7950 CFX vs. 7990?

[jimbo]

Or rather, how would 7950 CFX stand up against a standalone 7990?

Hello, btw.

The only reason I ask this is because the latest Battlefield 4 gameplay was shown at GDC using a vanilla 7990 that AMD have kept under the hood until now.
Seeing as how tasty and buttery smooth that gameplay looked, I was wondering if getting a second 7950 TF3 would allow me to achieve a performance similar to a 7990.

This might be a little vague as the only 7990s on the market at the moment are not manufactured by AMD and thus, may have performance boosts that a stock 7990 may not.

I currently have a single MSI 7950 TF3 and would absolutely consider purchasing another in the future (one is perfectly fine for now though).

Thanks for your time :yumyum:

EDIT: If I were to add a second card, I would also upgrade my PSU.

 

[jamesriley94]

Firstly - no way either of those on your PSU. I'd be very concerned running what you have on an OCZ PSU tbh.

What resolution do you play on? and are you thinking of upgrading it in the future or anything?

 

[NeverBackDown]

Upgrade to at least a 750watt psu for ethier of those setups. If you only game on 1080p i would not upgrade.

 

[jimbo]

Firstly - no way either of those on your PSU. I'd be very concerned running what you have on an OCZ PSU tbh.

What resolution do you play on? and are you thinking of upgrading it in the future or anything?

Sorry, I forgot to add that part. The PSU would also be changed for something superior if I were to add an additional card :S

i currently play @ 1920x1080. I've never really considered playing on multiple monitors, although it is something that I would consider if I had the horse power.

My current problem is that I cannot hack playing at anything below 60 FPS. the minute the frame rate drops even a few frames, I notice it and I find it a little off putting at times. Currently, all games I have thrown at my card comfortably sit at 60 FPS. I know that this will not be the case forever though...

 

[alienware]

It's very similar IMO to 2x 670s vs a 690.

Due to the constraints of dual GPU on one card you can clock the separate ones higher to counteract the fact that the cores are cut down.

Given you're already half way there in GPU terms obviously the 7950s would make far more sense than ditching one losing money and then buying a 7990.

And as has been pointed out you're going to need a new PSU for either as well, so price that into the mix too

 

[jamesriley94]

Sorry, I forgot to add that part. The PSU would also be changed for something superior if I were to add an additional card :S

i currently play @ 1920x1080. I've never really considered playing on multiple monitors, although it is something that I would consider if I had the horse power.

My current problem is that I cannot hack playing at anything below 60 FPS. the minute the frame rate drops even a few frames, I notice it and I find it a little off putting at times. Currently, all games I have thrown at my card comfortably sit at 60 FPS. I know that this will not be the case forever though...

For the time being you should be fine then.
You'll certainly be find for another year or so, whilst the 7000 series are still the latest models, and the 8000s will just be rebrands.

With continual driver updates, your FPS on current games will only improve -and there isn't much coming out at the moment that's revolutionary graphics wise.

 

[alienware]

With continual driver updates, your FPS on current games will only improve -and there isn't much coming out at the moment that's revolutionary graphics wise.

Hmm I dunno man things definitely seem to have improved lately. Hitman Sleeping Dogs Tomb Raider and Crysis 3 seem to be pushing things to the next level.

 

[jimbo]

It's very similar IMO to 2x 670s vs a 690.

Due to the constraints of dual GPU on one card you can clock the separate ones higher to counteract the fact that the cores are cut down.

Given you're already half way there in GPU terms obviously the 7950s would make far more sense than ditching one losing money and then buying a 7990.

And as has been pointed out you're going to need a new PSU for either as well, so price that into the mix too

Thanks for the response

For the time being you should be fine then.
You'll certainly be find for another year or so, whilst the 7000 series are still the latest models, and the 8000s will just be rebrands.

With continual driver updates, your FPS on current games will only improve -and there isn't much coming out at the moment that's revolutionary graphics wise.

Thanks to you too

 

[jamesriley94]

Hmm I dunno man things definitely seem to have improved lately. Hitman Sleeping Dogs Tomb Raider and Crysis 3 seem to be pushing things to the next level.

Maybe a little - but it's not like they're light years ahead is it.

FPS may drop a little below 60 on some of these games, but reducing from ultra settings to high, doesn't make a lot of difference visually, but can result in big changes to FPS.

Either way, I'm sure you'll agree, it's not worth upgrading to 7950 crossfire just to ensure staying at 60FPS over say 57FPS...

 

[NeverBackDown]

For the time being you should be fine then.
You'll certainly be find for another year or so, whilst the 7000 series are still the latest models, and the 8000s will just be rebrands.

Nope wrong...
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2028408/amd-to-release-new-radeon-hd-8000-graphics-cards-in-2013.html

Towards the bottom of the article

But keeping to this thread, if you must feel you need another card then add a 7950 and mine as well get a 120hz monitor and still save money compared to a single 7990

 

[jamesriley94]

Nope wrong...
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2028408/amd-to-release-new-radeon-hd-8000-graphics-cards-in-2013.html

Towards the bottom of the article

But keeping to this thread, if you must feel you need another card then add a 7950 and mine as well get a 120hz monitor and still save money compared to a single 7990

I'm not sure what you're saying I'm wrong about?

Rumours are that the 8000 series will pretty much just be rebrands of the 7000 series, and therefore will only offer a few % difference in performance over the 7000 series.
Whether they come out this year, or next year, it doesn't really matter because the 7000 series will still be pretty much as good.

 

[alienware]

Maybe a little - but it's not like they're light years ahead is it.

FPS may drop a little below 60 on some of these games, but reducing from ultra settings to high, doesn't make a lot of difference visually, but can result in big changes to FPS.

Either way, I'm sure you'll agree, it's not worth upgrading to 7950 crossfire just to ensure staying at 60FPS over say 57FPS...

Only it isn't 60 FPS over 57 FPS. On Tomb Raider even with my rig with everything on ultimate and TressFX enabled I see a min of 27 FPS. In Crysis 3 I also see a min of 27 FPS, just about playable. I would think there was something wrong with my rig but looking around shows that both games are pretty much unplayable on any single GPU other than Titan. 7970 users report mins as low as 12 FPS with Tomb Raider.

The problem with the PC hardware market is that things move so quickly that nothing ever gets optimised properly or utlised properly.

With a console? it's all they have so over the years the games look better and better. With a PC game? they just release it, sometimes before the hardware to run it even exists (see also GTAIV on max).

I'm not saying it's sensible to rush out and go with two powerful cards just for a few games but in the PC market you either keep up or turn down settings.

It's a sorry state of affairs that you need £600 worth of GPUs to play the latest games as they were intended tbh.

There's lots of new engines being introduced ATM. Sleeping Dogs also needs hulk like GPUs once you start to enable any sort of aliasing.

 

[Rich_]

Another one of these.

Your 7950 @ 1100 mhz will max out BF3, AND BF4 (same engine, mostly), on a 60hz monitor @ 1080p. It will give you more than the 60fps that such a monitor can even display. So the only reason to go 7990 or 7950x2 is if you have a 120+hz monitor, or multiple monitors. And in this case i would reccomend 300$ on another 7950.

 

[NeverBackDown]

I'm not sure what you're saying I'm wrong about?

Rumours are that the 8000 series will pretty much just be rebrands of the 7000 series, and therefore will only offer a few % difference in performance over the 7000 series.
Whether they come out this year, or next year, it doesn't really matter because the 7000 series will still be pretty much as good.

Exactly what you are saying now is what i am correcting you on... the article i linked at the bottom states that the new series will have a NEW architecture. It was quoted from the corporate VP of AMD.

Though in a sense you are right because it will mostly be GCN 2.0 and i guess you could call it a rebrand with tweaks but at this moment in time we do not know what GCN 2.0 will contain.

 

[jamesriley94]

Exactly what you are saying now is what i am correcting you on... the article i linked at the bottom states that the new series will have a NEW architecture. It was quoted from the corporate VP of AMD.

Though in a sense you are right because it will mostly be GCN 2.0 and i guess you could call it a rebrand with tweaks but at this moment in time we do not know what GCN 2.0 will contain.

Hmmm, I'm not sure...

http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/8000/pages/8000-series.aspx#2

Spec wise the 8970 is exactly the same as the 7970Ghz edition.

Last time I did research into it, everything was pointing to a rebrand, but that was a few months ago. Things may be different now, I'm not sure - and I know things are liable to change.

Even so it's very unlikely that we'd see a huge difference over the 7000 series, and it's not like games will immediately be coded for the new arch, so the 7000 series will still be relatively up to date for the next year or so.

 

[NeverBackDown]

Hmmm, I'm not sure...

http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/8000/pages/8000-series.aspx#2

Spec wise the 8970 is exactly the same as the 7970Ghz edition.

Last time I did research into it, everything was pointing to a rebrand, but that was a few months ago. Things may be different now, I'm not sure - and I know things are liable to change.

Even so it's very unlikely that we'd see a huge difference over the 7000 series, and it's not like games will immediately be coded for the new arch, so the 7000 series will still be relatively up to date for the next year or so.

The rebrand is for OEM partners only. The actually non OEM cards will be the GCN 2.0 and there would be no need to change code for it because it is essentially GCN 1 but with tweaks here and there.

That was my first research in a while as well and ya things did change over the past few months lol^_^

 

[alienware]

The rebrand is for OEM partners only. The actually non OEM cards will be the GCN 2.0 and there would be no need to change code for it because it is essentially GCN 1 but with tweaks here and there.

That was my first research in a while as well and ya things did change over the past few months lol^_^

This. It's only Dell and other OEMs that will be seeing the cards.

Just like how they get odd cards from Nvidia like the GTX 555 and the 1.5gb GTX 660 that's used in the Alienware X51.