Second 6950 worth it?

[MBrown]

I am going back and forth on this. Is it worth getting a second 6950 for $150 bucks rather than getting a 7950 or 7970? Also, would my PSU be enough? Rig in sig.

my monitor is 1920x1080 btw.

 

[Eureka]

You should be able to sell your 6950 for around 150, which if you put the money towards a second 6950 towards a single card, would net you a 7950.

It WILL be faster to have 2x 6950s, but you have a higher powerdraw (your tx650 should handle it, but near max), and worry about driver support. If you are looking for pure performance, the 6950s should eat the 7950 and 7970. You can always just do it now, sell both in a year or two for the next generation's top card.

That being said, do you even need to upgrade at all? 6950 2gb should max out any current game at 1080p while remaining playable. If you're not hitting a performance drop then just wait for next generation.

 

[raghu78]

You should be able to sell your 6950 for around 150, which if you put the money towards a second 6950 towards a single card, would net you a 7950.

It WILL be faster to have 2x 6950s, but you have a higher powerdraw (your tx650 should handle it, but near max), and worry about driver support. If you are looking for pure performance, the 6950s should eat the 7950 and 7970. You can always just do it now, sell both in a year or two for the next generation's top card.

That being said, do you even need to upgrade at all? 6950 2gb should max out any current game at 1080p while remaining playable. If you're not hitting a performance drop then just wait for next generation.

Wrong. HD 7950 overclocked will match HD 6950 CF with less power, heat and noise.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/Catalyst_12.11_Performance/5.html

BF3 1920 x 1200 4x AA

HD 6950 -35.9
HD 7970 Ghz - 78.9

thats more than 2x faster in one of the most popular DX11 games. CF scaling in best cases is 1.8x - 1.9x.

clock for clock HD 7950 is 3 - 5% slower than HD 7970. HD 7950 (1.1 Ghz) matches HD 7970 Ghz (1.05 Ghz)

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/HD_7950_Vapor-X/31.html

You can see HD 7950 (1135 Mhz) is faster than HD 7970 Ghz.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/Catalyst_12.11_Performance/23.html

Perf summary

HD 6950 - 65
HD 7970 Ghz - 117

Assuming 1.8x average scaling in all games (which is actually not realistic) HD 7970 Ghz and HD 7950(1.1 Ghz) will match HD 6950 CF.

OP sell your HD 6950. get a HD 7950 and overclock it. the value for your money is incredible. the game bundle is simply amazing.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814202006

 

[Durvelle27]

you didn't link any crossfire benches only singles as the HD 6990 outperforms the HD 7970 GHz

 

[wand3r3r]

I'd sell it and go 7950 TFIII and try OC it. Either way you'd end up with a considerably faster card then your 6950 for only ~$120 if you sell your card for $150.

Now that I think about it, with the "Never settle" bundle it's a no-brainer as you can sell the extra games if you don't want them.

With the 7950 you have an upgrade strategy too (buy another one cheap in a year), with the 6950 you don't.

I don't know if this is the good oc'er, otherwise the Twin Frozr is.
Sapphire $270 AR
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814202006

Twin frozr $305
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127667

 

[DrBoss]

I use to have two MSI R9650 Twin Frozr III's running in crossfire. Performance was excellent, however; screen tearing and micro-stutter eventually started to annoy me.

Also, games on release day are often not well optimized for multi-gpu setups. So i ended up having to wait a few days or weeks for patches to be released before the cards worked very well. Off the top of my head i had this issue with (Crysis 2, Skyrim, and Max Payne 3). When the Radeons work together, they worked very well and gave me great FPS. But as i mentioned above, micro-stutter became a nuisance over time.

A few months ago i sold the 6950's and purchased an MSI N670 Power Edition. It doesn't quite give me a the speed/fps that the crossfire setup did, but the single GPU solution is great because there is no micro-stutter and more often than not there are not driver issues the day new games a released.

Cheers

Edit:

As far as selling the GPU's, i sold one for $200 and one for $170 (4 or 5 months ago).

I also agree with the 'Never Settle' bundle comments. While i am very happy with my Nvidia N670, the AMD game bundle is crazy good.

And i highly recommend any MSI Twin Frozr gpu's. They are great coolers.

 

[moonbogg]

Buying a second card as a future upgrade is always a bad idea. Multi-GPU is only good for increased performance NOW, not later. When "later" arrives, better cards are available that offer almost the same performance as two older ones. If you can get a good deal on another 6950 then go for it. If you need to fork out too much, consider selling it and going for a single, newer card.

 

[MBrown]

You should be able to sell your 6950 for around 150, which if you put the money towards a second 6950 towards a single card, would net you a 7950.

It WILL be faster to have 2x 6950s, but you have a higher powerdraw (your tx650 should handle it, but near max), and worry about driver support. If you are looking for pure performance, the 6950s should eat the 7950 and 7970. You can always just do it now, sell both in a year or two for the next generation's top card.

That being said, do you even need to upgrade at all? 6950 2gb should max out any current game at 1080p while remaining playable. If you're not hitting a performance drop then just wait for next generation.

I don't like it when my games go lower than 60fps. Yeah my rig can play a lot of games maxed out, but I hate it when the frame rate goes from 70 to 50 to 60 to 40 and back up etc. The constant changes and dips in fps below 60fps is annoying. As a result a lot of games I do not max out.

 

[Durvelle27]

if you ask me i say CFX and then wait it out for the HD 8xxxx series

 

[RaistlinZ]

Why deal with CFX issues if you don't have to? I say sell your 6950, grab a 7950 and overclock it. Same performance as 2x6950 with much less power and heat.