2 x Radeon HD 7850 vs 1 Radeon HD 7950

[KagePande]

I'm currently going to be upgrading my graphic cards from 2 x GTX 550ti(SLI) to radeon. I am a massive gamer, graphic artist and programmer. Ill be keeping my 550's in my computer to run my extra monitors but they will not be SLI.

I want to know what would be best for my current specs:

CPU: AMD Phenom II X6 1100T
Motherboard: GA-990FXA-UD3
Ram: 32GB
OS: Win8 Pro

So for these specs, would a single 7950 do better or would my CPU bottleneck having 2 7850?

EDIT: I will also be upgrading my CPU to a 8-core 4-4.2ghz in late April, if this matters.

Thank you for any help.

 

[Supercrit]

On CPU intensive games(even Far Cry 3 for that matter) the CPU will bottleneck either setup. If you get the new 8 core it will be fine, but make sure it's the new piledriver architecture.

 

[KagePande]

On CPU intensive games(even Far Cry 3 for that matter) the CPU will bottleneck either setup. If you get the new 8 core it will be fine, but make sure it's the new piledriver architecture.

So saying that I have the 8 core, is it better to do for the single 7950 or crossfire the 7850s?

 

[Supercrit]

7850 X-fire will be faster, but it could suffer inconsistencies like micro stuttering or driver problems with new games, if you have confidence in drivers go for the dual, single 7950 for safer bet.

 

[goldsauce]

get a single 7950 because my experience with 7850 crossfire was horrible but I am just sharing my opinion I'm not stopping you from anything.

 

[KagePande]

get a single 7950 because my experience with 7850 crossfire was horrible but I am just sharing my opinion I'm not stopping you from anything.

If you don't mind me asking, what was the issue. I did SLI on the 550ti's because I had never done it before, but I never really felt like I was getting much benefit from it.

 

[goldsauce]

If you don't mind me asking, what was the issue. I did SLI on the 550ti's because I had never done it before, but I never really felt like I was getting much benefit from it.

With many games I would get lower FPS and less smooth with the 7850s in crossfire whereas when I took out one 7850 I would get nice smooth high FPS and many people thought my CPU was just a bottleneck so then I tried putting my brothers 7970 in my rig and the FPS was crazy high so it wasn't really a CPU bottleneck and the whole thing just became a huge headache.

 

[KagePande]

Best answer selected by KagePande.

 

[tabascosauz]

SLI is good for high end GPUs, but if you do it with the likes of 7750, 7770, 7850, GTX 650, 650 ti
microstutter might be a huge issue. For the money that you would spend it would be much better
to get a single higher performance card.

 

[goldsauce]

SLI is good for high end GPUs, but if you do it with the likes of 7750, 7770, 7850, GTX 650, 650 ti
microstutter might be a huge issue. For the money that you would spend it would be much better
to get a single higher performance card.

If you are trying to say the 7850 is a low end card then you are mistaken it beats the 6950 and with a small overclock it reaches the speed of a 7870.

 

[Derza10]

its a mid card.. hints not high end... he never said it was low end.