Buying another 7850 (crossfire) need help!

[easyfame]

Ok tom's I have an issue for you guys.

Basically 8 months ago I bought my first gaming rig and love every second of it. Since I was being cheap I thought saving 400 bucks cutting a few corners was a good idea. I was wrong. I fell in love with eyefinity and bought three decent dell's for a total of 4800x1200. Now my single 7850 2gb struggles at decent quality and I think its time to bite the bullet and get the rig I was wanting in the first place.

I figured I would upgrade my motherboard, psu, and get another 7850 2gb edition. I read that crossfire really helps the performance of multi monitor displays, which is what I really need. When it's all said and done ill probably be spending 200 dollars on this upgrade (after selling my current stuff, rebates etc)

Id be switching my 500w psu to a 650 corsair gold efficiency
My B75M-D3V for a asus z77 with crossfire support
and adding another sapphire 7850 2gb edition

Is this all a good idea based on the information I gave you? I know people don't like crossfire but I feel like I won't be wasting my current 7850 and will have plenty of solid future proofing with my planned upgrades (my current cpu is i3 2120).

Would you guys pull the trigger? Am I being to unreasonable? If you need more info PLEASE ask.

UPDATE!!!!!!
Ok so this is an old thread but I recently upgraded my system. I have a 850w gold PSU, 3750k, extreme4 z77 and my trusty old 7850. STILL debating whether to get the 7970 or crossfire. Here is my current reasoning:

Since it is known that 7850 crossfire doesn't do well with older tiles, wouldn't it work out in the sense that a single 7850 could handle all the 2010~ games maxed out. While the Crossfire'd 7850's could handle the AAA titles(BF3 FC3, Crysis)

 

[iam2thecrowe]

no. 7850 crossfire is not good, crossfire is only good for high end cards, even then it doesnt work well in all games, stuttering, skipped frames, fps drops. For that resolution many people would be looking at 2 x gtx 680's or 7970's to get good fps. a single gtx680 or 7970 with 3gbvram+ would be minimum for that res to get good fps. crossfire 7850's will only leave you disappointed.

 

[easyfame]

so would I keep my current setup and just get a new gpu?

EDIT:
Could also tell me why this benchmark tells me otherwise? http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7BeKb9M5zV0

 

[easyfame]

Can I get some more advice? I've read that 13.1 and 13.2 beta has helped crossfire performance and amd is starting to hone in one these more problems in the future.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

ill look at the vid when i can, but benchmarks dont show the problems that come with crossfire. All it takes is one game that you really want to run to not support crossfire very well and your down to the power of a single card, experience random FPS drops, microstuttering etc. the average fps may still be high, but it doesnt show the dips and bumps in the fps as you play. a good read is an article here http://techreport.com/review/22890/nvidia-geforce-gtx-690-graphics-card/5 , although not regarding the 7850 but the 7970 crossfire. framer with the 2 cards. latency actually gets worse (more stuttering) with 2 cards than a single card although average fps is high, this is also depending on the game and AMD's support of drivers.

 

[easyfame]

ill look at the vid when i can, but benchmarks dont show the problems that come with crossfire. All it takes is one game that you really want to run to not support crossfire very well and your down to the power of a single card, experience random FPS drops, microstuttering etc. the average fps may still be high, but it doesnt show the dips and bumps in the fps as you play. a good read is an article here http://techreport.com/review/22890/nvidia-geforce-gtx-690-graphics-card/5 , although not regarding the 7850 but the 7970 crossfire. framer with the 2 cards. latency actually gets worse (more stuttering) with 2 cards than a single card although average fps is high, this is also depending on the game and AMD's support of drivers.

I understand it's just right now I'd rather spend 400 on upgrading my system (mobo,psu, 7850) then spending 400 on a 7970 and keeping my low end budget stuff.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

well if you have 3 monitors you want to run in eyefinity you would be better off leaving the cpu upgrade till later, a 7970 would be much better at powering them. you can sell your 7850 to recover some $$. you shouldnt need to upgrade your motherbard, just the cpu and maybe psu. look ive been there and done that with 2 x 6850's in crossfire, and i was left with a bad taste in my mouth and sold them a month after getting the second one. on paper they were faster than or equal to my current gtx660, but in reality the single gtx660 offers a far smoother playing experience. and from recent reports with the 7850, things with crossfire havnt gotten any better.

 

[kitsunestarwind]

For Eyefinity 2gb is not enough at least half the time, a 3gb Card is needed , if u want to crank the settings to max on the big AAA games, your gonna need 2 cards.

 

[easyfame]

For Eyefinity 2gb is not enough at least half the time, a 3gb Card is needed , if u want to crank the settings to max on the big AAA games, your gonna need 2 cards.

So what is your suggestion?

 

[JJ1217]

So what is your suggestion?

As a previous owner of a 7850 crossfire setup @1.2 GHZ each, those cards really fly. Together, of course only in games where scaling is good, the 7850 cfx does beat the 7970 GHz.

However, the reason I got rid of my 7850 crossfire, was the annoying constant monitoring of heat. Although I didn't notice any "microstuttering" in any of my games, the heat and noise was enough for me to sell it and grab a 7950, which I then overclocked pretty decently. Its a little more than a 5% loss in performance, but for me, it was worth it (Too bad my Seasonic PSU is loud as hell, no point getting an Asus DCII card if your PSU sounds like a jet).

I would suggest selling your 7850, and grabbing a 7950 (That extra VRAM will definitely help too).

 

[nitanoonoo]

I dont see a problem with 2 7850 in crossfire of course not as good as 7950 but most games now take crossfire into account.

I love crossfire and its there for the exact reason your after.

i run 2 HD 4870 overclocked and loving it.

 

[easyfame]

Guys I updated my thread looking for new advice!

 

[James Ancheta]

AMD new drivers has fixed Microstuttering issues with Crossfiring, also 2x 7850 will crush 7970 at anything.