there. They do seem to edge each other out here an there. Prices seemed about the same, if not a little higher for the 580.

I'd never recommend cross fire as I hear terrible things but I've never tried it. SLi I've tried myself and can say is decent. The 580 is overpriced compared to the 480 and there are currently GTX 480's in stock at a lot of places selling anywhere from 200 to $250. A performance gap of positive or negative 20% overclocked isn't worth 200 dollars, but, I suppose future drivers may lengthen the gap.

Moot point now though, enjoy the 7950 she's definitely fast.

 

[MrTeal]

You've got a screw loose. The overclocked 580 is just as fast or faster in most benches as the overclocked 7950. Proof ~> http://www.anandtech.com/show/5625/...-7850-review-rounding-out-southern-islands/19.

We all know the 580 isn't that much faster than a gtx 480, so yeah, LOL, yes you can. Way to help a guy waste his money.

I'm curious where you see an overclocked 580 or 7950 in any of those charts?

 

[BallaTheFeared]

We had this discussion in another thread, an overclocked 580 will beat a overclocked 7870.

It does beat a stock 580, but so do my 470s so "meh" awarded.

A 480 will overclock past 580 stock performance, for $200.

So once again after losing in performance this will dwindle into the "performance per watt" argument. Which isn't at all ironic since it always works like that... 7970 will beat a 580 by x amount @ 1300 core, but it uses 400watts... Nobody cares that it's using almost double the wattage of a stock 580, but they will now.

 

[3DVagabond]

We had this discussion in another thread, an overclocked 580 will beat a overclocked 7870.

It does beat a stock 580, but so do my 470s so "meh" awarded.

A 480 will overclock past 580 stock performance, for $200.

So once again after losing in performance this will dwindle into the "performance per watt" argument. Which isn't at all ironic since it always works like that... 7970 will beat a 580 by x amount @ 1300 core, but it uses 400watts... Nobody cares that it's using almost double the wattage of a stock 580, but they will now.

It does not use 400W. You need to learn how to read graphs. That [H] graph that you posted showed the idle system using ~400W less than the system at load running a game does not mean that the entire difference is the video card. It's the difference in system power usage. Everything in the system is using more power when the system is at load.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

You're right, the [H] review is jacked because of the i7-920.

 

[skipsneeky2]

Ended up with a small deal on a 7950 today. After comparing some of Anand's and a couple others' benches, the price was not as unreasonable in comparison to the 7970.

I'm actually kind of excited about not having to worry about Crossfire. It was great on games that could use it, but when it wasn't available, i was lucky to stay above 30 FPS on anything pretty. Not only that, but when crossfire messes up, it can be a brutal experience. Haha.

Good call,i was considering sli gtx560 and started a thread just like this one,after consideration i went for a 7970 as a impulse purchase and i couldn't really see sli gtx560s performing as good as this thing does period without to much noise and heat and damn it was worth it.

Enjoy your 7950.:thumbsup: