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Crossfire flashed HD Radeon 6950 or upgrade graphics cards?


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I currently have a single HD Radeon 6950 flashed to a 6970 and am looking to possibly get another and crossfire. The other option is to upgrade the card and crossfire in the 7000 series. As of right now the latter is looking more favorable especially since it's almost impossible to find a reference 6950. I've found some on Amazon, but they're used and I don't want to spend that much on something used. I also plan on liquid cooling both of them so I need to find blocks as well. Any suggestion on whether I should find another 6950 or upgrade to 7000 series?

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you don't need a reference 6950 model to flash . as far as I know they almost all do . I wish I had the link still , but a website has a success rate per brand of flashes . it looked like about 90% of most cards . I'm using a 6950 Flex and it flashes fine .

 

edit : if you can find a 6950 for like $100-150 that might be better option . though I heard crossfire has lots of issues for certain people . The last ones I tried was 4850s so I'm out of the loop a bit.

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What's your budget and screen resolution??

 

There are better single cards out now adays and if there are better single cards, that's what you should look at (I'm referring to better single cards than the CF pair)

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I know other models can be flashed, but the reference card has a full waterblock which I like and I'd like to have a second. Part of this whole thing is also experimenting with crossfiring. Since I've never done it before, I'd like to give it a shot. Regardless, the single 69(7)0 is enough to do what I'm currently doing, so this upgrade is more for fun than necessity.

 

All in all, absolute limit would be around 400$ including waterblocks, and I don't really want to spend that. 300 would be more comfortable.

 

In response to hornybluecow, I am finding a few 6950s that are unlockable for 100-200 on ebay, but I'm a little hesitant on the "universal" waterblocks for those styles. Anyone have any experience with those waterblocks?

 

Also taking note, what's fishy about crossfiring with the current drivers?

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Crossfire is mostly unreliable because in some games, ie Skyrim, you'd get same or lower performance w/ croffire than with a single card. This is one example. Most games that are labeled

"The way it's meant to be played" you would get about 20 percent gain but with some high frame time.

 

Single card performance with an AMD gpu is as good as you can get. Some review sites may lead you to think that a 7990 is the best of all time, but no.

The stuttering, making the driver work with some games can be a pain. Unless you are in a hurry, AMD are supposed to be updating their drivers that should make crossfire valuable on july 31st. That has yet to be seen

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Also taking note, what's fishy about crossfiring with the current drivers?

The stuttering is bad. FRAPs and the like will record higher framerates but the delivery is so unsmooth that you end up seeing a framerate lower than a single card.

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Man, I didn't realize crossfire, well, sucked... I guess I'll hold off then and either wait for the 8000 series or until crossfire gets better. Does SLI have the same problems?

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Man, I didn't realize crossfire, well, sucked... I guess I'll hold off then and either wait for the 8000 series or until crossfire gets better. Does SLI have the same problems?

nope , Sli doesn't have a problem other than cost, and heat. these new cards have a lot lower heat than 400/500 series that could burn up in Sli .

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only if your determine to use 2 video cards . That or wait for ATi to update its crossfire driver issue ( ETA unknown) . if your looking for a single powerful card either ATi 7900s or GeForce 700 series . Of course the longer you wait a newer card will come out at some point .

 

personally since you have it watercooled I would get a 770 GTX or if the ATI 8000s are good , go with that . I've only used crossfire and Sli when I had a spare card . I always seem to some sort of problem per game . 1 card is always better unless you can't run the Rez you want .

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