replacing 7950 crossfire

[MuchTooSexy]

one of the cards in my 7950 crossfire setup seems to be going bad. would a single rx480 be able to do the job as well as my two old cards? or would i have to consider crossfire with two? or consider an nvidia of some sort?

i like to play shooters such as battlefield and titanfall at 5760x1080.

 

[HumblePie]

one of the cards in my 7950 crossfire setup seems to be going bad. would a single rx480 be able to do the job as well as my two old cards? or would i have to consider crossfire with two? or consider an nvidia of some sort?

i like to play shooters such as battlefield and titanfall at 5760x1080.

An RX480 is about 50% faster than a single 7950. That means crossfire 7950 are faster, slightly, than a single RX480.

A single 1080 is faster than crossfire 7950 though. Still a single 1080 is $500+ where as crossfire rx 480's can be purchased for under $400 for even the 8GB versions. If going the 4GB versions then the price can be under $300 for two if looking for the best deals.

It really depends on your budget and what you are wanting to put up with. Able to spend $500 on a new video card? Go for the 1080. If you can only muster around $400 or less then go for dual RX 480s. Unless you really want a single card then a 1070 which is also selling for under $400. However, crossfire RX 480's will be faster than a single 1070 for about the same price. Some people really hate multicard solutions due to extra heat, noise, and power draw. However, since you are currently using a multi card solution I don't think you have a sensitivity to those as much.

At higher resolutions the RX 480 are going to be more than a bit faster than 1060 cards, so I wouldn't bother with those.

I really think it boils down to either getting crossfire RX 480 or a single 1080 for you IMHO.

 

[MuchTooSexy]

since crossfire only uses the memory of the primary card, can i get a 8gb rx480 and crossfire that with a cheaper 4gb version?

 

[HumblePie]

since crossfire only uses the memory of the primary card, can i get a 8gb rx480 and crossfire that with a cheaper 4gb version?

I thought it used the memory of the lowest card. Because it replicates everything from one to the other. Meaning if you had an 8GB and a 4GB card only 4GB would be used.

EDIT, yah that's what the FAQ states.

http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/AMDCrossFireFAQ.aspx

So no point in buying to disparate card setups like that.

 

[HumblePie]

Still RX 480 8GB cards can be had for under $200 now as deals. Here is one now at newegg after rebate.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...-cables-_-na-_-na&Item=N82E16814202275&cm_sp=

There are other ones out there. Cheapest I've seen is like $175 I think. Couple of those make it a cheaper setup than any single 1070 deal I've seen so far for better performance overall than a single 1070 card. Still not every game does well with crossfire or even supports it (rare), and there is the extra pwoer draw and heat to deal with. Still if looking at it from a price versus performance standpoint the RX 40 8GB cards in crossfire are better than a single 1070 card.

However, 1080's have a new MSRP of $500 which is nor proliferating to all the major retailers. The 1080 is still significantly faster than crossfire RX 480s and the cost isn't that much more. Also it's a single card solution. There is also the case of both the new 1080Ti coming out and the rework of the 1080's coming out in the next few weeks too.

 

[Headfoot]

Don't crossfire again. It's not worth it. You will notice that a 480 will feel better than your 7950's ever did, just due to the frametime consistency and microstutter superiority of a single card set up. The only time its ever worth getting dual cards today is when you already have the fastest single card. Otherwise, get a faster single card.

 

[HumblePie]

Don't crossfire again. It's not worth it. You will notice that a 480 will feel better than your 7950's ever did, just due to the frametime consistency and microstutter superiority of a single card set up. The only time its ever worth getting dual cards today is when you already have the fastest single card. Otherwise, get a faster single card.

Micro stutter is overblown. Used both multi card and single card setups. The only time you'll experience micro stutter is when the GPU's starting chugging at 45 fps or lower. Although the game stats 45 FPS, it will then feel like under 30 at times because of the stutter. If over 100 fps, you won't notice any micro stutter at all. A frame delay at those speeds aren't noticeable at all to the human brain/eye. Might as well try to say you can watch a photon move across the room. Even then, chances of a frame delay at high FPS in a game already is fairly rare as both card buffers are ready to go so there shouldn't be any stutter. Claims of micro stutter are way over blown. If you are experiencing micro stutter you need to adjust some visual settings in the game to increase the FPS up to a point where it goes away.

That being said, the extra heat, noise, and power draw are all bigger factors than micro stutter when it comes to multi card setups.

 

[Headfoot]

I've got 2 cards and its garbage. More than half the time the second card doesn't work, when it does it doesn't feel the same as a fast single card. Even with 290's which have the best scaling and best crossfire method. There's a weird lurching feeling that happens with dual cards at less than vsync/fps cap in some games. Very distracting.

2 cards is 100%, absolutely not worth it if there are faster single cards.

 

[MuchTooSexy]

isn't the rx 480 AMD's fastest single card? (I'm not against nvidia stuff, but was contemplating the possibilities when sticking with AMD.)

 

[Bacon1]

The Fury is faster, and often around $250 or under in the US and sometimes in Europe as well.

However at this point with Vega coming so soon, I'd say either get a 480 8gb for $170ish, 480/470 4gb for $130ish or wait for Vega if you want more perf. Vega is 2 gen newer than Fury and one newer than 470/480 so will be quite a big leap in perf. Sounds like Polaris is also getting rebranded / re-released as 500 series and will probably have new memory or something.