MrKambo
New member
Introduction
With the graphics card market moving so quickly, and with the constant itch to own the latest and greatest. You have to ask yourself is it more beneficial to invest in a Crossfire/SLI setup, or to buy the best single graphics card your budget allows and to overclock it in order to get the most from your money?
We all know each manufacturer has advantages and disadvantages when it comes to multi-card setups whether it be driver related issues, a more seamless multi-monitor experience or the level of immersion when it comes to 3D gaming. But these issues only seem to affect a few and with each driver update from AMD & nVidia, they are slowly getting on top of these problems and are providing an amazing gaming experience regardless of the setup invovled.
Today we will be looking at the AMD 7970 GHz Edition from MSI in a single card environment and in Crossfire for 1080p gaming.
Tech Specs
MSI R7970 OC @1010/1375
Intel i7-3770K @ 4.6GHz
Asus Maximus V Formula
8GB Corsair Dominator Platinum 2133
Corsair Force GT 120 SSD
Silverstone Strider Gold 850W
Corsair H100 with Corsair SP120 Quiet Editions
Windows 7 X64
Although this is a very high end gaming machine for the average user, we wanted to make sure the graphics cards had the processor power to ensure they were not being held back.
CPU-Z & GPU-Z of our test system.
What our 7970 is running overclocked.
Product Showcase
Temperatures
So Britain is currently experiencing a heatwave, heat we all know is a killer when it comes to PC components, but the 7970 still does very well with idle temperatures. At stock and overclocked it sits at 37°C and when in Crossfire mode 38°C. The 1°C difference here is down to slight restriction in airflow when the second card is installed in the system.
At these low temperatures the fan is inaudible and thanks to AMD's ULPS technology, when using Crossfire the second card switches off completely until it is required. Now by saying off we are not implying it sits in a low power state, by off we mean its off. The fan doesn't spin, the card doesn't draw power, therefore it doesn't dump unnecessary heat in the case.
To test 'load' temperatures we left the Unigine Valley benchmark on loop for 30 minutes and recorded the average temperature during this time. At stock the 7970 averaged at a respectable 72°C, and overclocked at 78°C. The increase in temperature here was due to the bump in voltage to get our overclock stable. Once you add the second 7970, expect to see temperatures quite high. The cards averaged at 92°C which is extremely hot. From this alone you can see an efficient cooling method is required. We suggest you use higher rpm case fans or maybe consider watercooling.
Throughout all these tests the fan speed was left at 'auto'. When hitting temperatures of 80°C+, the fans on these cards produce a lot of noise at higher rpm. While some of you will find this unacceptable, others won't be hindered by the noise. We know noise level is a personal preference but we have issued a warning for those of you who prefer a silent machine.
Power Consumption
Power draw is a very important factor for some, we don't all want power hungry appliances sucking unmentionable levels of wattage, increasing bills!
We measured the power draw of our system only; nothing else was connected to the socket that wasn't needed to ensure accurate readings. At idle the system sits steady at 100 watts. Gaming at stock speeds we were seeing 332 watts at peak levels. This is a substantial increase in power draw by just placing load on a graphics card, so from this we know the 7970 likes its juice!
Overclocked, the reading was 460 watts. When overclocking the card, by increasing the power limit in MSI Afterburner, we allowed the card to exceed its factory TDP to maximize overclocks. This has a 38% increase in power draw from stock. Crossfire power draw is 530 watts on load, this is a further 15% increase from our overclocked single card.
Synthetic Benchmarks
When benchmarking for points or scores, these tests are designed to use anything and everything; the more the better. But you always get the odd anomaly which in this case is 3DMark 11. The test wouldn't fully complete for reasons that are unknown in Crossfire mode.
As you can see on average the 7970 performs 14% better than stock once overclocked, and the scores improve on an average of 58% once engaged in Crossfire mode. The Heaven benchmark showed a massive 72% increase in scores using crossfire. Whereas, Firestrike showed a 47% increase. While this is a good level of scaling, Firestrike had the least improvement over stock compared to the other tests.
Gaming Benchmarks
Gaming doesn't scale as well as the synthetic side of things when using Crossfire. On average there is a 38% increase in FPS over stock, whereas overclocking a single card shows a 14% increase. Sleeping Dogs saw the biggest benefit from the Crossfire setup showing an improvement of 76% and Batman saw the least with only 17%.
Conclusion
So is Crossfire worth the investment over a single overclocked card in terms of gaming? No!
The cost involved with a multi-card setup, is very high once all the other factors are considered such as a power supply to run them and the cooling that goes hand in hand with running dual cards. A Crossfire 7970 setup would cost you approximately £650 and a decent power supply to run them will cost in excess of £120. With a benefit of less than 40% over the board and a huge increase in power consumption, it just doesn't seem to make financial sense for 1080p gaming. You have a lot to gain from overclocking a single card and turning down a couple of notches on the AA, this will provide a excellent gaming experience at a fraction of the cost. Just to emphasise this point, we went back and ran our Crysis 3 benchmark and turned the AA down to 2X MSAA, and achieved an average of 41FPS, that's a 60% increase!
So to wrap this up spend your money on the best single card you can afford, and dial the settings down a tad and you'll have a pleasurable gaming experience that doesn't dent your wallet heavily in the short term or even long term.
With the graphics card market moving so quickly, and with the constant itch to own the latest and greatest. You have to ask yourself is it more beneficial to invest in a Crossfire/SLI setup, or to buy the best single graphics card your budget allows and to overclock it in order to get the most from your money?
We all know each manufacturer has advantages and disadvantages when it comes to multi-card setups whether it be driver related issues, a more seamless multi-monitor experience or the level of immersion when it comes to 3D gaming. But these issues only seem to affect a few and with each driver update from AMD & nVidia, they are slowly getting on top of these problems and are providing an amazing gaming experience regardless of the setup invovled.
Today we will be looking at the AMD 7970 GHz Edition from MSI in a single card environment and in Crossfire for 1080p gaming.
Tech Specs
MSI R7970 OC @1010/1375
Intel i7-3770K @ 4.6GHz
Asus Maximus V Formula
8GB Corsair Dominator Platinum 2133
Corsair Force GT 120 SSD
Silverstone Strider Gold 850W
Corsair H100 with Corsair SP120 Quiet Editions
Windows 7 X64
Although this is a very high end gaming machine for the average user, we wanted to make sure the graphics cards had the processor power to ensure they were not being held back.
CPU-Z & GPU-Z of our test system.
What our 7970 is running overclocked.
Product Showcase
Temperatures
So Britain is currently experiencing a heatwave, heat we all know is a killer when it comes to PC components, but the 7970 still does very well with idle temperatures. At stock and overclocked it sits at 37°C and when in Crossfire mode 38°C. The 1°C difference here is down to slight restriction in airflow when the second card is installed in the system.
At these low temperatures the fan is inaudible and thanks to AMD's ULPS technology, when using Crossfire the second card switches off completely until it is required. Now by saying off we are not implying it sits in a low power state, by off we mean its off. The fan doesn't spin, the card doesn't draw power, therefore it doesn't dump unnecessary heat in the case.
To test 'load' temperatures we left the Unigine Valley benchmark on loop for 30 minutes and recorded the average temperature during this time. At stock the 7970 averaged at a respectable 72°C, and overclocked at 78°C. The increase in temperature here was due to the bump in voltage to get our overclock stable. Once you add the second 7970, expect to see temperatures quite high. The cards averaged at 92°C which is extremely hot. From this alone you can see an efficient cooling method is required. We suggest you use higher rpm case fans or maybe consider watercooling.
Throughout all these tests the fan speed was left at 'auto'. When hitting temperatures of 80°C+, the fans on these cards produce a lot of noise at higher rpm. While some of you will find this unacceptable, others won't be hindered by the noise. We know noise level is a personal preference but we have issued a warning for those of you who prefer a silent machine.
Power Consumption
Power draw is a very important factor for some, we don't all want power hungry appliances sucking unmentionable levels of wattage, increasing bills!
We measured the power draw of our system only; nothing else was connected to the socket that wasn't needed to ensure accurate readings. At idle the system sits steady at 100 watts. Gaming at stock speeds we were seeing 332 watts at peak levels. This is a substantial increase in power draw by just placing load on a graphics card, so from this we know the 7970 likes its juice!
Overclocked, the reading was 460 watts. When overclocking the card, by increasing the power limit in MSI Afterburner, we allowed the card to exceed its factory TDP to maximize overclocks. This has a 38% increase in power draw from stock. Crossfire power draw is 530 watts on load, this is a further 15% increase from our overclocked single card.
Synthetic Benchmarks
When benchmarking for points or scores, these tests are designed to use anything and everything; the more the better. But you always get the odd anomaly which in this case is 3DMark 11. The test wouldn't fully complete for reasons that are unknown in Crossfire mode.
As you can see on average the 7970 performs 14% better than stock once overclocked, and the scores improve on an average of 58% once engaged in Crossfire mode. The Heaven benchmark showed a massive 72% increase in scores using crossfire. Whereas, Firestrike showed a 47% increase. While this is a good level of scaling, Firestrike had the least improvement over stock compared to the other tests.
Gaming Benchmarks
Gaming doesn't scale as well as the synthetic side of things when using Crossfire. On average there is a 38% increase in FPS over stock, whereas overclocking a single card shows a 14% increase. Sleeping Dogs saw the biggest benefit from the Crossfire setup showing an improvement of 76% and Batman saw the least with only 17%.
Conclusion
So is Crossfire worth the investment over a single overclocked card in terms of gaming? No!
The cost involved with a multi-card setup, is very high once all the other factors are considered such as a power supply to run them and the cooling that goes hand in hand with running dual cards. A Crossfire 7970 setup would cost you approximately £650 and a decent power supply to run them will cost in excess of £120. With a benefit of less than 40% over the board and a huge increase in power consumption, it just doesn't seem to make financial sense for 1080p gaming. You have a lot to gain from overclocking a single card and turning down a couple of notches on the AA, this will provide a excellent gaming experience at a fraction of the cost. Just to emphasise this point, we went back and ran our Crysis 3 benchmark and turned the AA down to 2X MSAA, and achieved an average of 41FPS, that's a 60% increase!
So to wrap this up spend your money on the best single card you can afford, and dial the settings down a tad and you'll have a pleasurable gaming experience that doesn't dent your wallet heavily in the short term or even long term.
