Upgrade or crossfire?

[thesupergeek]

So, I am looking to upgrade my secondary rig, and I have a choice between selling the 7870 card in it, and buying a newer, more powerful card, or purchasing a second 7870 and crossfire the two. Any suggestions would be much appreciated. I have about 280$ cash to work on.

 

[jay2577]

I run 2 x AMD 270x's which are very similar to the 7870( just a tweaked version).
The performance is very good. I was going to buy an AMD 280x but i wanted to try a dual card set up as never done it before.

Before i can answer though can you please post your motherboard make/model and your power supply make/model?

Also is that American dollars?

 

[thesupergeek]

I run 2 x AMD 270x's which are very similar to the 7870( just a tweaked version).
The performance is very good. I was going to buy an AMD 280x but i wanted to try a dual card set up as never done it before.

Before i can answer though can you please post your motherboard make/model and your power supply make/model?

Also is that American dollars?

Yes, those are us dollars. The motherboard is an Asus Rampage Extreme IV, The CPU is a 3820, and that may be upgraded to a 3930k soon, although the 3820 seems pretty great for gaming. The PSU is a 750 watt ZS from OCZ.

PS. Please excuse my wacky spelling. I just got a new keyboard, cherry mx red is throwing me off a little. I am used to mx black

 

[jay2577]

Well that is a good motherboard for a crossfire configuration and you have the power supply for it as well as a very powerful processor

The advantage you would have with crossfire is that you can upgrade your performance for a lot less money. You can get another 7870 for around $200. If you wanted to make a significant upgrade buying a more powerful card for a single GPU configuration you would need something like the AMD 280X which is $319.99 for one like this
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1009255-REG/msi_r9280xgaming3g_radeon_r9_280x_3gb.html

The disadvantage is that some games do better with crossfire than others. Sometimes a new game will be released and you might not get a significant boost until a new beta or WHQL driver comes out.
I have only been using my crossfire configuration for a few weeks but i haven't had any problems with performance on Assassins Creed 4, Batman Arkham Origins, Saints Row 4 and Battlefield 4.

I guess it's your decision to make but personally i would choose the crossfire option.
Whatever you choose i hope you have some happy gaming. Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year to you too