690 Vs Sapphire 7970 in xfire

[Briggsy]

Hi All,

I'm currently running 2 sapphire 7970 in xfire but I'm coming up against some cooling issues due to spacing on my board.

So I'm thinking of ditching the xfire and going for 690, which will perform better on ultra settings in games at 2560x1440 res?

Thanks

 

[ObscureParadox]

It would be very close and tbh, i would say it would just depend on the game. I wouldn't bother going through the hassle of changing the cards over if you already have the 7970's. If you look at GTX 690 reviews, the 7970 crossfire and GTX 690 usually are very close, but AMD drivers have improved 7970 performance quite a bit since then. The new 12.6 beta drivers have given the 7970 a decent boost in performance over the original drivers, around 13% in most cases. It does seem to be getting better and better too, so if i was you i wouldn't rush out and get a GTX 690. But if you really do feel like you need the space then that is your only option.

Edit : just thinking then, by the time you've factored in the cost of getting the GTX 690 after selling your 7970's, wouldn't it be just as easy and as cheap to get a new motherboard with proper spacing????? That would solve the problem and you'd get a good chunk of the money back selling your current motherboard!!

 

[Lauralarry]

no point bro! mise well upgrade to ivybridge to use your PCI-E 3.0 capability

 

[SubTract]

I would assume the 7970 xfire, They have 3GB framebuffer per card. where the 690 has a 2gb framebuffer per gpu. Higher res, and higher detail should... in theory anyway, perform better.

 

[Briggsy]

Thanks for the advice mate.

 

[Pr3d4t0r]

for multiple monitors gaming atleast 3 or so then 7970s win but for single or dual monitor then 690 does outperform it, or you can wait for 7990

 

[WYP]

id go for the 7970's, it has a larger frame buffer and has the ability to turn off the second card at idle unlike nvidea saving power.

 

[Pendragon]

If cooling is your primary concern you may want to have a look at the thread I started over in the Air cooling section of the forum LINK. The guys have really helped me out with getting my system to run cool with a pair of XFX R7970. Ended up with a funky fan configuration. My motherboard layout gives me just one slot clear between the two cards.

 

[Briggsy]

Wow - sweet I'll take a look now.