x-fire, how bad is it really

[moustacheman]

Hi there, im thinking of getting pair of HIS r9 280x IceQ cards because the price is so god damn good (£233 which is lower than most 7970s) to play games at 1080p. how bad is the micro stuttering(or any other issues) on crossfire setups, i thought a driver update fixed most of the issues. Also which is a better buy, these two or a windforce 780 for the same price considering the performance boost mantle COULD bring.

 

thanks  

[helping]

Those two R9 cards would be better.

Xfire doesn't actually have that many issues aside from heat and power. The microstutter problem was dealt with well and is mostly a non-issue.
 

Worst case scenario a game you have doesn't work well with crossfire, you can just disable it for that specific game within Catalyst profiles and play practically any other game fine with CF. Newer games will work fine with crossfire since it's by no means infantile technology, most of the problems are with older games which will run just fine on a disabled crossfire profile. Also, is waiting for a single 290x out of the question for you? Though 233$ sounds like a really good deal. 

 

 

inb4 but u wrong, it's bad, rarara get one card, omg it has stutter and poop drivers u retard etc.

[mooommo]

The new cards are supposed to eliminate the frame studder entirely because of the faster PCI-E bridge instead of the old external one.

[MrSuperb]

The new cards are supposed to eliminate the frame studder entirely because of the faster PCI-E bridge instead of the old external one.

 

Only the R9 290x

[moustacheman]

Those two R9 cards would be better.

Xfire doesn't actually have that many issues aside from heat and power. The microstutter problem was dealt with well and is mostly a non-issue.

 

Worst case scenario a game you have doesn't work well with crossfire, you can just disable it for that specific game within Catalyst profiles and play practically any other game fine with CF. Newer games will work fine with crossfire since it's by no means infantile technology, most of the problems are with older games which will run just fine on a disabled crossfire profile. Also, is waiting for a single 290x out of the question for you? Though 233$ sounds like a really good deal. 

 

 

inb4 but u wrong, it's bad, rarara get one card, omg it has stutter and poop drivers u retard etc.

ok thanks, what size psu would you recommend for the 2 r9 cards overclocked with a overclocked 4670k? 

[helping]

ok thanks, what size psu would you recommend for the 2 r9 cards overclocked with a overclocked 4670k?

~850w quality. They should be the same as 7970's which would require approximately 300w each overclocked.

okey dokey

Run your choice by the forums again before you buy, just to make sure because there are a lot of sketch PSUs out there and I wouldn't want anything less than premium to power that

[moustacheman]

~850w quality. They should be the same as 7970's which would require approximately 300w each overclocked. 

okey dokey  

[moustacheman]

~850w quality. They should be the same as 7970's which would require approximately 300w each overclocked.

Run your choice by the forums again before you buy, just to make sure because there are a lot of sketch PSUs out there and I wouldn't want anything less than premium to power that

yeah i know i lurked around here enough to pick a few things up

 

probably get a 850 xfx semi modular but ill be sure to drop my complete list in new builds and planning before i buy.

[OlekKing]

The new R9 cards will have hardware frame pacing built in so no more driver issues. Expect CF to be as good if not better than SLi.

[moustacheman]

The new R9 cards will have hardware frame pacing built in so no more driver issues. Expect CF to be as good if not better than SLi.

oh i did not know that, thank you very much for telling me

[OlekKing]

oh i did not know that, thank you very much for telling me

[OlekKing]

There isn't hardware implementation yet and early benches show the 290x stutters at multiple monitors still, but this will be fixed with drivers that are coming.

It will take a while for hardware implementation fixes to stuttering to come to the amd side of things.

Yes there is, and just because there is does not mean the cards will run perfectly without proper drivers for the games, the 290x still doesn't have them for any of the games "tested", plus none of the benches are even official.

[tedjani]

if you find a cheaper hd 7970 get it cause they are pretty much the same if you didn't will get R9 280x

The same

[ERSCreeper]

Could you change the title to Croosfire, is it really that bad?  Since I thought you were talking about the program x-fire.

[Face2Face]

Nice thing is you can crossfire the R9 280X with any other Tahiti  if you would like - so 7950,7970 or 7970 GE. As a current CFX owner I will say stuttering is still there in DX9 games (Skyrim) Having Radeon Pro will help eliminate it - for all other games - DX10 and DX11 it performs very nice. I am very happy with it, but if you plan on Overclocking both cards plan on having some good case ventilation as it will double for a space heater when both cards are overclocked.

[OlekKing]

The closest thing to hardware fixes thus far are crossfire via pci-e to allow better bandwidth between the cards.

A hardware level fix doesn't need proper drivers to fix the issue, that's the entire point of fixing it at a hardware level.

Nope, the card will still need a proper driver to make good use of it.

[hehehehhehehehe]

There isn't hardware implementation yet and early benches show the 290x stutters at multiple monitors still, but this will be fixed with drivers that are coming.

It will take a while for hardware implementation fixes to stuttering to come to the amd side of things.

The new 13.11 drivers recently released apparently reduced the frame pacing issue slightly more too.