HD6870 CF to 7950 CF? Good upgrade for Q9550?

[VirtualLarry]

Just toying with the idea of upgrading my BIL's PC. Last time I saw it, it had a Q9550 @ 3.5, and a pair of HD6870 cards in Crossfire.

Now that the price of a 7950 has dropped below the original cost of the 6870 cards, I figured it was time for an upgrade.

First of all, will those cards show any improvement, or will they be severely bottlenecked? He uses a 1080P monitor.

Second, does the upgrade make sense?

He has a 750 Antec TruePower New PSU, which is very high-quality.

So, what are the cheapest / best 7950 cards to get? There's an HIS IceQ for $220 no-rebate. (I'm trying to avoid rebates.)

I think that it is unlikely that he will want to overclock the GPUs.

Oh, are the 7950 "Boost" versions, better or worse than the regular 7950 versions?

 

[dragantoe]

Just toying with the idea of upgrading my BIL's PC. Last time I saw it, it had a Q9550 @ 3.5, and a pair of HD6870 cards in Crossfire.

Now that the price of a 7950 has dropped below the original cost of the 6870 cards, I figured it was time for an upgrade.

First of all, will those cards show any improvement, or will they be severely bottlenecked? He uses a 1080P monitor.

Second, does the upgrade make sense?

He has a 750 Antec TruePower New PSU, which is very high-quality.

So, what are the cheapest / best 7950 cards to get? There's an HIS IceQ for $220 no-rebate. (I'm trying to avoid rebates.)

I think that it is unlikely that he will want to overclock the GPUs.

Oh, are the 7950 "Boost" versions, better or worse than the regular 7950 versions?

I'm pretty sure he's bottlenecked as it is, a single 7950 is worthwhile upgrade from cf 6870's, but he'd probably see a bigger difference in getting an i5 instead of new gpus

 

[Smartazz]

I had a 3.3GHz Q6600 and that bottlenecked a 6870. I can't imagine Crossfire 7950s even if the Q9550 is faster.

 

[toyota]

I had a 3.3GHz Q6600 and that bottlenecked a 6870. I can't imagine Crossfire 7950s even if the Q9550 is faster.

that is well beyond exaggeration.

that said, no way would I go 7950 crossfire with a Q9550 at 1080.

 

[raghu78]

OP a single HD 7950 boost is an upgrade over HD 6870 CF. sell the HD 6870 cards for USD 80 - 90 each. grab the sapphire HD 7950 when its back in stock.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814202026

in the latest DX11 games like Crysis 3, BF3, Tombraider HD 7950 at 1100 - 1150 mhz is on par with HD 6950 CF. HD 7950(1125 mhz) = HD 7970 ghz. thats an average overclock which you can hit easily.

HD 7950(1150 mhz) at 1080p
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/07/02/msi_n760_tf_2gd5oc_gtx_760_overclocking_review/5

also no HD 7950 CF for the current CPU. for that you need a core i5 3570k / 4670k running at 4.5 ghz.

 

[VirtualLarry]

If he would be bottlenecked with a Q9550 @ 3.5, and 7950 CF... couldn't he then run higher AA modes, at no additional (performance) cost?

 

[T_Yamamoto]

If he would be bottlenecked with a Q9550 @ 3.5, and 7950 CF... couldn't he then run higher AA modes, at no additional (performance) cost?

Yes, that's my understanding.

 

[Yuriman]

My vote is for a platform upgrade, unless he's running a very high resolution or Eyefinity.

My wife's overclocked Q6600 PC had HD4870 CF which I sold and swapped out for a single Gigabyte HD7850, the same card as is in my Ivy Bridge rig. While her CPU still provides an adequate gaming experience, there are times when my framerate is double hers. AA is practically free at 1920x1200 with the 7850 in most games already.

A single HD7950 is 30-40% faster than a 7850 so you're looking at 2.5x+ the GPU power paired with a CPU that in some games already cuts the framerate in half with a 7850.

 

[Termie]

As others haves stated, that CPU will bottleneck a single 7950, and may already be bottlenecking the dual 6870s.

But the question no one has asked yet is: why upgrade at all? It seems your only reason for doing so is that 7950s are cheap. Does your BIL say he needs something new?

 

[VirtualLarry]

As others haves stated, that CPU will bottleneck a single 7950, and may already be bottlenecking the dual 6870s.

Noted.

But the question no one has asked yet is: why upgrade at all? It seems your only reason for doing so is that 7950s are cheap. Does your BIL say he needs something new?

No, I just thought I could do something nice for him. I thought that modern games might start bogging down with only HD6870 CF, and only 1GB of effective VRAM.

Plus, there's the power-consumption and the heat from CF.

 

[toyota]

there is no real point in more than a single 7950 for that system at 1080. even a 7950 will be held back quite a bit in some games.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

I'd personally upgrade platforms first. He may be able to pull some FPS out of those cards.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I'd personally upgrade platforms first. He may be able to pull some FPS out of those cards.

Hmm, more $$$. The point of the upgrade, was that 7950 card prices have very nearly bottomed out, due to the impending release of new cards.

Haswell rigs, on the other hand, have a price premium because they are new.

At least, I have a Microcenter less than an hour away.

Let's talk hypothetical platform upgrade then. How much are 4770K combos at MC? Or should I wait for IB-E, if it is going to have 32+ lanes of PCI-E 3.0? Is there going to be an X99 chipset soon for IB-E? I would appreciate chipset platform parity from Intel, if I'm going to spend on their Premiere enthusiast platform.

 

[toyota]

its silly to put off a platform upgrade as Intel mainstream cpu prices dont go anywhere anyway. a year from now they will be the same price. and right now you will pay basically the same price for Ivy as you would for Haswell.

 

[VirtualLarry]

its silly to put off a platform upgrade as Intel mainstream cpu prices dont go anywhere anyway. a year from now they will be the same price. and right now you will pay basically the same price for Ivy as you would for Haswell.

Well, I got the Q9550 on clearance at MC, forgot what I paid, but it wasn't $300, that's for certain. The X48 board I got from Newegg for $180, with free 4GB of DDR2. So buying last-gen platforms does have its savings.

Is there going to be any IB-E six-core, overclockable, for $300 and under?

What about one of those $100 six-core 1366 Xeons? Heard that they didn't clock so high for gaming.

Edit: Here's the processor + mobo bundles at MC.
http://www.microcenter.com/site/brands/intel-processor-bundles.aspx
I can get a 4670K and an MSI CF-capable mobo for ~$255. Not bad at all.

 

[toyota]

Well, I got the Q9550 on clearance at MC, forgot what I paid, but it wasn't $300, that's for certain. The X48 board I got from Newegg for $180, with free 4GB of DDR2. So buying last-gen platforms does have its savings.

Is there going to be any IB-E six-core, overclockable, for $300 and under?

What about one of those $100 six-core 1366 Xeons? Heard that they didn't clock so high for gaming.

you might see a rare deal here and there but again prices change little to none at all and the products are slowly phased out. there have already been some Haswell deals that will likely never be beat by much even when its replaced. and the vast majority of people do not have a MC near bye.

 

[nsafreak]

If you want to cut down the amount of juice that he's using along with the amount of heat I'd go with a single 7950 TBH, it'd still be a decent upgrade although it might be bottlenecked by the CPU. If you really don't want to do a platform upgrade for him you might want to consider another upgrade or two. Namely if he doesn't already have a SSD then you might want to think about getting one of those for him. It'll be an improvement that he'll definitely notice and 256GB are very reasonably priced nowadays.

 

[Termie]

Noted.

No, I just thought I could do something nice for him. I thought that modern games might start bogging down with only HD6870 CF, and only 1GB of effective VRAM.

Plus, there's the power-consumption and the heat from CF.

The only reason would be for the VRAM, but in that case, just get one 7950. As for power use with CF...

If you want to cut down the amount of juice that he's using along with the amount of heat I'd go with a single 7950 TBH, it'd still be a decent upgrade although it might be bottlenecked by the CPU. If you really don't want to do a platform upgrade for him you might want to consider another upgrade or two. Namely if he doesn't already have a SSD then you might want to think about getting one of those for him. It'll be an improvement that he'll definitely notice and 256GB are very reasonably priced nowadays.

Exactly. And keep in mind that two 7950s use more power than two 6870s. I'd estimate he's pulling 400W at load on his current system. Two 7950s would pull 450W on the same system.

 

[raghu78]

Noted.
No, I just thought I could do something nice for him. I thought that modern games might start bogging down with only HD6870 CF, and only 1GB of effective VRAM. Plus, there's the power-consumption and the heat from CF.

correct. 1GB already does bottleneck. BF3 at Ultra 4x MSAA will run out of VRAM on HD 6870 1GB CF. so even with GPU power you cannot run the highest settings. also an average clocking HD 7950 at 1150 - 1200 mhz is 2x perf of HD 6970 in the latest DX11 games. so its a significant jump in performance

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/HD_7950_X2_Boost/8.html
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/HD_7950_X2_Boost/31.html

BF3 1920 x1200 4x AA
HIS HD 7950(1210 mhz) - 82.9
HD 7970 Ghz - 78.9
HIS HD 7950 iceq x2(950 mhz) - 67.5
HD 6970 - 40.3

 

[psolord]

Being a Q9550@4Ghz owner, I can confirm that although it still stands it's ground, games often find themselves fairly cpu limited (and that's with my 5850 CFX solution) and the percentage of them being cpu limited keeps growing.

Again as a 7950 CFX owner for 1080P gaming, I can attest that they are a bit on the overkill side. So far I've used CFX for like 5 games. Everything else runs fine with one card (60fps framerate target).

So I believe that the best course of action would be to get one 7950, test your BIL's favorite games without vsync to see how they run and if you are getting low framerates, check your gpu usage with MSI Afterburner and if it's too low, then you need a new platform, easily obtained from the money you saved from not buying two 7950s in the first place.