Asus Matrix vs Tri-Fire

Lepton87

Platinum Member
Jul 28, 2009
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I decided to skip this generation and go straight to 20nm but gpus at that node are at least 1 year away. What's worse no 28nm refreshes on the horizon. I got that pesky upgrade itch. Is CF implementation on 7-series really that bad? I heard a lot of bad things about CF on tahiti. Any CF 7-series actual user's input would be appreciated. I'm thinking about buying either 3x7950 and slightly overclock them since they will be right next to each other or buy Asus Matrix and overclock it as far as it goes. I hope 1250MHz should be easy, I always get lemon items when it comes to OC so I don't expect more. Are there any decent 7950s with a blower design? Full voltage control is mandatory. Open-Air coolers are superior when they have enough breathing room but right next to each other they are terrible. I have that configuration now and it's a nightmare. I have to flex them and space them out otherwise they overheat.
 

blackened23

Diamond Member
Jul 26, 2011
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Overclocking becomes much, much difficult in SLI configurations - especially if you're using open air cooled cards. I suggest not going open air unless your case has extremely good air flow with adequate space between the cards.

My suggestion is to not do 3 GPU's regardless of which brand or GPU vendor you go with. There are diminishing returns past 2 GPUs. I also suggest not counting on a super high overclock unless you're doing a single GPU. As far as 3 GPU's...don't even count on running past stock with 3 GPUs unless you're water cooling.

Overclocking with 1 GPU is easy.
Overclocking in SLI or CF is much much more difficult due to heat issues.
 

Lepton87

Platinum Member
Jul 28, 2009
2,544
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I already have Quad-Fire CF with 3 cards two of which have open air coolers and the third is 6990 so I know of all of those issues. Open-air cooling is very inelegant when cards are right next to each other that's why I'm asking if there is some decent 7950 with a blower cooler. Generally OC with 3 cards right next to each other is not a good idea, all of my cards run at stock, but 7950 is a special case, it has huge OC headroom especially non-boost version. Actually scaling from 2 to 3 cards is often just as good as 1 card to 2 cards percentage-wise, it's the forth card that has scaling issues it adds at most 22% more performance out of the theoretical 33% but usually it's much less.
ps. That's what I got running Uniengine Tropics 1>2 almost 100% more fps (~100% scaling) 2>3 almost 50% more fps (~100% scaling) >4 22% more fps (~66% scaling). Unfortunately 3-way scaling depends entirely on the drivers and from what I've seen works great only in high profile games. 2-way doesn't seem to need as much driver optimization.
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Very impressive scaling but switch to a less popular game and you might get negative scaling :( Seems like GCN CF is less mature than old VLIW designs. I'm perusing some tests and there are definitely many issues with CF.
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For comparison purposes I get 42fps with 1 card and 140fps with all cards. Just to be clear the scene I tested is obviously different
 
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Elfear

Diamond Member
May 30, 2004
7,145
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To be fair to GCN, Kepler scaling past two cards is pretty poor as well in BL2.

My experience with Trifire has been positive. There have been some quirks here and there but nothing major. Unfortunately, I can't give you a lot of feedback about scaling in modern games because I haven't played many lately. Most of the games I play run just fine on one card. Might need to break out Skyrim again or maybe pick up Crysis 3.

If you're intent is gaming, I would probably stick with a pair of good 7950s for $600 and wait for the next gen cards to come out.
 

Jacky60

Golden Member
Jan 3, 2010
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I'd get 3 7950's if buying now, my experience of Tri-fire has been pretty good in scaling terms and any MS should be minimised with three cards rather than 2, also 2 7950's or 7970's aren't going to be much of an upgrade if any from your current setup. Trifire performance/scaling is as you state quite dependent on a games popularity so the bigger titles are usually fine but the more obscure ones may have issues.