Crossfire 2 R9 270X's or upgrade?

[Ben_Upde]

I suddenly happened upon some unexpected free dollars and am finally updating my computer to play games more recent than my old BFG 8800GTX OC will allow.

 

My main question is in regard to the PowerColor R9 270X GTS+ that I just acquired. I got the card for $120 so either way its not a terrible expenditure if I end up moving on to something bigger/better. Is it worthwhile for me to try to find another and run them in Crossfire? Currently the most "demanding" game I play is Dying Light at 1080P, but would like to upgrade to a second screen at 1080P as well. Would 2x 270x's perform well for me in this setup? I am absolutely happy with the single 270X on a single monitor so the only reason for considering an upgrade would be for dual monitor use. am I right in thinking the extra 270X will give me the added functionality I am trying to achieve or do I need to go for a better single card with more GDDR to handle the task for both monitors?

 

If you suggest a better card, what do you recommend? I have always been a fan of ATI/AMD and have tended to avoid Nvidia, although I wasn't terribly unhappy with the performance/video quality of the 8800 GTX, especially considering it was free. It was a marked improvement over the Sapphire X1950 I had ran for the last ~6 years.

 

Thanks in advance for any and all advice everyone!

[zyntaxable]

What is the rest of your system?

 

Generally one better card is better than two bad cards. Upgrading to an R9 390 would be the better choice imo

[afyeung]

Definitely upgrade. Crossfire won't always play well especially in those Nvidia titles. 390 is a fine choice if you like AMD.

[App4that]

Definitely upgrade. Crossfire won't always play well especially in those Nvidia titles. 390 is a fine choice if you like AMD.

There's actually a crossfire profile for Dying light, so that's not entirely accurate.

[LabRat]

depends on your existing hardware.......... which isn't too modern judging by the 8800gtx alluded to in the opener....???? which means the 270 already far exceeds the cpu.

[Ben_Upde]

What is the rest of your system?

 

Generally one better card is better than two bad cards. Upgrading to an R9 390 would be the better choice imo

 

I have everything on its way but here is what I am putting together:

Asus M5A99FX Pro R2.0 Motherboard

AMD FX-8350 CPU

4x2GB Kingston HyperX DDR3 @1600Mhz

Samsung 850 EVO 250GB SSD

Seagate 7200 1.5TB HDD for storage

Coolermaster Hyper 212 CPU cooler (although I may change to water cooling instead)

and the R9 270X

 

also have a Sata BD-R drive and DVD burner installed just cuz I have em still.

[Ben_Upde]

depends on your existing hardware.......... which isn't too modern judging by the 8800gtx alluded to in the opener....???? which means the 270 already far exceeds the cpu.

the 270X is definitely held back by the CPU in my current setup. My new system as outlined in my last post should cause that bottleneck to shift to the GPU.

At the moment I am more than happy with the performance of the 270X, giving me 60+ FPS with settings maxed in the games I have. It even smokes Crysis, which I had never seen more than 25FPS in before lol.

[afyeung]

There's actually a crossfire profile for Dying light, so that's not entirely accurate.

Not necessarily referring to Dying Light, which btw had horrible cfx scaling at launch like a lot of games these days. 

[App4that]

Not necessarily referring to Dying Light, which btw had horrible cfx scaling at launch like a lot of games these days. 

Anything is better than nothing. I don't have the game to test the scaling of the new profile, so can't comment on that. Also, a profile does NOT mean you'll see an fps improvement. Valley has a profile but all it does is make the benchmark look beautiful. It actually costs you fps even though the utilization is improved.

 

Everyone needs to step away from the FPS blankie :lol: , it only gives you one piece of information.

[LabRat]

the 270X is definitely held back by the CPU in my current setup. My new system as outlined in my last post should cause that bottleneck to shift to the GPU.

At the moment I am more than happy with the performance of the 270X, giving me 60+ FPS with settings maxed in the games I have. It even smokes Crysis, which I had never seen more than 25FPS in before lol.

 

then what you do is drive your current single card into the ground. or use it until the next black friday deals come along. by then you should be able to either take advantage of lower prices on todays much better performers for much less money or splurge for the newest kid on the block. start saving. $300 should do it.

[afyeung]

Anything is better than nothing. I don't have the game to test the scaling of the new profile, so can't comment on that. Also, a profile does NOT mean you'll see an fps improvement. Valley has a profile but all it does is make the benchmark look beautiful. It actually costs you fps even though the utilization is improved.

 

Everyone needs to step away from the FPS blankie :lol: , it only gives you one piece of information.

Anything's not better than nothing if you're getting negative scaling. Might as well take out the 2nd gpu lol. My 390x is coming in 1 more day so I'll have the chance to test out crossfire and post a review.

[App4that]

Anything's not better than nothing if you're getting negative scaling. Might as well take out the 2nd gpu lol. My 390x is coming in 1 more day so I'll have the chance to test out crossfire and post a review.

I've yet to go backwards, if I force 1x1 it can cause problems but AFR will at least keep up with the single card.

[winningsince1337]

Anything's not better than nothing if you're getting negative scaling. Might as well take out the 2nd gpu lol. My 390x is coming in 1 more day so I'll have the chance to test out crossfire and post a review.

Hope you have good airflow and at least 3 slots between your GPUs or you'll throttle to shit.

 

Sauce: Had an MSI 390x and a 290 in an R4 and they throttled to shit. Thus, I am selling my 290 lol

[App4that]

Hope you have good airflow and at least 3 slots between your GPUs or you'll throttle to shit.

 

Sauce: Had an MSI 390x and a 290 in an R4 and they throttled to shit. Thus, I am selling my 290 lol

290 sauce? I put that shit on everything! (I kid of course)

 

All you need is good airflow, I never go over the mid 70c on my top card. Trick is to not have a shit cooler though, which is why I'm loyal to Sapphire.

[afyeung]

Hope you have good airflow and at least 3 slots between your GPUs or you'll throttle to shit.

 

Sauce: Had an MSI 390x and a 290 in an R4 and they throttled to shit. Thus, I am selling my 290 lol

I have the Noctis 450 with a fan blowing directly on the GPUs. My 290 is under water and gets to 60c under load. I'm prepared. All my main components as of now are wc'ed. I can handle the 390x as long as the temps are as good as people say they are. 

[afyeung]

290 sauce? I put that shit on everything! (I kid of course)

 

All you need is good airflow, I never go over the mid 70c on my top card. Trick is to not have a shit cooler though, which is why I'm loyal to Sapphire.

Still not as good as under water.

[App4that]

Still not as good as under water.

No, but it's already overkill. So at that point you're after benchmarks.

[afyeung]

No, but it's already overkill. So at that point you're after benchmarks.

My system isn't completely silent. But there is no difference between idle and load noise. Really good gaming experience. 

[App4that]

My system isn't completely silent. But there is no difference between idle and load noise. Really good gaming experience. 

I have the advantage of a metal case, I also replaced the cheap ass stock side window with an custom cut replacement about twice as thick. Only fan I hear is the front intake, as the only thing between me and them is the screen.

[winningsince1337]

290 sauce? I put that shit on everything! (I kid of course)

 

All you need is good airflow, I never go over the mid 70c on my top card. Trick is to not have a shit cooler though, which is why I'm loyal to Sapphire.

MSI 390x in my case hit 95C in firestrike but it's a 2.5 slot card with only half a slot left between it and a 290 thanks to my mobo. RIP crossfire dreams

[App4that]

MSI 390x hit 95C in firestrike but it's a 2.5 slot card with only half a slot left between it and a 290. RIP crossfire dreams

Here how much space I have, a side fan makes a huge difference. And they are currently flipped with the 390 on top.

 

[winningsince1337]

Here how much space I have, a side fan makes a huge difference. And they are currently flipped with the 390 on top.

 

SNIP

Holy shiz that's a huge cooler on the Vapor-X. I believe the side fan is the solution but that's not happening in an R4 so oh well   Also, we have the same mobo but your's is the black version

[App4that]

Holy shiz that's a huge cooler on the Vapor-X. I believe the side fan is the solution but that's not happening in an R4 so oh well   Also, we have the same mobo but your's is the black version

Yeah that's why I flipped them LOL, the Vapor is HUGE :lol: . Funny thing is the Nitro runs cooler, but the Vapor cools the VRMs better.

[winningsince1337]

Yeah that's why I flipped them LOL, the Vapor is HUGE :lol: . Funny thing is the Nitro runs cooler, but the Vapor cools the VRMs better.

Seems like Sapphire is la creme de la creme of AMD. Maybe my future AMD purchase if there is one will be one, will be from them. Any experience with their support? MSI seems hard to beat given that they gave me back a new 390x for an old broken 290. lol

[App4that]

Seems like Sapphire is la creme de la creme of AMD. Maybe my future AMD purchase if there is one will be one, will be from them. Any experience with their support? MSI seems hard to beat given that they gave me back a new 390x for an old broken 290. lol

I have an open RMA ticket on the Vapor because Trixx didn't play well with Crimson :lol: . They never argued with me and the whole process took 4 days, gave me time to try some things and I figured out what it was and I'm going to cancel the RMA of course. No idea what would have happened if I had sent it in, but I have nothing but positive to say about the dealings getting to a RMA number.