second 7970 or?...

obochoman

Honorable
Mar 30, 2012
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Hello all! I come to you today with a question. I already am running a 7970 in my system and with the holiday season approaching and the new release of AMD graphics cards I was wondering if I it would be better to get a second 7970 and crossfire the two, or upgrade the gpu to either an R9 280 or 290. Right now I'm leaning towards getting a second 7970 but I could use some other peoples opinions. Also, if I did crossfire the two, how long would you predict they would last (keeping up with better and better graphics that is)?

Thanks for looking!


current system

thermaltake 700W PSU (would need to be upgraded for the crossfire)
Intel i54670K
MSI Z87-G45
gigabyte 7970
fractal r4 case
8gb ballistix sport (1333)
 
Solution
The 280x is a 7970 ( it is a 7970GHz running 50 MHz slower on the core and clock) so you would gain nothing moving to one of them. Grabbing another 7970 would be your best performance gain for the bucks, but you need to consider XFire problems associated with them. I would think about an 850W PS for both of them (250W each).

The 290 ans 290x are nice cards, but not with the present cooling solutions offered, I read the 290 equaled the 780, yet more power and heat. I can't wee a single 290x outperforming a set of 7970s.
Its almost impossible to predict time wise, but it will be about 70-80% longer than with one card. The R9-280x is pretty much the same card in most cases. 7970 crossfire is one beast of a setup, so I would recommend that over say a 290x.
EDIT: Yeah I forgot to mention that, crossfire is always a risk with stutter, bad scaling, and drivers in some cases. The 280x simply isnt a large enough jump to warrant it. So its risk crossfire, which does work sometimes, or jump to the 290x once it gets aftermarket.
 
I don't want to get rid of my current 7970 (as it has an arctic accelero cooler on it and overclocks nicely. I've head good things about crossfire in some places but know its a risk. enabling vsynk and using a framrate limiter on msi afterburner seem to have helped some people. IMO its worth the risk as the card would be a gift, otherwise I wouldn't have lots of extra money for any computer parts for some time.
 
The 280x is a 7970 ( it is a 7970GHz running 50 MHz slower on the core and clock) so you would gain nothing moving to one of them. Grabbing another 7970 would be your best performance gain for the bucks, but you need to consider XFire problems associated with them. I would think about an 850W PS for both of them (250W each).

The 290 ans 290x are nice cards, but not with the present cooling solutions offered, I read the 290 equaled the 780, yet more power and heat. I can't wee a single 290x outperforming a set of 7970s.
 
Solution