Should I crossfire 7970's? what's the gain's? any drawbacks?

[sharndowg]

Hello kind Toms community,

I have a XFX DD 7970 which I have in my rig, a great card but ageing a little. Now what I'm thinking would be a good idea is to grab another 7970 and crossfire them for a graphics boost, I can pick one up for around £100. Of course I would rather upgrade the card and use just one but at this point I will add that I'am a typical student and never have massive amounts of cash to blow.

Is Crossfiring 7970's my best and cheapest option to secure me for another couple of years through university?

I love experiencing games in great quality and a few new releases and forth coming games require a bit more juice than what I can push my 7970 to. So I'm looking for what options I have.

I'm completely new to Crossfire/SLI and although I have read a little about them but I'm still pretty much in the dark. I have read about how SLI is a bit more stable than Crossfire? and they can suffer some compatibility issues with a few games? should I be worried? I would only be playing mainstream big releases.

Also, will their be any issues with my PSU or CPU coping with Crossfire?


Thanks!


Setup:
i5 4590
ASRock H97 Pro4
8GB Corsair LP 1600
XFX DD 7970
Corsair CX750M

 

[Azn Cracker]

You already posted this before. Once again, you cannot crossfire with your motherboard. It only has 1 pci-e slot.

 

[sharndowg]

Yeah sorry, every time i post an error comes up and the page is not found.

My mistake its a h97m pro 4. Matx board, its crossfire ready.

 

[redgarl]

The answer is still no. The second PCIe port is only 4X.

You need 8X8X to have optimal result.

8X4X or 16X4X heavily impact performances.

 

[RCFProd]

All of your components are good enough to cope with HD 7970 Crossfire except for the motherboard.

The drawbacks? Poor crossfire support in half of the games you play.

 

[sharndowg]

thanks for the answers guys. all good comments.

If i require a compatible motherboard then its probably not worth my money. buying a board AND a 7970. Should maybe just try and save for a better card!

Cheers.

 

[RCFProd]

Yeah maybe sell your current GPU and go for the R9 290X/GTX 970.

 

[sharndowg]

That possibly sounds like a good idea. It will also secure me for a while with a decent card I suppose.

Any benefits over either card manufacturer?

 

[RCFProd]

The Nvidia GTX 970 is slightly better and a lot more efficient.

The R9 290X is cheaper although not significantly and performs slightly less good than the GTX 970 in games up to 1440p.

In some VRAM demanding games the R9 290X can perform better but not many games are like this.