IF YOUR GOING TO REPLY PLEASE READ EVERYTHING I SAID FIRST THANK YOU ! ! !
I currently have a HIS 7970 Ghz edition 3Gb of DDR5 1,000Mhz core clock and have played games on ultra no problem. I have been in the market for a HIS R9 280X for awhile now and was just reading an article on CNET about Crossfiring. In this article they were saying that you really don't get that great of a performance jump from it just playing on a single screen. Which I do I play on a 55" Samsung HD T.V. 240Hz refresh rate 3D and all that good stuff. But I have moved into a new house where my setup is in my bedroom instead of the living room where I could play from my coffee table. In my bedroom I can't play computer games from bed so I have to sit on the floor leaning against my bed to play which is painful on the back and leaning over to use the keyboard destroys my personal performance playing games. So my next set of money I get from school I am most likely getting a desk with a 2 or 3 monitor setup. Which scares me because the cost of a new psu, case, graphics card, desk, and monitors is easily going to cost me over $1000.
So all that being said can my current card handle it or is second card a must?
Yeah don't ever read anything from CNET. that's the last place you want to look at for reviews, they are full of Apple biased people and only really pay attention to the mobile market. they don't really care for the PC market.
it depends on the game in all honesty. i would maybe consider a 390 or an R9 Fury if you are doing multi-monitor 1080p gaming. crossfire isn't worth it unless you are going all out on the high end. like on the 290/390 R9-Fury/R9-FuryX and or R9-285/R9-380. simply because the XDMA crossfire fixes alot of the issues crossfire once had. MIND you it's still not perfect. but the performance gains of going from one GPU to two is massive on AMD cards. almost shocking in all reality. but the problem with crossfire is some games are finicky with it. tearing is bound to happen, scaling may not be so well, and the power-draw may also not be worth it.
Your current GPU will be fine. but not for long. I would definitely consider an upgrade sometime in the future. and i do recommend you stay with AMD. the multi-monitor support is just overall better than Nvidia. in fact they've been holding on to that for years.
UGH so much money I am already $1,600 into my machine and it is only 2-3 years old. I am at a loss as what to do. Also don't worry I am a AMD loyalist. Those fury cards are quite expensive aren't they? I was just looking at a claimed to be new HIS R9 280X for $220 the guy bought it and ended up using different cards he claims. So I was going to jump on it because I paid between $400 & $500 for my 7970 so I maid a thread asking if $220 was a good deal and the 2 people that responded said I could find one new online for $220 so now I don't know what to do because I couldn't find a HIS one for that cheap and every one is out of stock. I was also under the impression when I bought my card it was a high end card. Ok so if I spent all my money which I really don't want to do but really really really want a proper battlestation as I have never had one before and want to, I have worked really hard and feel I deserve it. That being said $1,500 would be my max for every thing. I allready know I have to spend $350 on PSU and case I picked unless I get my mom to buy it for me and I am going to try to get her to buy the desk too. What would you recommend me getting? (also I want to state I am not a fan of red and all the fury cards I have seen have red on them I am going to build a black and purple themed computer. So mainly black cards would be Ideal) I need advice on everything from monitors 2-3 setup what size, brand, to what GPU's should I go with if I am ditching the 7970 plus I could sell it to put back into my computer even tho I am sure I wont get much for it, what do you think it is worth? never been over clocked. I will create another thread on advice for everything I am just asking here to get an idea
My advice to you. at least for future reference is don't always get the flagship card. cause they will eventually go down in price. the 7970 launched around $550. and now you can pick them up for almost $190 bucks. sure it's happened around a year or so later. but look how much they are, they are amazing for the price especially now-a-days.
As for your upgrade, what is the specifications of your rig, chances are you may not need to upgrade much of anything. Also when it comes to brand, I recommend looking at Sapphire. (XFX if you want an all black card) plus they give you a life-time warranty which most OEMS don't do.
XFX has always seemed an off brand card to me. I do really like Asus they have really served me well with one exception I bout a 2 in 1 tablet laptop from them for $500 and it was terrible. My specifications are on my profile but I will list them anyway, I will list my current build and what I am upgrading to that I have picked already that I know fore sure that I am getting.
Upgraded build parts list as of so far. (definitely upgrading to AM4 motherboard, processor, DDR4 ram when it comes out next year but before then this is what I am doing.
AMD FX-8350 NZXT Kraken X60 ((Custom water cooling loop but it appears battle station will eat all those funds)) Asus Sabertooth R2.0 8GB Kingston Beast 1866 Ram 8GB Corsair Vengeance 1866 Ram ((Insert AMD Graphics card here 1 or 2)) 256GB Adata SSD ((If I have budget Room 500GB Samsung SSD)) 2X 1TB WD Black HDD Seasonic X Series 1050W Pwer Supply Corsair Obsidian 750D Air Flow Edition 7 Noctua Industrial 140MM Fans (Or other fans that I decide on have open thread discussing this now want fans that can be taken apart to be modded)
You're fine. you don't really need to upgrade any of that. the only thing i would personally upgrade is the graphics card really. realistically i wouldn't even recommend you upgrade your PC until Zen comes.
there's no reason to invest on to the AM3+ Platform anymore. maybe add a few things like a new CPU cooler but that's it. i wouldn't do much besides upgrade the GPU. WHICH i do recommend you get a 390 or a R9-Fury (these come with custom coolers WHICH of course will most likely have a black one) the Fury X doesn't come with custom cooling.
Yeah just looked at the Fury cards way out of my price range for just one two is out of the question would cost more than my computer so I feel that would be over kill for the gaming I do. I don't stream and don't really do rendering except for in bryce and my computer does a fine job of that now.
Fury X is the one that's 650. there will be a Fury Non-X card that will be around 500ish or so bucks. if not just grab a 390. you'll be fine. especially with the 8GiB VRAM. which will be awesome for the surround gaming.
I was ready also that the amount of ram is not that important the speed or the ram on the GPU is the most important aspect. I would still like to use 2 cards but your saying I would be better off getting a single higher end card? Do you have experience with XFX are they an off brand or highly reputable? Cause a lifetime warranty on a graphics card sounds amazing but I'm sure there are stupid stipulations to it. Like over clocking will probably void the warranty and they probably don't cover over heating I don't know I will have to look at their policy.
LOL all the R9 FURY cards are identical except for the company's marketing sticker on the fan. I still don't know what to get because if I get one of those that eats half my budget right away.
I really don't recommend crossfire. i've had nightmares using two R9-270x cards. too much headache.
As for the Fury X link you posted all those will not have custom cooling. they all will be reference models. as for your Brand choice. I personally only have experience with ASUS and Sapphire. Sapphire being the better option in my honest opinion. BUT you mentioned you wanted in all black card.
in that case i would push you towards the Gigabyte card. they make awesome graphics cards. XFX is pretty good. in my opinion under-rated. they are the only few that offer life-time warranties. which is a MASSIVE bonus.
Here is my take on cf. It is worth it the most when running multiple monitor setups. It can be great for gaming if the game is optimized for it. You will need an understanding on how to configure graphic settings in order to best use cf or sli. Some games are not optimized for sli or cf and will not benefit from using sli or cf. I recommend updating to a new card then worry about cf or sli. 980 ti is very compelling or a FuryX for the right price.
I am strictly AMD. It doesn't have to be all black just clack like if there is silver that's cool don't really care just no crazy colors that will ruin my build like red, yellow green. This is my first time building a windowed machine and want to do it right, I;m not doing any stupid led fans I hate them for some reason maybe some UV Cold Cathode tubes with some UV paint so I can get parts to glow purple I think that would be cooler than having some stupid led fans, and the led strips look stupid because it doesn't produce a even glow its spaced out making spots brighter than others don't like it one bit. Sorry getting off topic.
Could you please post a link to some cards you would recommend I am highly interested in those fury cards, if I can get one for a decent price. But can you tell me why are the so much better than my current card they appear to have almost the same specs, Not enough for a $400 price jump maybe I'm missing something.
And a R9 Fury would run a multiple monitor setup no problem? would you recommend a 2 or 3 monitor setup, 1080P or 4k from my understanding is 4K is definitely better but really not that much more noticeable if you have a good HD monitor?
What do you mean fanboys? If your talking about me being a AMD fanboy I sure am simply because Intel has help fund many shitty bills that I don't agree with like S.O.P.A. and C.I.S.P.A.
When I typed R9 Fury on new egg it was just like pcpartpicker.com they were all the same except for different stickers on the fan on the radiator. They also have a red Radeon on the top of the card which I assume lights up, which is no problem I will just cut a perfectly shaped peace of electrical tape to cover it with out voiding any kind of warranty.
The XFX one says coming soon and if they truly have a life time warranty on that card will definitely be the one I pick. I just don't know if the $650 to $700 id worth it to get that card.
Maybe a 390x is worth your consideration but you may need to cf them depending on what your are looking to do. I wouldn't exclude the 980 ti for the use case. ( I personally am greatly offended by Nvidia business practices but i do consider the 980ti to be very compelling considering the use case. ) The fury x is very new with many unknowns as it is basically geared to higher resolutions (1440p / 4k ). Where as Nvidia offerings have a proven track record at 1080p. I run 3-way + 1080p multi monitor and plan on cf'ing 290x's. The new 390's is more energy efficient with performance tweaks but not with enough performance gains to cause me to want to cf them. So i wait for the Fury X to mature some more. For the price point the 980 ti is where it is at. Just my opinion.
Yeah I don't care about power consumption and I refuse to buy Nvidia no matter how good a product it is. I am just thinking that most games wont use the crossfire set up. So I would like to just get a higher AMD card I really like the Fury's but just don't know if the performance gains are worth the money. It is awesome that it comes water cooled. Just from what I read it seems to have nearly the same specs as my 7970 so I don't really know the benefit of it. At this point in time 4k monitors are not in my budget i am going to barely squeeze 2-3 monitors into it.
This is honestly stressing me out because I really want to start putting my battle station together but don't have a clue which way to go yet.
I am waiting on the guy to respond he just told me he is desperate to sell the card and I told him he would have to greatly drop the price because I have other people trying to sell me cards. I'm just kinda worried that he has now reviews on his selling history I just don't want to buy a dead card, also I have never used crossfire, and how to optimize it. He is claiming that its new and never been used just an open box I plus my current power supply doesn't support 2 cards so I would just receive it test it and let it sit around till I can buy my new power supply.
If a game isn't optimized for crossfire will it run like shit or just run normally off 1 card or will it have stupid problems like stuttering like someone mentioned earlier.
UGH!!! I am really getting stressed out I don't know what to do, please help me make a decision by tomorrow.
I found this only comparison I found but have no clue how to read it or what I am even looking at can some one explain it to me in dumb dumb terms.
I am still kinda leaning towards the fury just because its bad ass and new but its just so expensive If I bought his card and paired it with my card do you think I could sell it for a profit? How much do you think I could get for both of them? They are 2 great cards.
Side note: people are trying to sell the R9 Fury on eBay for $900 that it ridiculous.
The R9 Fury - High End (this is the card you should invest onto
The R9 Nano. (This card performance wise is in-between the 390x and the R9 Fury card)
The one you should invest onto is the R9 Fury. it should be coming next week. the fury X model is already out but people are selling it for insane prices because it's sold out everywhere.
If you can't pick up a R9 Fury, then pick up an R9-390. you'll be fine with whatever card you pick up.