Would it be worth my time to crossfire a Sapphire Radeon 7850 with a 7870?
- Thread starter tnick777
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hobbsyoyo
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I am less than satisfied with current crossfire setup. I can't recall which cards they are, but they're identical (not a mixed set such as yours).
My main gripe is that they will not allow me to use more than one monitor. I have no idea why this is and I did digging and apparently it's just an issue with crossfire. I have heard some people say they can use dual monitors (and with two cards, I should be able to theoretically run like 8 monitors) but I've never seen it, couldn't find proof of it and can't figure out how to do it on my rig.
Anyways, another issue is that they are always linked as long as they are connected. Out of the box, the driver they came with had a checkbox where you could click and digitally unlink them even though they are still connected. When I updated the driver, that option went away. So now the only way to unlink them is to physically disconnect them. AFAIK, this is the only way to run dual monitors - to unlink them. But if I switch from productivity mode with dual monitors back to gaming mode, I have to open the case and reconnect them. It's a stupid chore.
One last thing that I've heard but not looked into - apparently running crossfire doesn't even give you close to 2x the performance - it's more like a 30% boost or something. In other words, instead of buying 2 decent cards, it may be smarter to buy one nicer one instead. They will also suck my electricity than a single card but that's an afterthought I guess.
You should also try and match up the 7850 with another 7850 as running a 7870 with a 7850 is going to downgrade the 7870 (effectively) to a 7850 so you've wasted money. That's how I understand it anyways.
My main gripe is that they will not allow me to use more than one monitor. I have no idea why this is and I did digging and apparently it's just an issue with crossfire. I have heard some people say they can use dual monitors (and with two cards, I should be able to theoretically run like 8 monitors) but I've never seen it, couldn't find proof of it and can't figure out how to do it on my rig.
Anyways, another issue is that they are always linked as long as they are connected. Out of the box, the driver they came with had a checkbox where you could click and digitally unlink them even though they are still connected. When I updated the driver, that option went away. So now the only way to unlink them is to physically disconnect them. AFAIK, this is the only way to run dual monitors - to unlink them. But if I switch from productivity mode with dual monitors back to gaming mode, I have to open the case and reconnect them. It's a stupid chore.
One last thing that I've heard but not looked into - apparently running crossfire doesn't even give you close to 2x the performance - it's more like a 30% boost or something. In other words, instead of buying 2 decent cards, it may be smarter to buy one nicer one instead. They will also suck my electricity than a single card but that's an afterthought I guess.
You should also try and match up the 7850 with another 7850 as running a 7870 with a 7850 is going to downgrade the 7870 (effectively) to a 7850 so you've wasted money. That's how I understand it anyways.
Samez
Emperor
A friend of mine used Crossfire for a while and had plenty of problems. He did use identical cards and had issues with synchronization of the cards which resulted in a lower performance than just one card.
With crossfire you will increase the energy consumption, the noise and the heat of your system for a performance boost of 30 % best case (if at all).
Big question is: is there any application which requires crossfire you want to use?
Simulation software using gpu cores for calculations might work better with crossfire.
For games it should not be necessary as long as the next console generation is not yet released.
IMHO instead of investing now in a card which might not work in crossfire as intended you could save the money for now and replace your old card earlier instead.
With crossfire you will increase the energy consumption, the noise and the heat of your system for a performance boost of 30 % best case (if at all).
Big question is: is there any application which requires crossfire you want to use?
Simulation software using gpu cores for calculations might work better with crossfire.
For games it should not be necessary as long as the next console generation is not yet released.
IMHO instead of investing now in a card which might not work in crossfire as intended you could save the money for now and replace your old card earlier instead.
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