upgrading

C

childsy_1985

Member
Currently i run 6870 oc edition in crossfire. This year I want to upgrade and I was planning on 7970 crossfire. I am in a possition to afford 1 card now but will have to wait a little while before i can purchase the second card, so is it worth buying now and running with the single 7970 or should i stick with my current setup untill i can afford both cards?
 
From what I understand your performance going to a 7970 single card is about the same to what you have now. So you wouldn't lose performance but probably wouldn't gain much either. As for waiting it's only going to get cheaper so that's up to you.


Are the 6870's lacking for some reason? Still should destroy everything out today.
 
Wait till you can afford both, because in all likelihood if you buy one card, you likely will find you never wanted the second card in the first place and never upgrade....so you could do that too
 
I'd stick with those for another year or 2 unless they are 1GB cards, then i can see why you want to upgrade.

If they are 1GB cards, then I'd probs just go for a single 7970 right now. Performance will be on par, but the added VRAM will help a lot in 1080p gaming. I'd probably go for a 1440p monitor (or 2 or 3, or add 2 more 1080p monitors) before a second card though so you can get the full benefits from the cards.
 
I would love to know why you assume 1Gb is an issue jonny. The only game I have (out of 30 or so) that has ever breached 1Gb is BF3, and it will use all of the vRAM that it is given. Can run it just fine off 512MB all the way up to 6GB.

I personally would upgrade now. The 6870 is by no means a decent card, and CFx scaling is horrible.
 
I would love to know why you think a 6870 is a slouch of a card, especially in CF. It can probably play anything out at max settings or pretty close to it at 1080p by itself.
 
Simply put, it is weak. A 6870 is bottom of the line for any gaming. a 7770 is faster, and it is not expected to do anything near maxing games.
Second, CFx is useless unless you can maintain 30-60+ FPS with your primary card. If you can not, then you are chopped full of microstutter.
At this point, anything less than a 7870 is weak, and needs an upgrade for 1080p.
 
wolfeking said:
Simply put, it is weak. A 6870 is bottom of the line for any gaming. a 7770 is faster, and it is not expected to do anything near maxing games.
Second, CFx is useless unless you can maintain 30-60+ FPS with your primary card. If you can not, then you are chopped full of microstutter.
At this point, anything less than a 7870 is weak, and needs an upgrade for 1080p.
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...why not know things before arguing (i need to work on that sometimes too but i'd look it up after people say otherwise instead of arguing)

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/540?vs=536
 
jonny, yet again, you base your entire argument off release drivers and a questionable review site. Going by that you need a 7950 to match the 6970, when the 7870 kicks its arse currently. DO YOUR RESEARCH.
 
wolfeking said:
jonny, yet again, you base your entire argument off release drivers and a questionable review site. Going by that you need a 7950 to match the 6970, when the 7870 kicks its arse currently. DO YOUR RESEARCH.
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I'm not gonna argue here but what about this other site that says the same thing?

http://www.hwcompare.com/11924/radeon-hd-6870-vs-radeon-hd-7770/

Here are 2 sites that say the same thing but yet all you can do is come out and say something different... How about coming up with some proof?
 
How do you know that the drivers didnt increase performance in older gen cards too? Although still the 2 would be closer to equal, the 7770 wouldnt have much if any lead in performance
 
A 6870 is quite abit better then a 7770, period. Plus was a pretty good card for the price. As far as crossfire goes, what was said above being horrible is completely untrue. It really scaled very well.
 
He just has bad experiences with his crossfired 6970s, he should def just give them to me instead of complaining about them all the time
 
wolfeking said:
jonny, yet again, you base your entire argument off release drivers and a questionable review site. Going by that you need a 7950 to match the 6970, when the 7870 kicks its arse currently. DO YOUR RESEARCH.
Click to expand...

Since when has Anandtech become a "questionable" site? :confused:

And if you look at benchmark scores, the 7770 scores 2113 points, while the 6870 scores 2519 points. Last I checked, a 6770 was weaker than a 6870.

StrangleHold said:
A 6870 is quite abit better then a 7770, period. Plus was a pretty good card for the price. As far as crossfire goes, what was said above being horrible is completely untrue. It really scaled very well.
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jonnyp11 said:
He just has bad experiences with his crossfired 6970s, he should def just give them to me instead of complaining about them all the time
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I'm in agreement with this. Wolfe, you have one bad experience with something (remember when you got an SSD and wouldn't stop complaining about how slow it was because it wasn't instant?) and you just degrade it and complain. Why not try and fix your issue then? Sell what you don't like and buy something else.
 
childsy_1985 said:
Currently i run 6870 oc edition in crossfire. This year I want to upgrade and I was planning on 7970 crossfire. I am in a possition to afford 1 card now but will have to wait a little while before i can purchase the second card, so is it worth buying now and running with the single 7970 or should i stick with my current setup untill i can afford both cards?
Click to expand...

I'd wait until you have the money for both if you want to go Crossfire.

As for the arguments about 1GB not being enough these days - it isn't really. I have a 1080p monitor and sometimes when I play Just Cause 2 on my 1GB 5870 when there's lots of explosions going on in the game you get a bit of lag due there not being enough RAM on the graphics card. I'd recommend at least 2GB, but the 7970 tends to be 3GB anyway so that's not a problem.
 
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