HIS 7950 or stick with Sapphire 7850 ?

[paulstung]

As above really . I currently have a Sapphire HD7850 2gb (1100 / 1250), but have come into a bit of extra cash and am thinking about upgrading my GPU . I have found the HIS HD 7950 IceQ BOOST 3gb ( 850 / 925 with boost and 5000mhz) for a cheap as chips price of £239.99 .

I am happy with my 7850 , but the way things are going it won't be up to the job for very long . So would I see much of an increase ? Or I could always get a 7970 just to be on the safe side . I was looking at the Sapphire 7970 vapor-x ghz or the HIS 7970 iceq2 . if i would be better off with a 7970 out of the 2 wich would be better .

Or I am open to sugestions , some of you will probably say the Gigabyte but, I seem to be reading quite a lot of posts about problems and needing to be RMA'd ? Is there anything in this ? Please help...

 

[FTR.4500MHz]

If you plan on staying @ 1080p, getting a second 7850 would be a good choice. This would give you quite a good performance increase and 2gb of vram is enough for 1080p.
And you will save a couple of bucks too.

 

[paulstung]

I have actually been thinking about that , but have always been told not to bother , stick with a single higher power card . Yes I will be staying at 1080p as I use a 32" 3d tv for gaming . I have actually just found the Asus 7870 direct cu2 for £320 . But I do like the idea of crossfire , and with the pennies saved I will still have enough left over to put my cpu under water . I was just going to buy a few bits as a starter . I will look into a 2nd 7850 i think . Cheers mate.

 

[Lystfiskern]

CoolerMaster GX 550W?

You most likely will be fine even with dual cards, but id consider upgrading the PSU.

 

[paulstung]

i have just recently bought an XFX 750w 80% silver . I just haven't got round to updating my sig..

 

[alienware]

I would avoid Crossfire unless it's with cards that are powerful enough to go it alone if needs be.

I used to run two 5770s in Crossfire and it was a pain in the ass. When they were working they were fantastic (far faster than a 5870) but sadly they didn't work more often than not.

It's fun for benchmarks but in the real world you just multiply the AMD driver problems by about a hundred.

If this were SLI you were considering with say a pair of GTX 660s I'd have no hesitance in saying go for it but only because Nvidia are supporting it very well due to the GTX 690. Support may slip now that they have the Titan out but yeah, it's bad enough even when the manufacturer of your cards is supporting it.

I would get a 7950 and then add another later. At least then if it doesn't work (and it often won't and your game won't even work properly without stuttering badly) you can disable it and run your game from a single powerful GPU (best of both worlds)

 

[airdeano]

look into how the 7850 scales in performance to a single GPU performance.
possibly a 20% over the single 7850 as the 7950 is 30% over the single 7850.
id sell the 7850 and move to the 7950 for the value and newer tech..

 

[paulstung]

If this were SLI you were considering with say a pair of GTX 660s I'd have no hesitance in saying go for it but only because Nvidia are supporting it very well due to the GTX 690. Support may slip now that they have the Titan out but yeah, it's bad enough even when the manufacturer of your cards is supporting it.

Out of curiousity would it be worth buying a pair of 660 TI's ?

 

[airdeano]

SLI 660ti is monster performance. scaling is totally worth the value. would i if i gamed?
id have to go the 7970. better memory handling and crushes single card values.
if you run out of 660ti performance now you gotta get CFX 7970..
so far the 660ti SLI results are good vs the single card usage, but you run out
of rope real quick with newer titles..
ive got 660ti 3gb SLI for my premier and photoshop endevers. no gaming.

 

[Rich_]

see if you can sell the 7850, go GPU'less for 3 days (the horror) while ur shipping in a 7950? get something a bit nicer like the windforce 7950 good cooling, and if you ever decide to put it under water it has that unlocked voltage Should still come out on top with extra $ if u sell the 7850, the windforce is running 300~$ USD here.

If this were SLI you were considering with say a pair of GTX 660s I'd have no hesitance in saying go for it but only because Nvidia are supporting it very well due to the GTX 690. Support may slip now that they have the Titan out but yeah, it's bad enough even when the manufacturer of your cards is supporting it.

Out of curiousity would it be worth buying a pair of 660 TI's ?

Nope. they cost the same as a 7950. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aiz7HCdGEic

 

[alienware]

Out of curiousity would it be worth buying a pair of 660 TI's ?

Yes. You're looking at Titan performance for half the price IMO.

SLI is really very good now that Nvidia can be bothered with it. The only game I had an issue with recently was Far Cry 3. Apparently support was added but it didn't work. There was a bodge using Nvinspector or whatever it's called but that didn't work for me (it showed SLI but frames were the same as one card).

They did put it right in the end and FPS soared.

It isn't just that either, EVGA have taken matters into their own hands too.

www.evga.com/sli

So even when Nvidia slip EVGA usually sort it.

 

[paulstung]

I'm more confused than before now . I can get a pair of MSI GeForce GTX 660 Ti OC for £400 , or go for a single XFX Double D Black Edition Radeon HD 7970 OC for £305 or the . But I can't help thinking that I have read a few posts about the XFX cards having problems ? I do like the idea of duel cards , but there is about a 50/50 split on peoples views on the subject . What are the advantages of the 7970 6g version ? other than eyefinity . I will be buying 2 extra monitors to give it a go soon . Lets say if you can get the 7970 6gb model for £445 would you ?

 

[alienware]

Firstly avoid XFX no matter what they cost.

Secondly you don't need a 6gb card. Personally speaking I would avoid three monitors too (been there seen that) but that's just me. It's a serious faff around to get some games to work and even then they don't look right. < that will be heavily subject to opinion but I have actually ran a triple monitor set up and unless you play nothing but Dirt and its sequels then most of the games won't look right.

When it comes to SLI I can only go on what I have seen, given that I use it in my daily rig. If it was crap and full of problems? I would tell you it was crap and full of problems, just like I've offered my honest opinion on triple monitor setups.

I have nearly every game released and the *only* one that did not work in SLI (note I am saying that in past tense) was Far Cry 3. TBH I don't like the game any way and one 670 was enough to play it alone but yeah, that was the only issue I have seen with SLI since fitting my second card back in January (birthday present).

Other than that everything else I have played with it works brilliantly with no micro stutter. Recently I have been playing -

NFS : Shift with 8XMSAA and max settings.
Hitman : Absolution
Sleeping Dogs
Crysis 2
Crysis 3
Far Cry 3
Dirt 3
Dirt : Showdown.

The only one that didn't work straight away was Far Cry 3.

Also try and remember that no single GPU card other than Titan can run Crysis 3 on the max settings with any kind of MSAA. A pair of 660TI will.

I guess it depends on what you are looking for really, but personally I went for shock and awe and raw power. Of which I have a boat load.