Moving from 2 cards back to 1. A bit lost.

[Elcs]

Due to some interesting circumstances I came to acquire a second 1 Gb HD6870 and I have been running two of these nice cards in CrossfireX (x8/x8) configuration for about 6 months now.

It's been quite an experiment and my first taste of a multiple graphics card setup since I played around with a few 8mb Matrox? 2D cards and 2 x 16mb Voodoo2 cards in old style SLI. Whilst it's been fun I want to sell off these cards and get something roughly as powerful (give or take) for the funds I reap from the sale. I'm also playing games more often in a Windowed environment. Not much of an issue except CrossfireX only works in full screen.

Now as I'm based in the UK, it's quite a bit more difficult to work out the money thing because what would be viable over there wouldn't be viable over here.

My system:
Intel i5 2500k (3.3ghz but can go up to 4.6ghz if/when I need to overclock)
2x4Gb DDR3 RAM 1600mhz
2 x AMD HD6870's in CrossfireX
120Gb SSD
2x 500Gb HDD's in RAID0
2TB HDD for storage

Looking at the prices of new cards, I could afford an AMD 7950 3Gb 800mhz core (£220) or an Nvidia 660 Ti 2Gb 915mhz core(£200). The 7950 hits my upper limits as far as budget goes, assuming a certain recoup value from my pair of HD6870's and adding funds as necessary. These are both the cheapest cards of their type that I can find in my searching.

Personally, I have no preference whether I go AMD or Nvidia. I go for the one with the best performance to suit my budget at the time. They've both given me an equal share of ups and downs over the years, no bias from me.

I game at 1920x1080, usually high flavourings of AA and Medium/High options. An ecclectic mix of 4X games, Indie games, FPS and RTS... ranging from ASCII games to stuff in CryEngine3 and other modern games and game engines.

Anyone have any input here? Part of me thinks I'm quite mad but another side sees the benefits. I'm partly leaning towards the 7950 at this point in time though I admit, I have found trawling through GPU benchmarks and reviews quite a difficult and confusing slog, when usually I have no issues with such things.

 

[Revolution 11]

Is there much benefit from moving from 6870 Crossfire to a 7850 GPU? I would not bother wasting the money unless there is a game you really want to play and can't get the desired performance at the desired settings. Save the money otherwise and wait for the next generation of GPUs before buying, even if they are a evolutionary iteration.

 

[Durvelle27]

Is there much benefit from moving from 6870 Crossfire to a 7850 GPU? I would not bother wasting the money unless there is a game you really want to play and can't get the desired performance at the desired settings. Save the money otherwise and wait for the next generation of GPUs before buying, even if they are a evolutionary iteration.

were did you get a HD 7850 from. He said HD 7950

 

[aaksheytalwar]

a 7950 oc is a decent upgrade

 

[Eureka]

7950 blows the 660 Ti away. 660 Ti, unless gotten for very little more than a 660, has really little purpose. At minimum the comparison would be 7950 vs 670.

If you can't find a 670 within your budget, the 7950 is the only choice, far better than a 660 Ti/7870 and better than your 6870 xfire.

That being said, are your 6870s giving you problems? If not, it may not be worth it to get rid of them just yet. 8000 series around the corner, but then those will be more expensive to start with and your 6870s won't be worth as much.

 

[Termie]

I went from 5850 crossfire to a 670, and the upgrade was nice but not dramatic, as in 0 to 25%. With driver updates and new games using more dx11 features, the difference would probably be larger now. But if you are on a budget, which it seems you are, I don't think the cards you mentioned are worthwhile investments. A stock 7950 would probably lose to your system in a handful of games.

The only reason for you to upgrade is windowed gaming, in my opinion. In that case, just get the cheapest option, which for you is the 660Ti.

 

[raghu78]

sapphire HD 7950 boost for £225 . without the game bundle

http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/12844795/art/sapphire-technology/radeon-hd-7950-boost-3-gb.html

ebuyer has the same card with the never settle game bundle. Farcry 3 , Hitman Absolution and Sleeping Dogs. excellent games. definitely worth spending £20 over your budget. if you don't want the games you can sell it easily for £60.

http://www.ebuyer.com/399212-sapphi...-mini-displayport-pci-e-graphics-11196-16-20g

 

[Elcs]

sapphire HD 7950 boost

I've heard about this 'boost'. What is it?

This is the 7950 I've spotted for £220.

 

[raghu78]

I went from 5850 crossfire to a 670, and the upgrade was nice but not dramatic, as in 0 to 25%. With driver updates and new games using more dx11 features, the difference would probably be larger now. But if you are on a budget, which it seems you are, I don't think the cards you mentioned are worthwhile investments. A stock 7950 would probably lose to your system in a handful of games.

The only reason for you to upgrade is windowed gaming, in my opinion. In that case, just get the cheapest option, which for you is the 660Ti.

the HD 7950 boost is a good improvement from HD 6870 CF. It gives you consistent performance without any multi GPU issues. also the HD 5800 cards MSAA performance in deferred rendering engines like Frostbite 2 (BF3, MOH Warfighter) and Dunia 2 (Farcry 3) is poor. the HD 5800 cards also have poor tesselation and compute performance. so in modern DX11 games the HD 7950 boost will show a big improvement.

http://gamegpu.ru/action-/-fps-/-tps/battlefield-3-aftermath-test-gpu.html

VHQ 1920 X 1200

HD 7970 Ghz - 72
HD 7970 - 63
HD 7950 (800) - 55
HD 6870 - 23

HD 7950 boost (925 mhz) should perform around 60 - 61 fps. at the same clocks HD 7950 is 3 - 5% slower than HD 7970. CF scaling is around 1.8x in best cases. you should get (23 x 1.8 = 41.4 fps) with HD 6870 CF. so even then its a huge improvement. HD 7950 boost cards easily run at 1100 - 1150 mhz and match HD 7970 Ghz performance.

also the 1GB VRAM on HD 6870 is not enough for ultra 4x MSAA . you run out of VRAM and get horrible stuttering. users who have moved from HD 6950 CF to HD 7950 boost have commented that the performance was better. most importantly it was consistent and smoother.

 

[raghu78]

I've heard about this 'boost'. What is it?

the HD 7950 boost is a newer version of the HD 7950 launched in Aug. it runs at 850 mhz core with a boost of 925 mhz. if you max out power control to +20% you will run consistently at 925 mhz out of the box. at stock settings of power control at 0% the chip can fluctuate between 850 and 925 mhz depending on TDP availability. comes with a stock voltage of 1.25v and can easily overclock to 1100 - 1150 mhz at stock voltage.

here is a HD 7950 boost review with a 950 mhz boost.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/HD_7950_X2_Boost/28.html

HD 7950 iceq boost - 100
GTX 670 - 101
HD 7970 - 106

with power control maxed out this card will do slightly better and will be 3-4% slower than HD 7970.

here is a couple of reviews of the HD 7950 boost (925 mhz)

http://www.techspot.com/review/603-best-graphics-cards/page12.html

"At 1920x1200 the GeForce GTX 670 is 12% faster than the Radeon HD 7950 and just 2% faster than the 7950 Boost. However the GTX 670 is 27% more expensive than both cards, so whichever way you slice it the Radeon HD 7950 Boost is the better proposition and things just get worse for the GTX 670 as the resolution is increased."

http://hardocp.com/article/2012/11/12/fall_2012_gpu_driver_comparison_roundup/8

"Middle pricing band – This pricing band was far less competitive as the Radeon HD 7950 with Boost simply demolished the GTX 660 Ti across the board with regards to raw frame rates and overall game play experience across our suite of testing. "

 

[Elcs]

the HD 7950 boost is a newer version of the HD 7950 launched in Aug. it runs at 850 mhz core with a boost of 925 mhz. if you max out power control to +20% you will run consistently at 925 mhz out of the box. at stock settings of power control at 0% the chip can fluctuate between 850 and 925 mhz depending on TDP availability. comes with a stock voltage of 1.25v and can easily overclock to 1100 - 1150 mhz at stock voltage.
"

So... just a simple overclock or new BIOS which does some overclocking or is it a bit more sophisticated than that? Something worth making darn sure any card I purchase has?

 

[3DVagabond]

"Boost" is just marketing. nVidia has boost, AMD felt the need to have boost as well. Once you O/C, which you really should with a 7950, boost goes out the window.

 

[Elcs]

XFX Double D (800mhz core) - £218
Gigabyte Windforce3 OC (900mhz core) - £235

Both come with the same 4 free games package.

Sapphire (810mhz? core) - £205 without free games package.