School me on Crossfire

Hello guys,

I have a Gigabyte Radeon HD6950, the first version that could be unlocked and overclocked to run like the HD6970

Mine has the shaders unlocked, but im not running it overclocked.

I would like to get another GPU to run Crossfire, but i dont know why

I just want it!

So, why run crossfire? What advantage is there? Should i get HD6970 and OC my 6950 to be like HD6970 og should i get a version 2 of the HD6950 with the locked shaders?

Both would be 2gb versions.

Teach me!

Crossfire will work regardless of the cards not being exactly the same. You can crossfire a 6970 and a 6950 without any problems. Both cards will operate as fast as the slower of the two cards.

What advantage? Tons more performance for a great price, and it's pretty cool to have also.

650w might be cutting it close though.

+1 to GnR...more or less.

There are drawbacks.

1. Not all games scale (most do - but you will have to wait for new games profiles for scaling).
2. Not all games scale well.
3. Potential microstuttering
4. Increased power consumption
5. Increased heat output.

If you are good with that, 'just to have it' then go for it. To me, you have a powerful enough card to run most games very well already on 1920x1080 or less. I wouldnt bother.

GotNoRice said:

Crossfire will work regardless of the cards not being exactly the same. You can crossfire a 6970 and a 6950 without any problems. Both cards will operate as fast as the slower of the two cards.

650w might be cutting it close though.

Click to expand...

Thats what i mean, should i get a 6970 amd oc the other one to be like 6970? Since the shaders are open an set to the same.

The PSU, very true, forgot about it, but have also been wanting to upgrade to a 900w or 1000w.

EarthDog said:

+1 to GnR...more or less.

There are drawbacks.

1. Not all games scale (most do - but you will have to wait for new games profiles for scaling).
2. Not all games scale well.
3. Potential microstuttering
4. Increased power consumption
5. Increased heat output.

If you are good with that, 'just to have it' then go for it. To me, you have a powerful enough card to run most games very well already on 1920x1080 or less. I wouldnt bother.

Click to expand...

I also agree that the card is powerfull enough to run most games on max. Modern warfare, did prove that it would run better when i oc'edm but i mainly play Euro Truck Simulation and ScaniaTruck Driving Simulation on eyefinity.

With Euro Truck Sim 2 coming out soon, i just want teh system ready for hours nonstop gaming, and as we are at the moment, Scania tends to crash once in a while

What is this scaling you talk about?

An 850W PSU from Corsair will work fine.... No need to go that high

Scaling is how well two cards respond to a game. The average scaling is anywhere from 50-85% increases. Some games dont scale at all, some more than 85%. the bottom line is even though you are paying 2x the price you never get 2x performance.

A quality 750W PSU would be fine even with heavy overclocking.

AFAIK, you want a 6970, since it has the same number of shaders as the 6950. Or you can get another unlockable 6950...I think Sapphire is still selling a version with the dual BIOS switch.

Knufire said:

AFAIK, you want a 6970, since it has the same number of shaders as the 6950. Or you can get another unlockable 6950...I think Sapphire is still selling a version with the dual BIOS switch.

Click to expand...

I cant get it here anymore.

For what i can afford at the moment, im looking at XFX Radeon HD6950 2gb, but this would be V.2 with only 1 bios, and no chance of unluck, but this would still performe better then HD6950 Oc'ed, i dont mind going back to the stock bios on my flashed HD6950 if the Crossfire performance would be incredible.

I have started playing ProjectCARS, and i love it, so i am looking to exspand on the GPU performance, to be able to run that game on max.

EDIT:
I have the 2GB version, should i get another 2gb or would a 1gb be enough when running Crossfire? Would this set my 2gb card down to 1gb?

Pierre3400 said:

I cant get it here anymore.

For what i can afford at the moment, im looking at XFX Radeon HD6950 2gb, but this would be V.2 with only 1 bios, and no chance of unluck, but this would still performe better then HD6950 Oc'ed, i dont mind going back to the stock bios on my flashed HD6950 if the Crossfire performance would be incredible.

I have started playing ProjectCARS, and i love it, so i am looking to exspand on the GPU performance, to be able to run that game on max.

EDIT:
I have the 2GB version, should i get another 2gb or would a 1gb be enough when running Crossfire? Would this set my 2gb card down to 1gb?

Click to expand...

Get another 2GB to match it or the other cards extra memory will not be used in the crossfire configuration.