Thinking about crossfire 6870s

[chilypepper]

I have one 6870 now, its the regular Sapphire one. I downloaded the bf3 beta and my performance wasnt that great (phenom ii x4 965 @ stock speeds) And I recently got something from newegg and now the xfx 6870 is on sale so would I notice a large performance increase? And should i get another sapphire or an xfx?

 

[amirp]

get the cheaper one as the brand doesnt matter, and you would notice a boost for sure, but what are your other components? mainly power supply and motherboard

 

[rmerwede]

If you can, list your MOBO and PSU, unless you are sure you have the proper setup to run these cards in Xfire.

You may want to evaluate how much room you have between your PCIE ports, because not all cooling solutions will fit if they are only 1 or 2 spaces apart.

You may see up to 80% increase in performance if everything goes right, but you will not take full advantage of the Xfire setup without overclocking that CPU a little bit (maybe 3.8-4.0, if possible).

 

[chilypepper]

I have a gigabyte 990xA-UD3 motherboard

A 700w cougar CMX PSU

 

[amirp]

you should be good,
If I were you i would also spend a little bit on a moderately good cpu cooler and overclock like rmerwede suggested, so that you reduce the bottlenecking on a 6870 x2 set-up.

But you should notice good performance gains.
Only problem is microstuttering, do a search on toms articles and youll see a recent article about it

 

[chilypepper]

I also have a hyper 212+ as I originally planned for a bit of overclocking but then my computer after OC to 3.8Ghz booted with a "Bad overclock" message so yeah I stopped after that. My motherboard auto does the voltages so I didn't have to worry about that so I just changed the multiplier

 

[amirp]

lol well theres your problem yea that cooler will be fine... but you have to spend time learning how to overclock yourself properly that's why it failed. I am sure if you do it properly you can hit around 3.8ghz just fine.

Anyways I say go ahead and buy the 6870, and see how it goes. And since your board is AM3+ if you need to , once bulldozer comes out you may want to upgrade your cpu

 

[rmerwede]

Since the first is a reference design, you could get what ever model you like. Just place is in the second slot (the reference design pulls in air from the end).

There are 1gb and 2gb models (the later being more expensive), if you are gaming at less than 2560X1600 you probably do not need the 2gb, but that is your choice.

You should see a signifigant performance increase in most games. If you can OC your CPU you will get even more. Best case senario, you will see 90+% better framerates, but not all games scale well with Xfire.

 

[chilypepper]

that was the original plan as i would have gotten like a 980 or something nicer

 

[amirp]

whatever model you get though make sure the vram matches what you already have so you don't waste it, ie. if you have a 1gb 6870 dont buy the 2gb 6870 as it won't matter (I am 99% sure on this)

 

[chilypepper]

Yeah they are both the same price and exact same specs so im in a bit of a dilemma

 

[amirp]

which one ? the sapphire vs the xfx 6870?

do a research , whichever has the better cooler is what you should base your decision on, since heat is always an issue for crossfire systems.

which is why I would consider getting this one due to dual fans:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150521

its only a bit more expensive.

I wouldn't get this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150561
read the reviews people are complaining about the noise of it. The sapphire one seems better.

 

[chilypepper]

but then of course the cheaper one comes with dirt3 and well its cheap thats the reason + rebate

 

[amirp]

then I'd get the sapphire one still, read every single review on that xfx model they all complain about it being too loud and getting hot. Believe me , otherwise your next thread in a couple weeks will be "crossfire 6870s , card overheating" lol i hope it doesn't turn out that way... but yea

 

[chilypepper]

it's ordered

 

[amirp]

lol which one you pick?

and pick best answer to close the thread.

 

[chilypepper]

sapphire

 

[chilypepper]

Best answer selected by chilypepper.

 

[amirp]

nice I hope all goes well!

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey