Radeon R9 280X Can Be Paired with Radeon HD 7970 Cards

[slomo4sho]

A quick Bios flash and off you go!

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Nvidia-GTX-680-GTX-770-BIOS-Flash-Hack,22561.html

It isn't plug and play. Most people can't even flash the motherboard bios let alone the GPU. So yea, no native support from Nvidia is the key. You can jump through hoops and potentially brick your card to get it to run in SLI with a GTX 770 or you can plug and play a 280X with a 7970 without any issues.

 

[Mousemonkey]

A quick Bios flash and off you go!

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Nvidia-GTX-680-GTX-770-BIOS-Flash-Hack,22561.html

It isn't plug and play. Most people can't even flash the motherboard bios let alone the GPU. So yea, no native support from Nvidia is the key. You can jump through hoops and potentially brick your card to get it to run in SLI with a GTX 770 or you can plug and play a 280X with a 7970 without any issues.

A previous poster thinks a BIOS flash may not be needed and after seeing what your technical skills are in respect to driver issues I'm inclined to believe him over you.

 

[slomo4sho]

A previous poster thinks a BIOS flash may not be needed and after seeing what your technical skills are in respect to driver issues I'm inclined to believe him over you.

Yes, my technical skills are lacking because your idea of troubleshooting was installing different drivers only to experience the same issue and then refusing even entertain the idea that you may have a bad card and refusing to RMA. Yes, it does speak volumes about my troubleshooting skills.

As far as the GTX 680 being able to be flashed to a GTX 770, the flash is nothing more than a modified GTX 680 bios with an updated INF file to make it appear as a GTX 770 in GPUZ. After doing further research, I haven't been able to find any proof that a GTX 680 can be paired with a GTX 770 since the GK104 chip in the GTX 770 is modified and not identical to the GTX 680 but you don't have to take my word for it, research it yourself.

 

[Mousemonkey]

A previous poster thinks a BIOS flash may not be needed and after seeing what your technical skills are in respect to driver issues I'm inclined to believe him over you.

Yes, my technical skills are lacking because your idea of troubleshooting was installing different drivers only to experience the same issue and then refusing even entertain the idea that you may have a bad card and refusing to RMA. Yes, it does speak volumes about my troubleshooting skills.

As far as the GTX 680 being able to be flashed to a GTX 770, the flash is nothing more than a modified GTX 680 bios with an updated INF file to make it appear as a GTX 770 in GPUZ. After doing further research, I haven't been able to find any proof that a GTX 680 can be paired with a GTX 770 since the GK104 chip in the GTX 770 is modified and not identical to the GTX 680 but you don't have to take my word for it, research it yourself.

So are you telling me (and everyone else) that the failure rate of AMD cards is so high that every one of them that BSOD's is a bad card?

 

[slomo4sho]

So are you telling me (and everyone else) that the failure rate of AMD cards is so high that every one of them that BSOD's is a bad card?

It isn't difficult to find this information yourself:

"It is hard to quantify customer experience, but one thing I can quantify is reliability. How many have failed? Here's a report from the last 3 years.

Nvidia: 5.36% total failures (in our testing + in the field)
AMD: 8.89% total failures (in our testing + in the field)

But more important than failure rate is how many failed in our customer hands? We do a lot of testing here to weed out as many bad cards as possible in our build process. Here's how many have failed in the field over the last 3 years:

Nvidia: 2.42% failures in the field
AMD: 3.23% failures in the field

Here's that same info, over the last 1 year only:

Nvidia: 4.95% total failures (in our testing + in the field)
AMD: 7.79% total failures (in our testing + in the field)
Nvidia: 1.02% failures in the field
AMD: 3.25% failures in the field

So yes, AMD does have a higher failure rate, but nothing that puts up such a big red flag that I would want to drop their product."

http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=3DD18872-D68A-FFE9-16711F32EF984A2A

AMDs total fail rate is 59-66% higher than Nvidia. Based on this last years 7.79% fail rate, you can expect 1 in every 12.84 cards to require an RMA compared to Nvidias 1 in every 20.20 cards.

 

[Mousemonkey]

So are you telling me (and everyone else) that the failure rate of AMD cards is so high that every one of them that BSOD's is a bad card?

It isn't difficult to find this information yourself:

"It is hard to quantify customer experience, but one thing I can quantify is reliability. How many have failed? Here's a report from the last 3 years.

Nvidia: 5.36% total failures (in our testing + in the field)
AMD: 8.89% total failures (in our testing + in the field)

But more important than failure rate is how many failed in our customer hands? We do a lot of testing here to weed out as many bad cards as possible in our build process. Here's how many have failed in the field over the last 3 years:

Nvidia: 2.42% failures in the field
AMD: 3.23% failures in the field

Here's that same info, over the last 1 year only:

Nvidia: 4.95% total failures (in our testing + in the field)
AMD: 7.79% total failures (in our testing + in the field)
Nvidia: 1.02% failures in the field
AMD: 3.25% failures in the field

So yes, AMD does have a higher failure rate, but nothing that puts up such a big red flag that I would want to drop their product."

http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=3DD18872-D68A-FFE9-16711F32EF984A2A

AMDs total fail rate is 59-66% higher than Nvidia. Based on this years 7.79% fail rate, you can expect 1 in every 12.84 cards to require an RMA compared to Nvidias 1 in every 20.20 cards.

So why bother RMA'ing when it's easier to just get a card that is likely to be more reliable? Which is what I said in our PM exchange before that info came to light I might add.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

to be honest, i've never had a card from either manufacturer fail in it's useful life (i put that at around 5 years before its completely obsolete). But what amd advertises with crossfire, does not translate in to real world performance for many "crossfire compatable" games, and even worse when mixed with eyefinity, it's false advertising. Nvidia's cards at least do what they claim to do.

 

[Mousemonkey]

to be honest, i've never had a card from either manufacturer fail in it's useful life (i put that at around 5 years before its completely obsolete). But what amd advertises with crossfire, does not translate in to real world performance for many "crossfire compatable" games, and even worse when mixed with eyefinity, it's false advertising. Nvidia's cards at least do what they claim to do.

Running without CCC installed seems to bring the most stability but that won't do for those with Xfire or Eyefinity setups would it?

 

[corvetteguy1994]

All this hate and im sitting here with my CF 7970's (that i got a week or so after launch OC'd to 1200/1700 stable 24/7) playing and destroying BF4. AMD cards are reliable. So if amd re-brands a few cards they get hate, but its ok with nvidia? for shame. Ah glad i have my GTX 570 door stop. Let the hate commence......

 

[monsta]

All this hate and im sitting here with my CF 7970's (that i got a week or so after launch OC'd to 1200/1700 stable 24/7) playing and destroying BF4. AMD cards are reliable. So if amd re-brands a few cards they get hate, but its ok with nvidia? for shame. Ah glad i have my GTX 570 door stop. Let the hate commence......

Need a hug? LOL

 

[Mombasa69]

What's the point of pairing a R9 280X with a 7970? Just get another 7970, I'm getting 2 Sapphire R9 280X Toxic Editions and wouldn't want them being restricted by the older model.

And DX11.2 may also be buggered up, as the older model is only DX11.1.

 

[corvetteguy1994]

What's the point of pairing a R9 280X with a 7970? Just get another 7970, I'm getting 2 Sapphire R9 280X Toxic Editions and wouldn't want them being restricted by the older model.

And DX11.2 may also be buggered up, as the older model is only DX11.1.

AMD is coming out with a catalyst update to bring DX11.2 to the 79XX.

 

[jimmysmitty]

BIOS flash = void warranty = SO NO. AMD is better, because they work out from box.

AMD's crossfire has not worked properly out of the box since day 1. It has recently improved, but still doesn't work properly in many scenario's. Nvidia cards do work properly out of the box for everything they are advertised to do.
bios flash doesn't void warranty, only if you brick the card by doing it.

This is false. The first iteration of CFX worked fine. And it wasn't until the newer and more recent GCN that they started having issues.

And if you mean out of the box with the drivers on the disc, you are also wrong. RAGE had issues with NVidia and AMD cards. So have many games. And they require driver updates to fix.

That's normal. No card works out of the box for everything that is or is to come. That's the nature of PC hardware.

Mombasa69,

There is no difference between a 280X and a HD7970. Same chip, same everything. Different name.

If anything you are just paying more for the same. Just get two HD7970s that will be cheaper and do the same thing.

Actually the stock HD7970GHz is 50MHz faster than the stock 280X.