42 replies to this topic

[Chiyeko Kuramochi]

Popping up again

With the new launches underway I am looking at my options as I like to get some more juice out of this machine and move to a higher res screen (2500x1600 or abouts).

Right now I run a single 7970 (Sapphire vapox x) and a 850W corsair AX PSU (gold rated)

to get more juice I am looking at two options which is either the new high end card of nvidea or AMD, or get two more 7970 (and I guess a more powerful PSU) for the same price to go 3 way crossfire. The 7970 card are already slowly dropping in price and I expect a bigger drop once AMD launches its new line up (or at least plenty of used cards to pick from )

Anyhow what would your advice be, single new high end gpu or 3 way last gen high end gpu?

[Catamount]

That's easy; the 7970s.

If a 780 were a lot faster than a single 7970, it might be worth some consideration, but it's really barely faster than the VaporX card that you have right now. 3 7970s would completely blow away the 780 in about 90% of titles, and be almost as fast on those rare occasions when Crossfire wasn't supported.

Edited by Catamount, 27 June 2013 - 06:02 AM.

[Chiyeko Kuramochi]

That was my thought to, but others where to concerned about micro stutter being an issue.

Btw do you think my PSU will do with 3 of these cards or do I need an upgrade to 1000W (keeping in mind I have an OC 3770k) I know the 7970 are hungry cards.

[Catamount]

Microstutter doesn't affect triple card setups; that's one of the reasons to get a triple card setup.

It's a long-running glitch in multi-card configs that unevenly loads the cards, and it only affects dual-card setups. AMD is just a few short months away from fixing dual-card microstutter, too, while Nvidia apparently already has.


For PSUs, yeah I would spend the extra little bit of cash and get a 1000W unit. Three 7970 GEs can draw 750W all by themselves. To be honest, I'd even go a little higher.

Alternatively, if you didn't want something that was going to pump a kilowatt of heat energy into your room when gaming, you could always do something like get dual GTX 770s. They wouldn't be as fast, but I figured it's worth bringing up if power is a concern, since they'd be a lot more frugal, but still a lot more powerful than the 780, and as I said, Nvidia has mostly solved dual-card microstutter from the looks of it (see the frame time variance in SLI here, lower is better and two 770s do very well: http://www.tomshardw...eview,3519.html). If power's not a concern, have fun with your trio of 7970s, and post some benchmarks!

Edited by Catamount, 27 June 2013 - 08:14 AM.

[Shamous13]

I'm running two 7870 and I was able to get around the micro shutter problem by turning v-sink on. you also need to force the catalyst control to use the bio shock profile for crossfire to work correctly

Edited by Shamous13, 27 June 2013 - 08:14 AM.

[Chiyeko Kuramochi]

Catamount, on 27 June 2013 - 08:09 AM, said:

Microstutter doesn't affect triple card setups; that's one of the reasons to get a triple card setup.

It's a long-running glitch in multi-card configs that unevenly loads the cards, and it only affects dual-card setups. AMD is just a few short months away from fixing dual-card microstutter, too, while Nvidia apparently already has.


For PSUs, yeah I would spend the extra little bit of cash and get a 1000W unit. Three 7970 GEs can draw 750W all by themselves. To be honest, I'd even go a little higher.

Alternatively, if you didn't want something that was going to pump a kilowatt of heat energy into your room when gaming, you could always do something like get dual GTX 770s. They wouldn't be as fast, but I figured it's worth bringing up if power is a concern, since they'd be a lot more frugal, but still a lot more powerful than the 780, and as I said, Nvidia has mostly solved dual-card microstutter from the looks of it (see the frame time variance in SLI here, lower is better and two 770s do very well: http://www.tomshardw...eview,3519.html). If power's not a concern, have fun with your trio of 7970s, and post some benchmarks!

I guess I can sell my current PSU and than get a 1000W unit, that shouldn't be to big of expense , might even just keep it as backup or for a second pc down the road, would save me pulling all the cables out, now I can just unplug them from the PSU, insert new PSU and plug in again

As for benchmarks once I get I will do, but first have to wait for the price drop or used market flush on these cards, star citizen is robbing my wallet atm

[Catamount]

Like I said, I'd go a bit bigger than 1000. It doesn't have to be much bigger, but your GPUs can draw 750W, your CPU can draw 77W stock (granted, it probably won't unless you stress the IGP and CPU simultaneously), and once you add in 100W for everything else, you're at almost 950W without even overclocking. With overclocking, you can probably 1000W; it won't draw 1000W in gaming so much as just in artificial stress tests, but you need at least a few watts of headroom. Get something 1100 or bigger, imo. You won't pay much more.
With MiR, this guy is only $170, and if you don't like MiRs then Newegg's house brand always makes a good showing, too: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16817182063

Chiyeko Kuramochi, on 27 June 2013 - 08:23 AM, said:

As for benchmarks once I get I will do, but first have to wait for the price drop or used market flush on these cards, star citizen is robbing my wallet atm

Hah! Good man.
I've "only" put down $125, myself, enough to get my Hornet fighter and be happy for awhile.

Also, about those 7970 prices:

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814202008

I don't expect to see 7970s that cheap again for a long, long time. I'm afraid Sapphire is trying to clean out their stocks of these to just leave the GHZ Edition Vapor-X card behind. You might want to jump on this ASAP, even if you could only get one right now or something (then you'd have two total, yes?). It's not only dirt cheap, but as I'm sure you know Sapphire kicks everybody else's rear end for coolers, hands down, and the Dual-X cooler on those is a close second best to the Vapor-X cooler you have on your existing 7970. These aren't technically GEs, but they're clocked to just about GHZ edition clocks, so just do a tiny bit of OCing until the three cards are running at the same clocks, which will take like 10 seconds, and you'll be in great shape.

Edited by Catamount, 27 June 2013 - 11:11 AM.

[Chiyeko Kuramochi]

All nice, but I am in Europe so newegg is a no go for me and I don't really care about getting the same brand just as they are good enough, I plan to have them run at 1100mhz that seems a solid safe number and mem clocks as is.

Cheapest here I can find new atm is XFX double dissipation for 340 euro. I however will wait surely used cards will start to show up when the new range is out also will have the money at that point

as for SC pledges I will not dare to speak the numbers (beside my mom will kill me if she finds out, have to avoid that for 9 more month before being free on my own )

Edited by Chiyeko Kuramochi, 27 June 2013 - 01:00 PM.

[Catamount]

Awww, European hardware prices can be a nightmare. 340 euros isn't too bad, but I agree that you can probably do better used a little down the road.

Good luck

Edited by Catamount, 27 June 2013 - 01:37 PM.

[Chavette]

2 7970 is stronger than 1 780. I'd buy that and save myself the hassle of a new psu, and a marginal fps improvement you will never see because of v-sync.

[Catamount]

On the other hand, if AMD's microstutter fix doesn't go as planned, that second 7970 will just be a paperweight that happens to suck electricity, and the third card is going to be absolutely vital. Who can say if they'll succeed or not in the coming months.

[DEMAX51]

I'm sure you already know this, but just to throw it out there in case: MWO doesn't support SLI or Crossfire yet - so for this one single game, you'll still be restricted to a single GPU.

Personally, I'd forgo spending any money on a bigger power supply and go with a single 780. But if you've got your heart set on either the 770 or the three-way 7970s, I'd probably choose the three 7970s. The extra Gig of VRAM you get with the 7970 compared to the 770 will really help you if you're planning on playing at very high resolutions.

[Chiyeko Kuramochi]

I know, but as it stands I barely play this game sadly, how much I like the mechs I am just terrible at it and I do better at world of tanks. Still don't think my money here was wasted as I still love mechs and always can pop up for a few battles (O and it makes me fee less guility to make use of the best source for hardware knowledge I know off, like seriously magic how quick things get answered here.)

and European prices are annoying I ordered a small piece of electronics called makey makey as I thought it would be fun for my dad to use at school (he is a teacher) thing is like 50 dolars and I had to pay 21.15 euro import taxes!!!!!!!!!!!!

Edited by Chiyeko Kuramochi, 27 June 2013 - 03:32 PM.

[Chavette]

Chiyeko Kuramochi, on 27 June 2013 - 03:29 PM, said:

and European prices are annoying I ordered a small piece of electronics called makey makey as I thought it would be fun for my dad to use at school (he is a teacher) thing is like 50 dolars and I had to pay 21.15 euro import taxes!!!!!!!!!!!!

You pay import taxes for the goods+shipping price. Be careful of the shipping service, and tell the guy who ships it to mark the value properly.

[Dragoon20005]

another advantage of using HD7970s is that you could use multiples monitors using Eyefinity

[Dr B00t]

you could give me a thousand dollars...i will read you the harry potter books every night before you go to sleep...

nothing is more powerful than your imagination!

[Rykiel]

Running 3 7970s in Tri-Fire will greatly benefit you at 1600p or higher resolutions, as this is where the 7970s really shine (doing quite respectably even compared to GTX 780/Titan). A hunt for 7970s can get you a better/cheaper deal than getting a single GTX 780 or Titan. As for Mechwarrior Online, hopefully PGI will get onto the Crossfire/SLI issues and fix that up -- but that isn't the highest priority on their minds right now, what with community warfare, the Clans, and all

[Chiyeko Kuramochi]

Dr B00t, on 27 June 2013 - 06:25 PM, said:

you could give me a thousand dollars...i will read you the harry potter books every night before you go to sleep...

nothing is more powerful than your imagination!

I bet my book collection is larger than yours Beside if I really want imagination I just write myself like I have been doing for the last 10 years


As for multi monitors not going to happen I cannot stand having edges in my fov, so just 1 big screen it will be

[Barbaric Soul]

I don't see the need for more than one 7970 honestly, this coming from someone that runs a non-overclocked non-GHZ edition 7970 with a 30" 2560*1600 monitor. I run MWO at very high settings and get 45-50 fps. Crysis 3 is the only game I have played so far that I can't do very high settings and get 45 fps or more. I can do all high settings and get 45fps or more in Crysis 3. If your 7970 isn't giving you enough FPS, I'd suggest OCíng it before spending more money, unless you just want to spend more. In which case, spend it and enjoy. Everyone loves new toys, whether you actually need them or not.

[Chiyeko Kuramochi]

Mine is OC and ever since running with higher end hardware the smoothness of 60fps is something I have grown to love. Might even see if I won't got for a higher refresh monitor, I am just spoiled now as I used to play at like 20 to maybe if I was lucky 30 fps for many many years

Also this rig will have to handle star citizen which is going to be quite demanding specially in non optimized alpha I just want to be able to throw raw power at it till it buckles and getting a few used 7970 would do the trick.