2 x radeon HD 7850 or 1 x radeon HD 7950?

ericjr85

Honorable
Nov 18, 2012
13
0
10,510
I am building a gaming rig and was wondering if i should run:

2 x

XFX Core Edition FX-785A-ZNFC Radeon HD 7850 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card
Item #: N82E16814150617
-$10.00 Instant
$20.00 Mail-in Rebate Card
$359.98
$339.98
($169.99 each)

or

1 x

XFX FX-795A-TNFC Radeon HD 7950 Core Edition 3GB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card
Item #: N82E16814150590
$30.00 Mail-in Rebate Card
$314.99


I am getting an AMD phenom II x4 965 BE

also how much RAM do you think I need. 8GB or more?

Please help. Thanks!
 
Hi Eric! Before I can suggest a graphics solution for you, can you tell us what kind of PSU you have? Without a strong enough PSU running two 7850s will be impossible.

For gaming purposes 8 GB will be fine.
 
thanks for the input guys. Are there any alternative graphics cards in the $300 price range that are better?

Also would it be better to get an intel i5 2500k and a less expensive graphics card?
 
The 7950 is great at that price point, with the 660 TI falling short due to its smaller memory bandwidth. I would not suggest a CPU upgrade, because it would cost over 300 dollars at this point in time to get a 2500/3570k and a motherboard. Your CPU will be fine for most games.
 

That would cost way more though.


You could get something in-between on the CPU front, like an Intel Core i3-3220 or AMD FX 6300, with eg. a Radeon HD 7870 (which isn't far behind the 7950). Graphics is generally more important than CPU in gaming, but it's nice to have a little more CPU for long-term upgradeability (since you can easily upgrade the graphics card, but not always the CPU).
 
Your CPU is fine for a single card setup.
With the 2500k/3570k you could run a single 7850 for now, which will be sufficient to game, then buy a second 7850 for xfire later on. Sometimes getting a solid foundation like the best platform for sli or xfire is more important because you would have been bottlenecked by the 965 and the 7850x2
 

In 2-3 years, Broadwell will most certainly be out. Hence why I don't suggest a CPU upgrade immediately. Save the money for later and upgrade when your money is worth more.
 


He says he is getting that CPU not that he has it, If you don't have a CPU/Mobo right now - get an i5 or a amd 6300 or 8350
 

Last post was meant to have this one quoted not Flint's :)
 

He's not upgrading, he's buying a fresh system. Upgrading the CPU now doesn't pose extra costs whereas upgrading in 2-3 years will add a motherboard upgrade to the bill, plus a new Windows license if he's gone OEM (not supposed to, but it wouldn't be the first time).
 
It's not a huge deal @1920x1080, but if you want to game at higher resolutions in the future, you'll need a card(s) with more than 1gb of RAM. If that's your plan, I'd reccommend either the 3gb 7950, or a pair of 2gb 7850's (or a single one for now if you can't afford both)

good luck!
 
It's never worth it to go for SLI right off the bat vs a single more expensive card. (unless you're going balls out with like SLI/CFX 7970 ghz edition or gtx 680s lol)

And that 1GB vram is going to be the bottleneck of your system on day one if you're trying to play at 1080p resolution.
 

Makes sense, I stand corrected!
 
yeah I would not be buying a 965be for a gaming rig this day 2012, it was and still is a great chip (i have a 955be) but for the money these days you should go intel imho I even saw microcenter with a 2500k deal for 129 or something, great deal imo..

I wouldnt run CFX SLI on an am3(+) platform, the cpu simply cannot handle the overhead of 2 gpus imho (see sig)