The benefits of having a crossfire graphics card?

tekka warrior

Ok so i was looking up in google once, the differences between, for example, a radeon HD 6990M, and a radeon 6990M corssfire, and i noticed that they have the same shader clock speed, the same memory clock...etc, so i coudnt understand the difference between a normal graphics card and a crossfire, so can someone enlighten me with it?

Graion Dilach · Posted: Thu Jun 06, 2013 7:33 pm Post subject:

Crossfire is an option to connect two of the same card and use them side-by-side to increase performance.

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tekka warrior

So does this mean i can activate both of them at the same time and it will double my performance?

RP · Posted: Thu Jun 06, 2013 7:56 pm Post subject:

Not double, more like adding X% to the performance.

Here, educate yourself, after all, this is the Internet:
http://bit.ly/13J3nvB

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^Rampastein · Rampastring **Joined**: 11 Oct 2008 **Location**: Gensokyo

At the moment CrossFire (and also SLI, to a lesser extent) can also cause some microstuttering which, along with inconsistent performance scaling in CrossFire, is why having a strong single GPU is better than two weaker GPUs in CF. Generally I'd consider CrossFire a viable option only if you're doing it with current high-end GPUs or you already own a somewhat decent GPU and are able to get another one inexpensively.

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Orac · Posted: Thu Jun 06, 2013 11:41 pm Post subject:

The drivers have a tendency towards being outdated and a little buggy, in my (limited) experience.

Then again, I'm boring and am happy with mid range GPUs anyway.

FurryQueen · General **Also Known As**: Fen **Joined**: 24 Jul 2010

Crossfire works best with cards from the same batch so if you plan on doing it, buy two at the same time. Don't wait since it can lead to crappy performance. It's even hit and miss with performance so it's not always in your best interest to even do it. The same goes for SLI with nVidia's cards. If you really want to do it, go for it but buy two brand new cards. And have cooling... lots of extra cooling.

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tekka warrior

So to sum up, crossfire works best with strong high-end graphics cards, like the radeon hd 7990M?

^Rampastein · Rampastring **Joined**: 11 Oct 2008 **Location**: Gensokyo

tekka warrior wrote:

So to sum up, crossfire works best with strong high-end graphics cards, like the radeon hd 7990M?

Pretty much, yeah (I'm guessing you mean the 7970M because I haven't seen anything official about a 7990M).

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tekka warrior

Whoops, yea i meant the 7970M, got a little confused, im guessing crossfire causes a loud noise from the fans when this option is activated?

^Rampastein · Rampastring **Joined**: 11 Oct 2008 **Location**: Gensokyo

tekka warrior wrote:

Whoops, yea i meant the 7970M, got a little confused, im guessing crossfire causes a loud noise from the fans when this option is activated?

That really depends on the cooling system in general. If the system's airflow is poor and/or the fans are small, then they're very likely to be loud. However, in a desktop configuration with a good case and great GPU coolers using multiple cards might not be that loud.

I can imagine that putting 2 high-end GPUs on a laptop will make the laptop very massive and loud though.

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tekka warrior

Ah ok, understood, thank you.

RP · Posted: Fri Jun 07, 2013 5:08 pm Post subject:

I don't get why people need CrossFire if they already have the best GPU available...
I'd rather spend money on buying a GTX680 than buying another GTX570 (currently using). Not just because it's throwing money away, the damn thing takes up 3 slots.

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^Rampastein · Rampastring **Joined**: 11 Oct 2008 **Location**: Gensokyo

RP wrote:

I don't get why people need CrossFire if they already have the best GPU available...

Mostly for playing at very large resolutions with all settings (including AA and AF) maxed out, or just because they can. Some of the latest graphically intensive games simply cannot be played smoothly with max settings using a single GPU when the resolution is 1600p or higher.

http://media.bestofmicro.com/G/C/375132/original/5760-med.png

I'm not one of those people though, my HD 4850 does everything I need it to do (except that Arma 3 could run a bit better, but it's already enjoyable) #Tongue

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DaRTzO · Posted: Fri Jun 07, 2013 5:39 pm Post subject:

I still run games with my GF 8800 GTX 768mb vram and a 348 bit memory bus. Very Happy

I can max out all games fine, with better graphics and less lag with a few tweaks and post process injectors.

Bittah Commander · Posted: Fri Jun 07, 2013 9:22 pm Post subject:

All games? Good luck maxing out Crysis 2 or 3 with that =P

But yeah, I used to have an 8800 GTX as well and it was indeed capable if maxing out most games until it suddenly died.

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