Crossfiring two Radeon HD 6950s?

[krayzie]

Hey guys..

i have a single 6950 that runs fine on a BF3 with everything on ultra... at about 30fps

do you think if i got another card it would be worth the peformance increase??

i have a 15-2500k not over clocked with 8GB ram

cheerio!

 

[klepto12]

yes the 6950 scales very well in games probably around 90% increase in most games maybe a little less but you would notice a difference.

 

[krayzie]

thx

do you have them installed? are stock coolers ok?

 

[Cinders]

I don't have them installed, but the stock coolers will be fine.

 

[slh28]

Make sure your PSU is up to the task though.

Alternatively the GTX 580 has dropped in price quite a bit, you could sell your 6950 and get the 580. You should be easily able to get 60fps (no AA).

 

[MrBlkfx1]

I am currently running a crossfire with 6950 2GB setup and it has been working wonderfully. I play max settings on every game at 1080p with frame rates 60+

I do run my cards slightly overclocked though. But i am sure the stock speeds will still achieve about the same performance. I have 2 of sapphires dirt 3 edition which comes with dual fans cooling the board. It works very well even when overclocked. My cards never exceed 65c in games.

A PSU of about 850W or greater would power these babies well without problems.

 

[Arris]

Similar but older setup to Blkfx1, I've been running 2 x 5850s with BF3 at max detail 1920x1200.
From memory (haven't checked Fraps on it for a while) it's all 60-70 FPS. With games that work with crossfire the benefits are great, with ones that don't you either have to disable crossfire temporarily or put up with stuttering/flicker(in my experience). Majority of titles seem to work ok with it and AMD are doing a decent job of driver updates and crossfire profile(CAP) releases. As for power supplies I'm running a Corsair HX 750W with no problems. Haven't done much research on the newer cards but thought the power efficiency/consumption was even more improved?

 

[MrBlkfx1]

As for power supplies I'm running a Corsair HX 750W with no problems. Haven't done much research on the newer cards but thought the power efficiency/consumption was even more improved?

Arris, you are absolutely right. A 750W psu would do just as good. I am just so used to overclocking all my components to me the 850W + just makes me feel comfortable with the extra power :3

But I do know that Nvidia cards are generally more power hungry and a SLI setup(If he ever wanted to change manufacturer) could be pushing it. But if it is a quality PSU then that wouldn't be a concern either. All this is beside the point seeing as I am just trying to justify my recommendation lol. Two HD 6950's will serve you well good sir. :]

 

[Arris]

Two HD 6950's will serve you well good sir. :]

+1

 

[Stupido]

the radeons scale very good in CF, especially the 6xxx series...
Similar to Arris, I have older setup (Q9650@4GHz with Corsair TX750) with 2 6850; scaling factor is above 90% which I find excellent...
Initially I had 2 Asus but one died, so I have played with one and I could really feel the difference;
now I have one asus and one saphire and both overclocked to 850 (via overdrive - didn't play with manual overclock since I do not see the need for it) and they run quite nice - no problems so far...

 

[justinone]

I have 6950 crossfire and the increase in performance, especialy overclocked is very much noticable!