Will there be a decreace in performance with 7950 and x3 displays?

[Malexcraft Tekkit Server]

Hi there,

I have have a Sapphire hd radeon 7950 OC model for a while now with x2 monitors (1x 1080p and 1x 1280x1024). I am thinking of upgrading to get 3x 1080p 27" monitors and using AMD eyefinity. My question is will i see a large drop in performance when using this new set-up compared to my old one and will i see the same performance as before? If i need to buy a new GPU could you please recommend one that would achieve slightly higher performance than the 7950 and that would be able to play something like watch dogs with AMD Eyefinity on x3 monitors on ultra settings?

Many thanks,

Alex

 

[Akhilcool]

I doubt it. I think the 7950 is too underpowered to play on x3 monitors in a game like Watch Dogs. Especially on ultra. On Youtube I've seen people running it on 3-way 7950 crossfire just to get decent frame rates on x3 monitors.

 

[Eduello]

No single card will play the latest games maxed out across 3 monitors smoothly. You'll need a 2-way SLI/CF setup with GTX 780/R9 290 cards.

 

[theclouds]

Hi there,

I have have a Sapphire hd radeon 7950 OC model for a while now with x2 monitors (1x 1080p and 1x 1280x1024). I am thinking of upgrading to get 3x 1080p 27" monitors and using AMD eyefinity. My question is will i see a large drop in performance when using this new set-up compared to my old one and will i see the same performance as before? If i need to buy a new GPU could you please recommend one that would achieve slightly higher performance than the 7950 and that would be able to play something like watch dogs with AMD Eyefinity on x3 monitors on ultra settings?

Many thanks,

Alex

The answer is it depends. The games you play will matter. IF we assume the CPU you have is not an issue (which matters for games like Total War Series), I will opt for something with at least 3gb of VRAM like the GTX 780 or R9 290 like Eduello mentioned. It's not the number of monitors that matter. It's the resolution of the combined monitors that will impact performance. This impact will only increase with more modern games as you progress to higher texture and more eye candy.

 

[Malexcraft Tekkit Server]

So if i upgrade my GPU to a R9 290/290X or a GTX 780 will i be able to play Watch Dogs (or an equivalent resource consuming game) on ultra settings with x3 1080p displays at altleast 30 fps.

For reference my CURRENT PC specs are as follows:
CPU - AMD FX8320 Black Edition 8 Core (3.5/4.0GHz, 8MB Level 3 Cache, 8MB Level 2 Cache, Socket AM3+, 125W, Retail Boxed)
GPU - Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 7950 Graphics Card with Boost
HD - WD 1TB 3.5 inch Internal Hard Drive - Caviar Blue
SSD - Samsung 840 Series Pro 256GB 2.5 inch SATA Solid State Drive
RAM - G-Skill 8GB Ripjaws X DDR3 2133 Dual Kit - Red
Motherboard - Asus M5A97 LE R2.0 Motherboard (AMD 970/SB950, DDR3, 6 x S-ATA 600, ATX, PCI-Express 2.0, USB 3.0, Socket AM3+)
PSU - Corsair Builder Series CX 500 Watt ATX/EPS 80 PLUS Bronze Power Supply Unit (Will upgrade for new GPU)

 

[Eduello]

Hard to say about Watch Dogs, but you could just do that in BF4 with a single card: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2013/11/27/battlefield-4-performance-analysis/5

 

[theclouds]

So if i upgrade my GPU to a R9 290/290X or a GTX 780 will i be able to play Watch Dogs (or an equivalent resource consuming game) on ultra settings with x3 1080p displays at altleast 30 fps.

For reference my CURRENT PC specs are as follows:
CPU - AMD FX8320 Black Edition 8 Core (3.5/4.0GHz, 8MB Level 3 Cache, 8MB Level 2 Cache, Socket AM3+, 125W, Retail Boxed)
GPU - Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 7950 Graphics Card with Boost
HD - WD 1TB 3.5 inch Internal Hard Drive - Caviar Blue
SSD - Samsung 840 Series Pro 256GB 2.5 inch SATA Solid State Drive
RAM - G-Skill 8GB Ripjaws X DDR3 2133 Dual Kit - Red
Motherboard - Asus M5A97 LE R2.0 Motherboard (AMD 970/SB950, DDR3, 6 x S-ATA 600, ATX, PCI-Express 2.0, USB 3.0, Socket AM3+)
PSU - Corsair Builder Series CX 500 Watt ATX/EPS 80 PLUS Bronze Power Supply Unit (Will upgrade for new GPU)

Your CPU is more than up for the task. See here: http://www.techspot.com/review/827-watch-dogs-benchmarks/page5.html. Using the chart as a reference, notice there is little variance between the CPUs.

30 FPS is a low mark to shoot for. Go over the benchmarks as you'll see if you were to config your system to either R9 290/290X or a GTX 780 you can expect 30 + on High preset.

For Ultra (this article: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-watch-dogs-face-off), there are some issues with Ultra settings especially for AMD card users noted due to the use of Nvidia GameWorks software in the development of the game. Despite this, using 4k benchmarks: http://www.digitalstormonline.com/unlocked/watch-dogs-benchmarks-nvidia-1080p-and-4k-idnum279/ you can expect 33 FPS on Ultra at 4k settings. With your 3x 1080p you are just under 4k performance (I'm not talking about pixel density, just number of pixels). Therefore you can expect 30+ FPS on Ultra.

 

[leeb2013]

3 monitors is basically 3/4 of 4k, so needs a lot of GPU power. I used dual 7950 to drive 3x1680x1050 monitors and although their performance was generally better than my single R9-290, they still struggled to maintain 60fps on ultra settings on latest AAA games.