Personal computing discussed

Moderators: renee, morphine, SecretSquirrel

 
Plazmodeus
Gerbil XP
Topic Author
Posts: 357
Joined: Wed Mar 13, 2002 7:00 pm
Location: Canada
Contact:

HD6950+6870 CFX= worth it?

Tue Nov 29, 2011 11:26 am

Comrades

Skyrim has forced me to upgrade my HD6870 to an HD6950 2gb. The performance difference has been shocking. I now have this extra 6879 sitting there. I've never had a Crosssfire setup before. Is it worth my while to set them up in a CFX rig? Would the 6870 just slow down the 6950, or give it a little boost?
i9 9900k | 64GB G-Skill 3200 | Asus Rog Strix Z390E Gamer | Corsair rm850x | Corsair Graphite 600T |
Boot: Adata XPG SX8200 Pro 1TB | Work: Adata XPG SX8200 Pro 1TB | Media: 2x HGST Ultrastar 8Tb | RTX3070 8gb | Dell p2715q | Dell u2711 |
 
TurtlePerson2
Graphmaster Gerbil
Posts: 1171
Joined: Sat May 26, 2007 9:08 am
Location: Dallas, Texas

Re: HD6950+6870 CFX= worth it?

Tue Nov 29, 2011 11:37 am

I don't think that you can crossfire two different graphics cards. Unless something big has happened without me noticing that idea is still sort of pie-in-the-sky being developed by Lucid.
"TORTURIS EXUVIAS EUNT"
Phenom X6 1090T @ 3.2 GHz
XFX Radeon RX 580
 
Forge
Lord High Gerbil
Posts: 8253
Joined: Wed Dec 26, 2001 7:00 pm
Location: Gone

Re: HD6950+6870 CFX= worth it?

Tue Nov 29, 2011 11:53 am

I'm with Turtle, I don't think those two can Xfire. That said, if they do, it'll run like 2 6870s, not like a 6950 and a 6870. Google some benchmarks for Xfire 6870s, that'll tell you what it would run like.
Please don't edit my signature for me. Thanks.
 
astrotech66
Gerbil Elite
Posts: 713
Joined: Thu Jun 17, 2004 10:48 am
Location: San Antonio, TX

Re: HD6950+6870 CFX= worth it?

Tue Nov 29, 2011 12:25 pm

This chart should help:

Crossfire Compatibility Chart

It looks like you cannot put a 6870 and a 6950 in XFire together.
 
michael_d
Gerbil Elite
Posts: 569
Joined: Sun Dec 16, 2007 2:42 pm

Re: HD6950+6870 CFX= worth it?

Thu Dec 01, 2011 8:42 pm

Crossfire is not worth it IMHO, you will be better off with a single 6970. Keep in mind that Crossfire support for the latest titles is always late and has issues and takes them weeks and sometimes months to fix.
 
Waco
Maximum Gerbil
Posts: 4850
Joined: Tue Jan 20, 2009 4:14 pm
Location: Los Alamos, NM

Re: HD6950+6870 CFX= worth it?

Fri Dec 02, 2011 10:49 am

Sell the 6870. :)
Victory requires no explanation. Defeat allows none.
 
Forge
Lord High Gerbil
Posts: 8253
Joined: Wed Dec 26, 2001 7:00 pm
Location: Gone

Re: HD6950+6870 CFX= worth it?

Fri Dec 02, 2011 11:10 am

TheWacoKid wrote:
Sell the 6870. :)

Better, give it away to someone less fortunate! :P
Please don't edit my signature for me. Thanks.
 
riviera74
Gerbil Elite
Posts: 897
Joined: Mon May 29, 2006 6:14 am
Location: FM, FL, USA
Contact:

Re: HD6950+6870 CFX= worth it?

Fri Dec 02, 2011 12:31 pm

IF you are donating that 6870, I'll take it :D . I only have an HD 3450 right now :cry: . If not, eBay that card and offset your 6950 purchase.
Omen by HP Desktop: Core i5-7400, 8GB RAM, GeForce GTX 1050, 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD
 
CCKMA
Gerbil In Training
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Aug 26, 2010 6:23 pm

Re: HD6950+6870 CFX= worth it?

Fri Dec 02, 2011 1:30 pm

It would work but your motherboard would have to support the lucid hydra chip. Two different GPUs cannot run in pure crossfire or SLI, however the lucid hydra chip allows programs to schedule tasks for two different GPUs, ie an HD 6870 and HD 6950, or even an ATI and Nvidia GPU running together.
 
Waco
Maximum Gerbil
Posts: 4850
Joined: Tue Jan 20, 2009 4:14 pm
Location: Los Alamos, NM

Re: HD6950+6870 CFX= worth it?

Fri Dec 02, 2011 2:46 pm

CCKMA wrote:
It would work but your motherboard would have to support the lucid hydra chip. Two different GPUs cannot run in pure crossfire or SLI, however the lucid hydra chip allows programs to schedule tasks for two different GPUs, ie an HD 6870 and HD 6950, or even an ATI and Nvidia GPU running together.

And it's a mess even when it works...not to mention that he doesn't have a board with a Hydra chip on it.
Victory requires no explanation. Defeat allows none.
 
MrJP
Gerbil Elite
Posts: 836
Joined: Wed Nov 20, 2002 5:04 pm
Location: Surrey, UK

Re: HD6950+6870 CFX= worth it?

Fri Dec 02, 2011 3:16 pm

Just curious, but do you really see that much performance difference between the 6870 and 6950? Most reviews/tests I've seen show those cards to be within 10% of each other unless you start to run mega Eyenfinity resolutions when the 2GB starts to be useful.
i7-6700K ~ Asus Z170I Pro Gaming ~ 16GB Corsair DDR4-2400 ~ Radeon R9 Nano
Noctua NHU9S ~ Corsair Obsidian 250D ~ Corsair RM650X ~ Crucial MX100 512GB
SMSL M3 ~ Sennheiser HD555 ~ Logitech G500S/G910/G29 ~ LG 34UC79G
 
mikehodges2
Gerbil Elite
Posts: 936
Joined: Mon Oct 27, 2003 12:27 pm
Contact:

Re: HD6950+6870 CFX= worth it?

Fri Dec 02, 2011 3:32 pm

If lucid had done the right thing and sold their multi-gpu chips to everyone, you could, and the performance would be almost 6870 + 6950. But they didn't. So it won't be. :x
 
LoneWolf15
Gerbil Elite
Posts: 963
Joined: Tue Feb 17, 2004 8:36 am
Location: SW Meecheegan

Re: HD6950+6870 CFX= worth it?

Fri Dec 02, 2011 7:12 pm

MrJP wrote:
Just curious, but do you really see that much performance difference between the 6870 and 6950? Most reviews/tests I've seen show those cards to be within 10% of each other unless you start to run mega Eyenfinity resolutions when the 2GB starts to be useful.

It would depend on what resolution the cards are being used at, and what detail levels are turned on in games. At higher resolutions (probably at 1920x1200 and up) you should definitely see a difference At 1680x1050 and lower, even if there is a difference in frame rate, both cards should be able to provide more than playable frame rates, so it shouldn't matter.

It's not just the amount of memory by the way; the GPU on the 69xx series is more powerful. The memory comes into play at higher resolutions or when games have very large textures available, but the GPU affects more than that. Check out this page of TR's review of the 69xx cards and compare it to the 6870 scores. The 6870 doesn't come close to the 6950 in Metro 2033.

http://techreport.com/articles.x/20126/12
i9-9900K @4.7GHz, GIGABYTE Z390 Aorus Pro WiFi, 2 x 16GB G.Skill RipJaws V PC3000
Corsair 650D, Seasonic 1Kw Platinum PSU
2x HP EX920 1TB NVMe, Samsung 850 Pro 512GB 2.5", NEC 7200 DVDRW
Gigabyte RTX 2080 Super Gaming OC, Dell S2719DGF 27" LCD

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest
GZIP: On