HIS RADEON 7950 NEW CARD OR CROSSFIRE??

[steveblade]

I currentley have a HIS RADEON 7950 ice cue blarr blar. Its been an excellent card Ive had about 4 or 5 years. I still run 4960x2160 on my desktop but gaming, to get good frame rates I have to go 1080p. Has anybody got input on getting another 7950 and run both (cheap now 90 quid on the bay £360 when new) or start saving and get a newer gen card. What do i need to buy to get at least a 50% increase in performance and it must do full cinema 4K 4960x2160 or Id not consider it. Any advise would be very welcome so I can get a good value / performance balance. Money is always am issue so Id like to spend less than £400 max.

I very much prefer the Radeon cards but Im willing to be swayed if someone knows of a good enough reason to switch brand, price/ performance / quality /compatibility it all gets a bit hard work after a day or two trawling through reviews.

 

[EarthDog]

I surely wouldnt crossfire. First the card you have likely has 2-4gb of vram which is a detriment already today at 1080p gaming. RAM doesnt pool, it mirrors in crossfire. Second, multi-GPU is dieing anyway. Third, power is 2dx, but performance varies wildly from no increase to an average of maybe 50-70%. Multi-GPU also just 'doesnt work' and can be a PITA.

Save up for a new card...to do that higher than 4k res, you'll want at least a RTX 2080 An AMD 5700xt wont cut it.

 

[steveblade]

Thanks Earthdog, I didnt think Id get 50% or more (or a lot less) with a crossfire settup, I do realise the power consumed is going to be a big increas up to 2x of course. Current card is 3gb ddr5. i dont have the cash but id like to get an AMD Radeon VII 16GB HBM2 7nm card. I do abit of CAD so thats the only reason to go for a 16GB card and future proofing I suppose. Its outside my budget new but I can dream. I dont need to game in 4K by the way but I do run my desktop at 4960x2160 and the CAD applications also. Anyone know if HIS will marketing a version? Or What brand is currently top in the quality stakes.


PS I just got to test a AMD Radeon VII 16GB card the VII frontier edition. IMPRESSED ?? Yes CSGO at 4960x2160 looked awsome and played realy good but is it worth £500+ I couldnt say as I put it away safe as it already hit thermal limits playing at Full 4K and I was testing for a friend to confirm its not a DOA unit. Im thinking I might go for a RX5700XT if a cheapish one shows up.

 

[SF101]

Radeon VII @ 4k will perform well because of memory configuration.
5700XT likely won't keep up to what you just saw on the Radeon VII at 4k or even 1440p.

Only issue i have with Radeon VII is they opted to use a vega gpu instead of the newer navi. Its unfortunate

 

[THEDOOMEDHELL]

PRESS THE HANDBAKE *SKRRT* WAAAAIT...

WAIT GUYS. Steve blade what is your setup currently? It's important to understand what the budget in your system is currently before injecting money in a specific part of the build. I once did this in an old c2q8400 by replacing the already good GTX 570 with a Titan with probably the worst micro stutter results I've ever had. Now, Im happy that I had done this, I had sold the Titan for profit and used the money for my first couple bags of weed, but obviously bottlenecks are bottlenecks. No fun.

Since you're running 4K, it would be wise to get an RX 570 8GB or if you have a little more money the 5700. Now, if you go used.... then you could probably get an excellent R9 290/390/fury/480 which would also do the job on the less demanding games for 4k.

Reading your post about the radeon VII with "16GB will future-proof"... I disagree with that in a lot of aspects. vRAM in a lot of instances has never been about raw amount but also bandwidth especially in games... sure the Vii is killing it in bandwidth, but considering its a 600euro card (apprx. im Canadian lol), I think the depreciation of the card is just straight up not gonna be worth for someone who just casually runs games on his cad computer. buy something low-mid range and it should do you plenty as an upgrade.

Lastly, the 7950 cf route is actually totally doable. running on low settings in 4K, most games will def run nicely and a couple years ago I remember the benchmarks almost equivalent to 980TI performance... however the previous point of low amounts of support and actually sometimes just losing frames is definitely a factor. The cf community is kinda pissed rn.

I am currently considering buying a 7990 (POTENTIALLY looking into an S10,000 12GB or 9300x2 if possible) still for the sake of running older titles with great cf support at amazing fps for a decent price. So that shows my heart in the matter.

 

[EarthDog]

At 4K res, a potato for a CPU will be fine in most cases. But it would be helpful to see his other hardware.

At 4K, there is no way I would run a 2-4GB card... there are titles in 1080p (ultra) that can go past 4GB....

I guess my goals as a gamer are not to run low if I do not have to. If I wanted to run low, I would just grab a console.

 

[THEDOOMEDHELL]

At 4K res, a potato for a CPU will be fine in most cases. But it would be helpful to see his other hardware.

At 4K, there is no way I would run a 2-4GB card... there are titles in 1080p (ultra) that can go past 4GB....

I guess my goals as a gamer are not to run low if I do not have to. If I wanted to run low, I would just grab a console.

Most games demand more IPC than a c2d/c2q can handle... doesn't matter what res you're running. the amount of vram your GPU has is not exactly the best way to explain if a cpu can or cannot run 4k... my r9 290 has no problems running some basic games in 4K and that includes GTA 5 on certainly low settings. the bottleneck that typically happens in 4K is typically vRAM bandwidth before actual VRAM. an HD 7950 has plenty of both and games which support cf/mgpu will definitely run two 7950s, especially core unlocked and overclocked, just fine. You cannot name me a game that will ask more of the GPU before asking for a better CPU. most games which don't support cf/mgpu these days also have a hard time with lower-end cpus. so I don't think our friend here needs to worry about that.

the HD7950 has proven itself over the years as a good contender against older 4K titles so I don't really have to prove its worth... I also said that there are better overall options such as the RX 570 8GB since it has a little more bandwidth and a lot more vram as well as just being plain cheap these days. its also more powerful and less power-hungry... has better OpenCL support... the whole shabang. Then again, an HD7950 (in Canada at least) doesn't sell that well which means upgrading to a better GPU will mean a net loss from prior years. idk thats just the merchant part of me talking... I know most gamers don't give a **** how much money they lost year-over-year on their gaming rig as long as it runs whatever the hell they play right? anyways, buying a second 7950 and cfing it is such a cheaper option if you can find one at a good price (no more than 25euro imo). so 25euros more, you get comparable to GTX 980/1070 performance in tons of games... not really a negative side considering the price.

Again, this guy pretty much said that he's upgrading his workbench so that in his spare time, he gets to play some games at a nice res. getting a console is not really a good option.... especially for CSGO and other titles.

 

[EarthDog]

I think you misunderstood what I meant by console.... I didn't say to buy one, I said that is what 'low' looks like so might as well buy one if that is how he wants to run.


Bandwidth and capacity, both play a role, indeed. Again, my goals are to run things at Ultra/high, not console low. So sure, if you run at low at 4K, a 2-4GB card may be enough. But, does the OP want to run on low? or does he run on low because he has to? 4GB isn't enough in some titles at 1080p so this is why I say to let go and move on to a more capable card instead of dealing with 2.

It is cheaper, but, to me, just no t an option due ot the vram and wanting to run with higher IQ settings. 2x power, never 2x perormance. 2x heat mitigation... microstutter...etc. SLI/CFx just needs to go away already IMO.

 

[MaddMutt]

I had a setup of 2x Gigabyte WF3 7950's in CF. I had them both water cooled and OCed when the 7970's where the top card. I wanted to be able to run my 3x 1920x1080 (4k) monitors while gaming. It was a waste of time as that setup could not preform @ 4k (even CFed) at 30+ fps. I believe a 3x CF might have done it, not sure as I didn't spend the money. If you look at the specifications of the cards : The HD-7950, R9-280, & R9-380 (SP=1792) used the same GPU (slightly modded) and the HD-7970, R9-280x, & R9-380x (SP=2048) used the same GPU (slightly modded). IMO the RX-480 & RX-580 used an updated HD-7970 GPU (SP=2304) with the same memory as a late model R9-280x's & R9-380x's (8GB).
The only way to really move UP is the GTX-1070/80(ti) or the RX-5700(xt) with SLI/CF possible later