worth buying a r9 280x to crossfire with my hd 7970?

[xXDARKISHXx]

Hi!
as above i wonder if it is worth buying a 280x so i can crossfire it with my hd 7970. will i get a good improvement or wont it matter that much. and also i have a 750W PSU its a corsair TX 750.

 

[xerxces]

You cannot CF those two cards and from my experience with CF, it is never a good idea. Always best to go with the single best GPU you can afford. I had 5 years of hell with two sets of AMD cards in CF and I will never do that again.

 

[burdenbound]

You cannot CF those two cards and from my experience with CF, it is never a good idea. Always best to go with the single best GPU you can afford. I had 5 years of hell with two sets of AMD cards in CF and I will never do that again.

The 280x and 7970 are the same card just rebranded, there are a lot of reviews out there of people doing similar cross fire set ups. I personally say it is worth it because it would be the most bang for buck, but of course there is a level of complication that comes with multiple graphics cards.

Which cards did you have cross fired? Every new driver that comes out improves crossfire so doing it today probably won't be such a pain in the butt like it was some years ago. I personally have not used a multi graphics card setup so take that for what it's worth, and I might be a little bias because I have been eye balling a 280x to cross fire with my 7970 as well.

 

[Calculagator]

You cannot CF those two cards and from my experience with CF, it is never a good idea. Always best to go with the single best GPU you can afford. I had 5 years of hell with two sets of AMD cards in CF and I will never do that again.

Actually, you can CF those cards, but you may need to flash a bios to one or the other. They use the same chip, but may not play nicely together if the software is different. You can always pick up an actual HD7970 for basically the same price if you are worried about compatibility.

To answer the question of value, it depends on what games you play and what you hope to accomplish. According to the anandtech bench, CFing these cards can almost double frame rates on some games. It comes at the cost of some irregularities in frame timing, however. Also, some games will not take advantage of CF.

I personally have two HD7970s in CF. They work very well for me and keep my framerates well over 60fps in the games I play. I have never had any trouble with them and the new drivers eliminated any issues I had with stuttering.

 

[xerxces]

I Cf two 5770s and then two 6770s. I even used the frame pacing drivers. CF is known for many many issues and I would not wish it upon my worst enemy. You spend more time tinkering than playing. Fans would never go above 20%, CCC would just disappear and I had to turn off one card most of the time to play anything. Also, I had to manually turn up the fans otherwise they would overheat when playing. I won $500 on a scratch off ticket and decided to try Nvidia, bought a 760 and have never looked back. After my 5 years of hell with CF and AMD, I have no plans to ever go back, lol

 

[xXDARKISHXx]

You cannot CF those two cards and from my experience with CF, it is never a good idea. Always best to go with the single best GPU you can afford. I had 5 years of hell with two sets of AMD cards in CF and I will never do that again.

Actually, you can CF those cards, but you may need to flash a bios to one or the other. They use the same chip, but may not play nicely together if the software is different. You can always pick up an actual HD7970 for basically the same price if you are worried about compatibility.

To answer the question of value, it depends on what games you play and what you hope to accomplish. According to the anandtech bench, CFing these cards can almost double frame rates on some games. It comes at the cost of some irregularities in frame timing, however. Also, some games will not take advantage of CF.

I personally have two HD7970s in CF. They work very well for me and keep my framerates well over 60fps in the games I play. I have never had any trouble with them and the new drivers eliminated any issues I had with stuttering.

Have you tried Farcry 4 ? And have you seen any improvements in that game?

 

[xerxces]

I am telling you dude, if you want to upgrade, get a single good card and sell the other. Its not worth the headache to CF. More people have issues with it than not.

 

[Calculagator]

You cannot CF those two cards and from my experience with CF, it is never a good idea. Always best to go with the single best GPU you can afford. I had 5 years of hell with two sets of AMD cards in CF and I will never do that again.

Actually, you can CF those cards, but you may need to flash a bios to one or the other. They use the same chip, but may not play nicely together if the software is different. You can always pick up an actual HD7970 for basically the same price if you are worried about compatibility.

To answer the question of value, it depends on what games you play and what you hope to accomplish. According to the anandtech bench, CFing these cards can almost double frame rates on some games. It comes at the cost of some irregularities in frame timing, however. Also, some games will not take advantage of CF.

I personally have two HD7970s in CF. They work very well for me and keep my framerates well over 60fps in the games I play. I have never had any trouble with them and the new drivers eliminated any issues I had with stuttering.

Have you tried Farcry 4 ? And have you seen any improvements in that game?

Sorry, have not tried FarCry and cannot say with certainty. I can say that framerates increased significantly (almost doubled) in the Crysis series. I believe those games use the same or similar engine and should have similar performance.