[SOLVED] HD 7870 Crossfire vs. X1 with BG3

[Titanion]

I have two computers running 7870s in Crossfire in a gaming lab. I have others running 5850s, among other cards. I know these are older video cards, but they play older games just fine.

My question is do I really gain anything having the 7870s in crossfire, or would my lab be better off splitting up and spreading out the 7870s? Now these are the computers used more often, do of there is real world gaming improvement on older games, then I am OK with it, but if there is very little gain, then it makes sense to split them up and have more equity.

The 7870 will actually play Baldur's Gate 3, but will having two on Crossfire play it better? If the thought is not really, then maybe I should retire a couple 5850s.

Thanks

 

[Metal Messiah.]

I honestly won't recommend using any multi-GPU setup, be it SLI or CrossFireX. Gone are the days when multi-GPU setup was a norm. DX12 multi-GPU explicit support is a different story though.

Not many PC games scale that well on such a setup. Depends on the Game's Engine/code though, but you would be much better off using a SINGLE powerful GPU instead. Less hassle, less power consumption, less heat, and better performance in games as well.

SLI and CrossFireX technologies are kind of dead in the water, and developers have been slowly abandoning these multi-GPU technologies, due to lack of proper scaling seen in games, and also because of some driver issues, among other factors like adoption rate. Each game developer also needs to code the game accordingly to take proper advantage of any SLI or CFX setup. However, DX-12 explicit multi-GPU support feature is not totally abandoned, but not many game developers have been using this m-GPU DX12 technology as well (might change in future).

This will only help if GAMES are also going to take advantage of any new multi-GPU feature, provided the Game developers implement this in DX12 API. Using a SINGLE powerful GPU is more likely a much better and feasible option for any high-end Gaming setup, instead of using two cards in tandem. Multi-GPU setup is usually not recommended for obvious reasons.

 

[Titanion]

I wonder if the 2006 NWN2 benefits from Crossfire.

 

[Titanion]

And thank you for the thoughtful informative response. I missed the boat when everyone was playing with SLI and Crossfire, so it is fun to play with it now with older cards and systems. My main computer has a single Vega 56, and my computer in the garage is an RX 570, so these other setups are for friends when they come over. They are not used that often, so I don't mind the extra power consumption.

I wonder if as a general rule, if an older game plays well with 1GB video ram, like the 5850, the game might be designed to make use of Crossfire. I wonder if anyone has compiles a list somewhere.

Because Baldur's Gate 3 is new, I am guessing it is not designed for Crossfire then. 3 GB of video ram is listed as minimum, but the 2 GB HD 7870 AND 7850 play it. The cards are not listed as being supported. But you think that Crossfire might make gameplay worse than using a single card.

With the price of good video cards today, I am trying to make the most of what I have.

 

[need4speeds]

I had two HD-7850's, one was a Asus and the other was a Gigabyte.

Some games like Metro 2033 Last light redux and others support Crossfire really well. As good as two HD-7850's are, a single GTX970 is still about 50% faster in games but in Firestrike the GTX 970 is 31% faster.

Firestrike.. 7,000 GPU 9,523 HD-7850's.
https://www.3dmark.com/fs/5991729
Firestrike 9,176 GPU 13,443
https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/38100643

Best 3dmark Fire Strike Scores with a AMD A6-3650

3DMark.com search

3DMark.com search

www.3dmark.com

The #2 spot is mine with a score of 8915. Newer memory sticks so i went from a 2gig pair or 4gig ones that clock higher. DRR3-1600@2,202mhz. Deliding to change the paste on the die. My fan profile and settings got better in MSI afterburner. So then i broke 9,000 with a score of 9,176.

Metro 2033 last light redux..
frame pacing on, Morphological filtering on, surface format optimization on, tessellation on 1920 x 1080; Quality: Very High; SSAA: Off; Texture filtering: AF 16X; Motion Blur: Normal Tesselation: Very High; VSync: Off; Advanced PhysX: Off; (For comparison i did a run with the same settings with the GTX970)
HD-7850's..
Average Framerate: 44.04
Max. Framerate: 77.63 (Frame: 6027)
Min. Framerate: 9.14 (Frame: 8)
GTX970.
Average Framerate: 70.40
Max. Framerate: 141.28 (Frame: 9527)
Min. Framerate: 22.85 (Frame: 8)

The GTX970 is 59.9% faster in this game meaning the HD-7850's are 62.6% as fast.

I would try it out. The small Pitcairn gpu was famous for scaling good with crossfire and they almost had the stuttering issues ironed out. Do turn on Vsync and if a newer driver lets it have a bit higher FPS cap like say 66fps for 60hz, i would try that. That works well with my GTX970.

Just dropping a fast gpu into anything doesn't mean you will see fps gains. The system must be matched to work correctly. In that list of A6-3650's my setup beats a RTX 3060ti, GTX980ti, R9 Fury, RX 480 crossfire.

 

[Titanion]

You have me searching for a GTX970, but that too is currently overpriced.

I need to play with what I have and wait out the market, which brings me back to maximizing what I have.

I picked up two of those 7870s for $20 and $30 two years ago. Even the 7870s are severe overpriced now.

How do I test if NWN2, first published in 2006, benefits from Crossfire?

Even BG3, currently in early release, what would I look for to see if Crossfire (DX11 with 7870s) makes a difference. It seems hard to objectively know by playing it.

Thanks