2x HD7950 vs Titan

Kkkk1

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Guys,
I'm after a new GPU. I can't afford a Titan but for around £500.00 as opposed to £850.00 do you think the HD7950 in XFire would be similar performance? My specs are Core i7 920 @ 3.6Ghz, 12Gb DDR3 1450Mhz, Corsair 1000W PSU, and I usually game at 1080P gaming resolution although I do sometimes combine with my 22" monitor at 3570 x 1050 when my HD5970 allows?

Any suggestions will be greatly received.
 

gridironcj

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If you're going to stick with 1920x1080, go and get a pair of those 7950s. They're certainly not future proof by any means if you plan on playing with the highest game settings and low AA. You get what you pay for in the end.
 

gridironcj

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The Titan is useless? Perhaps for low resolutions. You'll need more than 1 Titan for high AA and max settings on 2560x1440 or more. I have 2 Titans and I'm getting about 50FPS on Crysis 3 with MSAA x8 and max settings on 2560x1440.



 

Bromeh

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He's playing at 1080p and i don't think 1080p is a low resolution since it's the hd standard these days. If your only matter is to play a game at maxed out settings, then yeah take 4 titans and enjoy wasting your money.


- The Brownie
 

gridironcj

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1920x1080 is the "HD standard" as proposed by the same people who consider console gaming the standard entry into gaming. It costs more to film movies at higher resolutions and TV shows run at 720p (as well as console games), which all constitute as the mainstream in display usage. The higher resolutions favor high-end PC gaming and tasks. It's more expensive for everyone and that's why it's not in your mainstream world. Why do we play on PC instead of playing on extremely inexpensive consoles that run most of the same games? The hardware on a PC can run those games with significantly more dynamics (graphics, AI, processes, etc). Thus, your jab is essentially the same as console gamers who call PC gaming a big waste of money.
 

mace200200

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Part of the reason I play PC games is because I like computers (you only need so much power to make play thing programs), the other half is because for example I got just cause 2 yesterday, it cost me a whole $3. It was $25 used at gamestop on xbox last I checked.
Any way the titan is just like the 690, the 590, the 7990 and the 6990, you don't need that much, cards that cost half as much will play the game just as well. I guess they make them partly so they can try and have the most powerful card money can buy for a while. Otherwise all your really getting from them is bragging rights. Will two 7950's be as good? No, most games don't handle crossfire as well as one single card, but, when you get to that point it doesn't even matter any more, you have more power than you'll need for a long time.
 

Bromeh

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Let me clarify myself.

In PC GAMING, 1080p is a standard, which means that someone playing on PC is most likely to have a 1080p screen.

Did i say that PC gaming is a waste of money ? No, i said that the Titan was a waste of money. The 690 is better in Price/Performance. I built a PC because i wanted my games to run better, smoother and that's why i am not a console gamer anymore. Keep in mind that not everyone can spend 3k on a gaming PC, even 1k looks a lot for a bunch of people.


- The Brownie
 

Kkkk1

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Wow that's a lot of controversy but i'm still stuck. The HD7950 is good especially in XFire but in light of the posts above (i'm running an HD5970 but only get microsutter in recent games) I can't wait for long, only a couple of months for a GPU as the money I have I need to spend NOW or the NEXT 8 WEEKS! With a roughly £500.00 budget what's my best option??????
I'm so confused.....
 
If you don't use a FPS limiter or v-sync, crossfire has issues, so take that in advisement, depending on how you play:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/graphics-card-benchmarking-frame-rate,3466.html
http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Frame-Rating-Dissected-Full-Details-Capture-based-Graphics-Performance-Tes-10

Titan's biggest advantage isn't FPS, it is latency. SLI and Crossfire do not improve latency, as each frame rendered takes just as long to make as with a single card, they just alternate frames between the cards, so there are more frames, which makes things look smoother. At least that is how it is supposed to work, but not always as those articles reveal when it comes to crossfire mostly.

Now, since latency is determined how long it takes for a mouse action to translate into a picture on the screen, the single GPU that can render the fastest image, will have the lowest latency. That is the Titan. As long as you have enough FPS to be smooth, low latency makes things feel responsive, so theoretically, and as Titan users profess, Titan's can give you more responsive game play.

Now, is that worth the cost? I don't know. I do not think it will help in 3D either, as each frame requires two images, so the Titan would have to create two images in the same time two a little bit slower GPU's can each create 1 image.
 

mace200200

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Aah, I was under the impression that you already had a single 7950, I'm not sure how your currency translates to USD, but I would recommend you buy the best single card you can, wither thats a 680, 7970 GHz editon, 7950 or a 670. Pretty much in that order.
A 680 vs 7970 GHz edition, pretty much comes down to if you want to go with AMD or Nvidia.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/618?vs=555
 

gridironcj

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You left console gaming because you wanted your games to run better and smoother? That's precisely why people are buying Titans. Your leap from console gaming to PC gaming took you from 720p to 1080p, in terms of resolution. The next jump is essentially to 1440p, which will require the use of GPUs with over 2GB of vram. Thus, the Titan is not useless, as you claimed previously. Getting a 690 would actually be a stupid move if you're aiming for 2560x1440 or more, considering it's limited to only 2GB of vram. Also, on newer games on higher resolutions, the Titan is coming ahead of the 690 in benchmarks. The drivers are only going to improve the Titan's performance as well, just like they did with the 680, which some people claimed was a piece of crap at first but now significantly outperforms its predecessor, the 580. Also, suppose you want to boost your performance and get another 690, well that's the limit because it's an SLI card. You're limited to 2 GTX 690s, whereas you can have a total of 4 Titans. Thus, upgrading via adding more cards is more future proof with the Titan.

Price/Performance isn't everything. There are so many other factors to consider and if you narrowly choose your cards based off of one number, then you're narrow-minded. I just gave you some solid reasons as to why the Titan is a better choice for most people willing to spend over $1,000 on graphics alone. If I were all about price/performance, then getting 4x 660ti's would be the "correct" choice, which is absolutely silly considering you're limited to 1920x1080 gaming because you only have 2GB of vram. Also, your expansion ability is already gone since you're at max SLI.
 
People blow the 2GB thing out of proportion. 2Gb is more than enough for 1440p, 1600p and even 5760x1080p. However, if you use high levels of AA, then you run into problems, but you can't really get the needed horse power for those settings unless you are doing 3-way SLI/CF, and lets be honest, more than 4x MSAA isn't needed, as it sucks performance and is almost indistinguishable from anything higher...unless that is a form of SSAA, but again, that's too demanding at those resolutions anyways.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/crysis-3-performance-benchmark-gaming,3451-7.html

That is about the most VRAM hogging game currently. Unless you mod the heck out of Skyrim.
 
Either solution is probably going to struggle at displaying on both your 1080p and the 3570x1050 screen...
But assuming you are only going to game on one monitor, two 7950 in crossfire should outperform a Titan.

Bear in mind that if you choose to crossfire over a single Titan, upgrading your graphics setup in the future is going to be very costly, because there is no crossfire solution (at least I think for now) that can beat the performance and cost-effectiveness of Titans in SLI