Crossfire

[goobernoodles]

I have a MSI P35 Platinum and 4890 which supports crossfire even though the 2nd PCI-e x16 slot runs at x4. My friend recently upgraded his machine, and now has an extra 4890... I game @ 1920x1080.

Granted, I'd probably have to upgrade my power supply, any thoughts on this? Would it be worth doing it?

 

[Powermoloch]

sell both cards, recoup the costs, and grab a 6950

 

[happy medium]

How much you paying for the friends 4890?

 

[goobernoodles]

sell both cards, recoup the costs, and grab a 6950

Lol.

My question really isn't one of "what should I do for x amount of money". I'm going to need a better power supply for my next round of upgrades. I just feel that my gaming performance right now is good enough that I don't need to do a full upgrade yet, however if there's a free card laying around, and I'd need a new PSU down the line anyway, I could potentially increase my current performance for free. My question is mainly... will I actually see a noticeable increase in fps?

 

[alcoholbob]

Crossfire performance is pretty hit and miss. I don't think this means you can max out the details in games but I do believe you can get a more consistent playing experience if you are having trouble getting over 35fps in the games you play.

 

[Termie]

You'd potentially have 4870x2 level performance, given the 16x/4x slots, but you'd be massively bottlenecked in newer games by your older cpu. Skip it. I actually don't think you need a new psu for the next round of upgrades, unless you're going dual card. I have the same psu. That's the benefit of going high-end from the start with PSUs. They last for years. Buying a new PSU just to dabble in ultra high power use with questionable benefits would be a waste.

 

[happy medium]

My question is mainly... will I actually see a noticeable increase in fps?
__________________

Yes you will and it will be a very good increase.
I say go for it, your gonna buy a new psu anyway.. What do you have to lose?
2 4890's even in a 16/4 pci-e setup will be much faster, even with your current cpu.

 

[Skurge]

You might get some stuttering if one 4890 ends up being bottlenecked by the x4 slot. If it doesnt, your golden.

 

[goobernoodles]

You'd potentially have 4870x2 level performance, given the 16x/4x slots, but you'd be massively bottlenecked in newer games by your older cpu. Skip it. I actually don't think you need a new psu for the next round of upgrades, unless you're going dual card. I have the same psu. That's the benefit of going high-end from the start with PSUs. They last for years. Buying a new PSU just to dabble in ultra high power use with questionable benefits would be a waste.

Well, I have 4 hard drives and two optical drives and overclock everything, so even if just to protect my investment, I'm planning on upgrading my PSU for the next round of updates.

Yes you will and it will be a very good increase.
I say go for it, your gonna buy a new psu anyway.. What do you have to lose?
2 4890's even in a 16/4 pci-e setup will be much faster, even with your current cpu.

That's what I was hoping to hear.

Anyone have a ~750w'ish PSU they'd recommend? haha

 

[hawtdawg]

You'd potentially have 4870x2 level performance, given the 16x/4x slots, but you'd be massively bottlenecked in newer games by your older cpu. Skip it. I actually don't think you need a new psu for the next round of upgrades, unless you're going dual card. I have the same psu. That's the benefit of going high-end from the start with PSUs. They last for years. Buying a new PSU just to dabble in ultra high power use with questionable benefits would be a waste.

A C2d at 3.4GHZ is fine for any game out there, even with crossfire.

 

[Termie]

A C2d at 3.4GHZ is fine for any game out there, even with crossfire.

Absolutely false: http://techreport.com/articles.x/20486/5. This article tests a number of processors with a GTX460. The closest thing to the OP's CPU is a Phenom II X2 565, which runs at 3.4.

OP, my e8400, which is actually slightly faster than your e6750 at 3.4, bottlenecks my GTX460, which is equivalent to your card.

Honestly, this is not a great upgrade unless the 4890 is truly free and you seriously think that you need a new PSU. All the hard drives and DVD burners in the world won't push you past 500w unless you have a heavily overclocked quad-core and at least a GTX570-class GPU or dual GPUs.

 

[hawtdawg]

Absolutely false: http://techreport.com/articles.x/20486/5. This article tests a number of processors with a GTX460. The closest thing to the OP's CPU is a Phenom II X2 565, which runs at 3.4.

OP, my e8400, which is actually slightly faster than your e6750 at 3.4, bottlenecks my GTX460, which is equivalent to your card.

Honestly, this is not a great upgrade unless the 4890 is truly free and you seriously think that you need a new PSU. All the hard drives and DVD burners in the world won't push you past 500w unless you have a heavily overclocked quad-core and at least a GTX570-class GPU or dual GPUs.

Showing BFBC2 benchmarks means nothing, it's one of like 3 games that fully utilizes a quadcore, and Starcraft 2 benchmarks with the settings on "high" are of course going to show the processor to be a bottleneck. Not to mention the BFBC2 bench isn't even at 1920x1080, doesn't have HBAO on, or have any AA on.

When you look at Metro 2033 and the F1 benchmarks, where the settings are cranked, the GPU's become the bottleneck.

Stop spreading misinformation.

 

[MentalIlness]

Not real sure it is misinformation. At the moment, I am stuck with a E7200 @ 3.6 and it bottlenecks a single HD 6870. I then lowered the resolution, overclocked further to 4 Ghz, and the fps barely raised at all.

 

[Termie]

OP, below are my tests with my e8400/GTX460. The point is that while you'll be able to crank graphics quality in crossfire, you'll never be able to exceed the FPS of any of the games in that techreport article tested at the lowest resolution. That is your cap, and for many new games like those tested, the cap on a dual core at 3.4 is pretty low.


This is in BC2 with my e8400@3.3 and my GTX460@800/1000.

1680x1050/medium/1xAA/4xAF/HBAO off
Min Max Avg
31 53 42.017

1680x1050/high/4xAA/8xAF/HBAO on
Min Max Avg
32 56 42.75

1920x1080/high/4xAA/16xAF/HBAO on
Min Max Avg
34 55 42.767

I ran these two times, because I couldn't believe the results. I figured it was user error. Apparently it wasn't. This is all on the same level, same server, within a 5-minute span. You can see I'm completely CPU-limited.

Now, just because the above results are so hard to believe, here are some more examples on a different level/server.

1280x720/1xAA/4xAF/medium/HBAO off
Min Max Avg
31 55 43.733

1680x1050/1xAA/4xAF/medium/HBAO off
Min Max Avg
34 68 46.233 (yes, higher than at 1280)

1920x1200/8xAA/16xAF/high/HBAO on
Min Max Avg
26 57 37.183

 

[hawtdawg]

Like i've already said, using BFBC2 as your example is not representative of 99% of games that are out there. It is the one game i've seen actually heat all 4 of my cores up. Merely turning on 8xAA for you turned the GPU into a major bottleneck.

My laptop had a 2.8ghz C2d that was clocked at 3.5ghz originally. Turning off crossfire makes a HUGE difference in framerates. If you are playing at 1920x1080 with high settings, unless you're playing one of 3 or 4 games that can genuinely tax a quad-core, you will not be bottlenecked by your CPU.

For almost all games, my current CPU is the same as a C2D. Every single game that I play, turning off crossfire will cut my framerate in half. This guy isn't in much of a different situation, he'll notice a MUCH bigger difference with dual 4890's than getting a new CPU.

 

[hawtdawg]

Here is a huge thing that Tomshardware did on the topic just 6 months or so ago.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/game-performance-bottleneck,2738.html

what was the final conclusion?

"The question of whether the CPU or GPU is most important is easily answered. If you don't have a multi-core CPU, then upgrade it. If you have a dual-core CPU at around 3 GHz, then invest your money into a graphics card, as most games are GPU-limited. This is not something that will change with new DirectX 11 games."

 

[timma]

upgrade to 6950 OC

 

[deimos3428]

For 4870 CF, I think your biggest concern would be heat/noise. Your P182 is presumably rather quiet right now...but it might not stay that way trying to cool two of these hot, noisy beasts.