Can I CrossFire Two Different Radeon HD 7870 GHz ?

[StarWallace]

I did Google some for this problem but I'm still not entirely certain my specific situation has been answered.

Basically when I built my new tower in January, I bought a single SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition 2GB (http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202025) and I want to future proof my tower a bit more. Unfortunately my specific sapphire card seems to be sold out and hard to find except at a ridiculous markup.

I was looking at a PowerColor card that i might be able to pair with it, but it is of course not an exact match. http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131563

I think what I need to know is of course, 1) can I use this card and more importantly 2) what are the important figures to keep in mind when doing CrossFire? What has to match and what detriments will I get from mismatches?

 

[airplanegeek]

You can use these cards together. Just use a tool like MSI Afterburner to make the clock speeds same on both cards. Whats your system specs?

 

[StarWallace]

You can use these cards together. Just use a tool like MSI Afterburner to make the clock speeds same on both cards. Whats your system specs?

Ah, sorry I forgot to list them:
CPU: AMD FX-8320 Vishera 3.5GHz (4.0GHz Turbo) 125W 8-Core
Mobo: GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
Case: Cooler Master Force 500
Power: Cooler Master 500W (I know I'd need to upgrade this)

 

[jossrik]

I don't think you'll need to use afterburner or something like it to crossfire, CCC will do it automatically for you. I had a Powercolor 7870 LE Myst with an XFX 7970 (Both are tahiti cores) and it was fine. That's what you look for with AMD cards, same chip = XFire, both cards need the crossfire option though, as far as I know you need a crossfire bridge with all but the Hawaii cards (290, 290x).

You will need at least 650W for two 7870s, more would be better. I'm running a pair of 7870s now on an XFX XXX 650w, I5 3570k Overclocked to 4.5 on water (Conservative overclock), 8Gb RAM @2133CL9, 2xHDD, 1SSD, and it crashes if I overclock the cards. I know they work with the voltage reduced at stock speeds cause it's mining crypto currencies, when I hit them with more power, whole system crashes. I'ma upgrade to a 1300W EVGA and a couple 290xs when next semesters grant money comes in, but until then, I'm pretty sure I'm running at my limit.

 

[chemmajorp53]

I don't think you'll need to use afterburner or something like it to crossfire, CCC will do it automatically for you. I had a Powercolor 7870 LE Myst with an XFX 7970 (Both are tahiti cores) and it was fine. That's what you look for with AMD cards, same chip = XFire, both cards need the crossfire option though, as far as I know you need a crossfire bridge with all but the Hawaii cards (290, 290x).

You will need at least 650W for two 7870s, more would be better. I'm running a pair of 7870s now on an XFX XXX 650w, I5 3570k Overclocked to 4.5 on water (Conservative overclock), 8Gb RAM @2133CL9, 2xHDD, 1SSD, and it crashes if I overclock the cards. I know they work with the voltage reduced at stock speeds cause it's mining crypto currencies, when I hit them with more power, whole system crashes. I'ma upgrade to a 1300W EVGA and a couple 290xs when next semesters grant money comes in, but until then, I'm pretty sure I'm running at my limit.

You can run 2 7870's on 650W as long as you have a simple system. I had 2 sapphire ghz oc editions runninfgon a CX600M (one 6 pin to each and one molex to each) and it was fine. I didn't overclock them though. For the OP, another option is getting a GTX 770 and keeping your current PSU. You might like having one more powerful card a little better but it's all preference.

 

[StarWallace]

I don't think you'll need to use afterburner or something like it to crossfire, CCC will do it automatically for you. I had a Powercolor 7870 LE Myst with an XFX 7970 (Both are tahiti cores) and it was fine. That's what you look for with AMD cards, same chip = XFire, both cards need the crossfire option though, as far as I know you need a crossfire bridge with all but the Hawaii cards (290, 290x).

You will need at least 650W for two 7870s, more would be better. I'm running a pair of 7870s now on an XFX XXX 650w, I5 3570k Overclocked to 4.5 on water (Conservative overclock), 8Gb RAM @2133CL9, 2xHDD, 1SSD, and it crashes if I overclock the cards. I know they work with the voltage reduced at stock speeds cause it's mining crypto currencies, when I hit them with more power, whole system crashes. I'ma upgrade to a 1300W EVGA and a couple 290xs when next semesters grant money comes in, but until then, I'm pretty sure I'm running at my limit.

You can run 2 7870's on 650W as long as you have a simple system. I had 2 sapphire ghz oc editions runninfgon a CX600M (one 6 pin to each and one molex to each) and it was fine. I didn't overclock them though. For the OP, another option is getting a GTX 770 and keeping your current PSU. You might like having one more powerful card a little better but it's all preference.

Thanks for the help on this one guys. In hind sight, yes I should have just bought a single GTX 770 because I would have largely preferred that. But when I was building back in January it just wasn't in the budget and in the reviews the 7870 was out performing all the comparably priced Nvidia cards. I might bother with this, or I might just wait to see where technology goes from here, maybe I'll be better off just updating my single card a few years down the line.

 

[airplanegeek]

I don't think you'll need to use afterburner or something like it to crossfire, CCC will do it automatically for you. I had a Powercolor 7870 LE Myst with an XFX 7970 (Both are tahiti cores) and it was fine. That's what you look for with AMD cards, same chip = XFire, both cards need the crossfire option though, as far as I know you need a crossfire bridge with all but the Hawaii cards (290, 290x).

You will need at least 650W for two 7870s, more would be better. I'm running a pair of 7870s now on an XFX XXX 650w, I5 3570k Overclocked to 4.5 on water (Conservative overclock), 8Gb RAM @2133CL9, 2xHDD, 1SSD, and it crashes if I overclock the cards. I know they work with the voltage reduced at stock speeds cause it's mining crypto currencies, when I hit them with more power, whole system crashes. I'ma upgrade to a 1300W EVGA and a couple 290xs when next semesters grant money comes in, but until then, I'm pretty sure I'm running at my limit.

You dont need afterburner to use cf but running the cards sat the same clock rates would reduce micro stuttering and frame time variances