CrossFireX Vs GTX 760 Opinions Welcome!

[Christian Pratt]

So my EVGA GTX760 4GB S/C wouldn't work for me for my new Intel build. I called and had it confirmed that the card is faulty.

I installed my old (never used) XFX Radeon R7 260X 2gb Double Dissipation card, and it runs awesome! I only paid 140$ and it's running BF4 at 720p 60hz on Ultra settings.

SO HERE'S MY QUESTION. Should I sell the new GTX I'll get and buy another identical XFX R7 260X for CrossFireX? I'm sure I could run BF4 1080p Ultra settings with good fps. What do you think?

 

[clutchc]

Since you are gaming at only 720p, you could probably get by with the 2nd 260X pretty well. But before you go that route, what motherboard are you using? If the 2nd PCIe X16 slot is only X4 lanes, it will not be worth it.

 

[Christian Pratt]

Since you are gaming at only 720p, you could probably get by with the 2nd 260X pretty well. But before you go that route, what motherboard are you using? If the 2nd PCIe X16 slot is only X4 lanes, it will not be worth it.

Well, if i were to CrossFire I would want to game at 1080P on Ultra settings on most games. And my MoBo is an Asus Z97-AR, my CPU is a i5 4590. My MoBO supports quad gpu SLI or CorssFireX.

 

[clutchc]

OK, that MB has x8, x8 lanes bandwidth when used in SLI or CF, so it would be practical. I just wanted to make sure the 2nd slot didn't only offer x4 lanes.

1080p Ultra with today's games might be a stretch with a pair of R7-260X cards, though. I was assuming you were gaming at 720p as per your above comment before you edited. You could get high-ish settings, but Ultra I'm not so sure. In the best of conditions, CF/SLI only ups performance by ~80%. Usually less on some games depending on how well the driver is written for that game and how well the game engine is tuned for CF. But I would expect dual 260X cards to be a slight improvement in performance to a single 760.

The other issue, however, is frame times. Dual low/mid range cards will produce worse frame times than a single card. AMD's Frame Pacing technology has pretty well eliminated micro-stutter when using low/mid range cards in CF, but it still isn't as smooth as a faster single card. Since you now state you want to play class-A games at 1080p with highest settings, I may have to renege on my previous thought of using a 2nd 260X over a new faster card. Take a look at the R9-280. I have one with a Phenom II X4 @ 4GHz that plays all my games at max/near max settings at 1080p.