IS Crossfire Worth it?

[Jonnysweb]

Hi Guys,

Another build related question. I was on pcpartpicker and I had the option to do 2-way crossfire with the radeon graphics cards. I was wondering whether it is worth it or if I am better off getting a more expensive card to begin with.

Thanks 

[Vacsol]

get a better card to begin with.

 

what cards are you looking at?

[Trik'Stari]

Most people say one expensive card is better. But it depends on what your doing, with a multi monitor setup you may want more than 1 gpu.

[Wingfan]

You could start with one big card, and add another later

[Jonnysweb]

get a better card to begin with.

 

what cards are you looking at?

R90 270x

[felixthemaster1]

Most people say one expensive card is better. But it depends on what your doing, with a multi monitor setup you may want more than 1 gpu.

How come? for more ports?

[Trik'Stari]

How come? for more ports?

Umm. I don't know 100% but Linus talks about it in his recent surround gaming build guide.

Basically I think you need more memory and processing power to support it or something.

[ArrayGamer]

R90 270x

i would go with a 290/x instead, you will get much lower heat output and lower watts used for similar performance and better performance in games with bad crossfire scaling

[loccilucas]

R90 270x

You should always start with 1 power ful card then add another in the future, starting off with 2 leaves no room for upgradability because 3/4 way crossfire is stupid.

[loccilucas]

How come? for more ports?

Its for the power, running 3 monitors is 3 times the pixels of a single monitor so alot of the time 1 card will struggle (unless you have a powerful card) so people run 2 cards for more power. 

[Jigz1988]

Personally i would go for an NVidia card but getting a single, more powerful card is better

[Jonnysweb]

Ok Thanks Everyone You've all been helpful

[ThreePinkApples]

Running Crossfire for 4 years, a month ago I got sick of games not having Crossfire support, so sold my cards and bought an R9 290X Lightning.

Not going back to Crossfire (or SLI) for quite a few years

[Mildphil]

Umm. I don't know 100% but Linus talks about it in his recent surround gaming build guide.

Basically I think you need more memory and processing power to support it or something.

No, the reason he states that in this video is because he is running surround 4k, which need more GPU power to run. When you crossfire you don't gain memory, you only use the memory off one card, you just gain GPU performance. 

[Trik'Stari]

No, the reason he states that in this video is because he is running surround 4k, which need more GPU power to run. When you crossfire you don't gain memory, you only use the memory off one card, you just gain GPU performance. 

Ahh, thank you for the correction.

[Mildphil]

Its for the power, running 3 monitors is 3 times the pixels of a single monitor so alot of the time 1 card will struggle (unless you have a powerful card) so people run 2 cards for more power. 

People will run 2 lower cards to try to get the performance of the higher end cards. A mid to high end card will run 3 screens just fine (I run eyefinity with my 7950, no probs at all and games are fine) OP is asking about 2 lower end vs 1 highend. So to OP, I would say none from this current generation as they will be phased out soon. I would buy the newer generation when it comes out, and then determine what you need the cards for. If you don't need a highend card don't buy one, same goes for low end. If you are playing on a single 1080p screen a mid range will do just fine. The key is to get what suites you at that point in time but still leaves you with a little headroom, that way when you need to upgrade you didn't waste so much on your old card, you can upgrade more more frequently, and always be in a good position. 

[Mildphil]

Ahh, thank you for the correction.

NP

[Wingfan]

People will run 2 lower cards to try to get the performance of the higher end cards. A mid to high end card will run 3 screens just fine (I run eyefinity with my 7950, no probs at all and games are fine) OP is asking about 2 lower end vs 1 highend. So to OP, I would say none from this current generation as they will be phased out soon. I would buy the newer generation when it comes out, and then determine what you need the cards for. If you don't need a highend card don't buy one, same goes for low end. If you are playing on a single 1080p screen a mid range will do just fine. The key is to get what suites you at that point in time but still leaves you with a little headroom, that way when you need to upgrade you didn't waste so much on your old card, you can upgrade more more frequently, and always be in a good position. 

this ^

[felixthemaster1]

Its for the power, running 3 monitors is 3 times the pixels of a single monitor so alot of the time 1 card will struggle (unless you have a powerful card) so people run 2 cards for more power. 

Would you consider the r9 290x a powerful card for the job?

[loccilucas]

Would you consider the r9 290x a powerful card for the job?

yes absolutely, its possibly the most powerful card out there.

[felixthemaster1]

-Duplicate post- 

[felixthemaster1]

yes absolutely, its possibly the most powerful card out there.

Aparently not enough to game on 3. not at 60fps anyways

[loccilucas]

Aparently not enough to game on 3. not at 60fps anyways

It is, obviously you won't be playing crysis 3 with ultra graphics at 60fps, but its enough to play most games on ultra.

[felixthemaster1]

It is, obviously you won't be playing crysis 3 with ultra graphics at 60fps, but its enough to play most games on ultra.

This is weird, so many people told me it wouldn't and now you are telling it it would. 

[Mildphil]

What exactly are your plans OP so we can assist you better? Obviously a higher end card will be better so they is no point in us even going that route. You could have easily googled that and found the answer. What we need to know is what you plans are so we can tell you if you NEED a specific card or not.