6950 xfire worth it?

[Vdubchaos]

I already have an 850 WATT PSU ... should I grab 2x 6870's and xifre them?

Any reason not to @ $224 each - $20 rebate?

They seem to bench really well in the games I play .. BC2.


http://www.anandtech.com/show/4061/amds-radeon-hd-6970-radeon-hd-6950/18


I have never xfire'd, anything I should look out for? pairing this with an i5 2500k, 8gb DDR 1600, and asus P8P67 pro board. As far as I can tell, no single card solution around $400-$450 that beats these 2?

I think first you should ask yourself .what single card solution cannot do for you.

 

[ViviTheMage]

I think first you should ask yourself .what single card solution cannot do for you.

I got two 6950's, because they out perform ANY single card solution in the $500-$550 price range.

I picked up a 6 month old corsair HX1000 for $120 bucks ... I am pumped to flash em and get rollin!

 

[MangoX]

I used to get micro stutter running 2 5870s. BC2 and Black Ops had the most problems. Ironically MW2 was fine.

They were different models, If that makes a difference. I upgraded to x2 Sapphire 6870s, and had zero problems at all. My only real problem with crossfire is some games show no benefit, particularly WoW and SC2. The heat and power consumption makes it hard to justify. Picked up a 6950, flashed it to a 6970 and runs about the same as the 6870s in crossfire.

Really? I briefly ran 6950 CF and those things were flying.

In SC2, at max settings, 25x16, and MLAA(!) I saw 80%+ utilization on both GPUs and the game was as smooth as silk, 60+ fps all the time (except in huge huge max supply battles).

WoW doesn't have exceptional scaling, but it still supports CF and will make use of both gpu's. Just make sure you aren't running in "Windowed - Full Screen" as CF only works in Full Screen.

 

[Vdubchaos]

I got two 6950's, because they out perform ANY single card solution in the $500-$550 price range.

I picked up a 6 month old corsair HX1000 for $120 bucks ... I am pumped to flash em and get rollin!

You didn't answer my question.

What do these 2 cards do that 1 (say) 580 cannot do.

Game wise specifically.

What? you went from 60fps to 120fps?

At the end of the day you are still achieving playable frame rates and still getting the same Graphics quality.

You just gained bragging rights (if that's worth anything to you).

If you have extra money, feel free to send it this way.

 

[ViviTheMage]

You didn't answer my question.

What do these 2 cards do that 1 (say) 580 cannot do.

Game wise specifically.

What? you went from 60fps to 120fps?

At the end of the day you are still achieving playable frame rates and still getting the same Graphics quality.

You just gained bragging rights (if that's worth anything to you).

If you have extra money, feel free to send it this way.

What's the point? Higher FPS/playability ... that is always the point. I want to play games with everything cranked up, and not have an issue. I can also use these cards for xx months longer because they can handle games today much better then a single card.

If you cannot tell.. for the price of ONE 580 (give or take $50 depending where you shop), I got two 6950's. Price/Performance is huge...

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4061/amds-radeon-hd-6970-radeon-hd-6950/18

 

[Vdubchaos]

Higher FPS/playability from 50fps to even 100fps is not noticeable....but I guess for the same price, it makes sense.

funny you posted BC2 benchmarks, I play the game as well....and MAX it out with my 460 for $150 bucks.

It jumps around 30-40fps and is just fine when it comes to "playability". Thank god I didn't go with anything more expensive cause Graphics quality improvement would be NONE and frame rate is just fine for FPS.

 

[ViviTheMage]

Higher FPS/playability from 50fps to even 100fps is not noticeable....but I guess for the same price, it makes sense.

funny you posted BC2 benchmarks, I play the game as well....and MAX it out with my 460 for $150 bucks.

It jumps around 30-40fps and is just fine when it comes to "playability". Thank god I didn't go with anything more expensive cause Graphics quality improvement would be NONE and frame rate is just fine for FPS.

BC2 stutters, rarely, but there are some areas...especially 'nam with all the dense/green trees. I do have it maxed out, at my 1920 res.

Fallout 3 also has issues in watery areas with my 460 GTX 1GB.

But yes, same price as a single card with 50-100% more FPS in games too. Depending on how they scale.

 

[Morgot]

Really? I briefly ran 6950 CF and those things were flying.

In SC2, at max settings, 25x16, and MLAA(!) I saw 80%+ utilization on both GPUs and the game was as smooth as silk, 60+ fps all the time (except in huge huge max supply battles).

WoW doesn't have exceptional scaling, but it still supports CF and will make use of both gpu's. Just make sure you aren't running in "Windowed - Full Screen" as CF only works in Full Screen.

Only running 1 6950. I play wow in windowed mode normally, so CF is of no benefit. Even when I tried playing fullscreen with crossfire on....the FPS was 5-10 higher sitting around org. Just feels as if the benefits are minimal.

I guess to echo what some posters on here have said, with so many minor errors, glitchces, stuttering in this case, its hard to justify the price of 2 cards vs 1 "better" card of the same price.

To each his own I suppose.

 

[ViviTheMage]

Worst case, i'll sell the other.

I don't play WoW anymore ... cataclysm put the nail in the coffin for me.

 

[Red Storm]

I love when people say they run games at "MAX" with a mid range card. Resolution? AA & AF? Smooth as butter no matter how crowded the screen gets?

 

[A5]

Higher FPS/playability from 50fps to even 100fps is not noticeable....but I guess for the same price, it makes sense.

funny you posted BC2 benchmarks, I play the game as well....and MAX it out with my 460 for $150 bucks.

It jumps around 30-40fps and is just fine when it comes to "playability". Thank god I didn't go with anything more expensive cause Graphics quality improvement would be NONE and frame rate is just fine for FPS.

You don't need anything more than a 460 (not that I consider BC2 "playable" at 30 FPS, but whatever), but many people here run higher resolutions (2560x1600). At 25x16, you pretty much have to have SLI/XFire to run native res with the highest settings and playable frame rates.

Just because you don't need it doesn't mean that nobody needs it.

 

[HumblePie]

Only running 1 6950. I play wow in windowed mode normally, so CF is of no benefit. Even when I tried playing fullscreen with crossfire on....the FPS was 5-10 higher sitting around org. Just feels as if the benefits are minimal.

I guess to echo what some posters on here have said, with so many minor errors, glitchces, stuttering in this case, its hard to justify the price of 2 cards vs 1 "better" card of the same price.

To each his own I suppose.

WoW is not a graphical intensive game AT ALL. I can still run that game with an x1900xt AGP card. Not with some of the newer settings turned on, but I can. The majority of lag comes from connections from many players. It's all network lag that affects the video lag. Meaning, the faster your connection, and the faster your CPU you have to handle those connections, the better your framerate in high traffic areas of the game. WoW is not a game to use to judge video cards. That's about as bad as stating, well I see no tangile benefit to using dual cards to play minesweeper over one card. Well DUH!

If all you play is WoW, you can get by with a much reduced card than what you think. Get the best possible CPU and connection speed and have a blast with WoW as anything past a 4650 is literally overkill for the game. Unless you do want to use their high res shadows and blooming effects. Then you need a slightly better card, but not by much.

 

[nOOky]

I love when people say they run games at "MAX" with a mid range card. Resolution? AA & AF? Smooth as butter no matter how crowded the screen gets?

Yes, but it takes two mid range cards to do it. Some poorly coded games or console ports are choppy no matter the system you have... When people say "max" they generally mean every in-game setting set as high as it will go. My resolution is 1920 x 1200, and every game I play has the settings as high as they will go in-game. In the AMD control panel I have super-sampling enable, but not morphological. That just seems to make things blurry and blended rather than better looking imho.

 

[Morgot]

WoW is not a graphical intensive game AT ALL. I can still run that game with an x1900xt AGP card. Not with some of the newer settings turned on, but I can. The majority of lag comes from connections from many players. It's all network lag that affects the video lag. Meaning, the faster your connection, and the faster your CPU you have to handle those connections, the better your framerate in high traffic areas of the game. WoW is not a game to use to judge video cards. That's about as bad as stating, well I see no tangile benefit to using dual cards to play minesweeper over one card. Well DUH!

If all you play is WoW, you can get by with a much reduced card than what you think. Get the best possible CPU and connection speed and have a blast with WoW as anything past a 4650 is literally overkill for the game. Unless you do want to use their high res shadows and blooming effects. Then you need a slightly better card, but not by much.

Truth. I was just replying to the guy who was talking about WoW scaling with xfire. The game is designed for some 14 year old kid to be able to play on a computer his dad bought at best buy.

Granted I'm not playing games like Crysis, I just haven't really seen any noticeable difference In games like BC2, Black Ops....MW2 using a single card vs xfire. Particularly the 5870s. Though I've heard they have always had problems running in crossfire on those cards. While running 2 6870s, the only real gave I had better performance in vs using my 6950 would be Civ 5

I can definitely see the benefit of running 2 when you have larger resolutions/more than 2 displays.

 

[Powermoloch]

Higher FPS/playability from 50fps to even 100fps is not noticeable....but I guess for the same price, it makes sense.

funny you posted BC2 benchmarks, I play the game as well....and MAX it out with my 460 for $150 bucks.

It jumps around 30-40fps and is just fine when it comes to "playability". Thank god I didn't go with anything more expensive cause Graphics quality improvement would be NONE and frame rate is just fine for FPS.

I don't think you're getting the point. The are many reasons why a person would X-fire 6950:

- It spanks the current single GPU config at the same price
- When demanding games come out (if there's any), at least he wouldn't have to worry to upgrade at the time being.
- his choice and $$$

 

[ViviTheMage]

I don't think you're getting the point. The are many reasons why a person would X-fire 6950:

- It spanks the current single GPU config at the same price
- When demanding games come out (if there's any), at least he wouldn't have to worry to upgrade at the time being.
- his choice and $$$

/this.

not sure some of the other posters are getting this...

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

I'd love to try dual or triple monitors someday. Does it add anything to the gaming experience?

 

[ViviTheMage]

I don't think games span monitors. I have 2 x 24" and I just play on one main.

When hooking up my monitors to xifre, should the DVI's be on one card, or separated?

 

[cusideabelincoln]

Keep them on one card.

 

[ViviTheMage]

Reasoning?

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

I don't think games span monitors. I have 2 x 24" and I just play on one main.

When hooking up my monitors to xifre, should the DVI's be on one card, or separated?

I thought I've seen pics where the game was across three different monitors? What do you do with the second monitor while gaming then?

 

[ViviTheMage]

I thought I've seen pics where the game was across three different monitors? What do you do with the second monitor while gaming then?

vent, FF, im clients, monitoring tools, lots of stuff I need to look at throughout the day.

I have seen some vids...like WoW, but I am not sure how they do it though.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

vent, FF, im clients, monitoring tools, lots of stuff I need to look at throughout the day.

I have seen some vids...like WoW, but I am not sure how they do it though.

You are one monitor short of finding out. You've got the horsepower and I bet it would be awesome. I'm pretty sure you can do it with dual monitors too. Maybe someone will chime in and help.

 

[ViviTheMage]

You need 3 to be able to do it? I am curious if 2 could, that'd be neat!

 

[HumblePie]

Well I want to get a couple, or three 6950s. But I don't want to pay $300 a pop. My problem is the rebates for buying new. I can't figure out if I can apply a rebate to each card I buy if I buy more than one from newegg. $260 x 3 is much cheaper than $260 + $300 x 2. I rather not mix and match brands either.