tri-xfire worth it?

[warup89]

Well i pretty much completed my pc, except that i just need to get a new PSU, being the case, i got 400$ planned to be spent on a better PSU[200$] and maybe another 3870[200$]. The question is, if tri-crossfire would give me noticeable performance:confused:

[Xazax]

I hardly think even Crossfire will give you much a performance... at this time im no ATI fan the 3870's are hardly worth what they sell for considering a 9600GT(now going for $125~) can compete with it.

Stick with your CF, or single HD 3870. ATM a 3rd would just be redundant too much driver overhead as well.

[3870x2]

I hardly think even Crossfire will give you much a performance... at this time im no ATI fan the 3870's are hardly worth what they sell for considering a 9600GT(now going for $125~) can compete with it.

Stick with your CF, or single HD 3870. ATM a 3rd would just be redundant too much driver overhead as well.

agreed.
right now tri-xfire wouldnt give you enough performance gain in most cases to justify even 20 dollars spent, and in some cases even decreases performance. Theyve really got to work on multiple GPUs ATM before they are of any use.

[cjoyce1980]

I'm in agreement with the 2 above, as you already have a 3870 x2 there is little point getting another card. the only real benefit would be to allow your games to run at high resolutions, but since to have an x2 graphics card that shouldn't be a problem anyway.

keep the cash till the HD4xxx series or the next big thing is released

[Darknova]

Just like Tri-SLi, it's not WORTH it, however, if you want to have a play with a setup like that, or just like the idea of 3 graphics cards, then by all means, go ahead.

[fitseries3]

dude! EFF THAT!!! im running a 3870x2 and a 3870 in tri-fire and it's GREAT!!! dont let people say it's not worth it. im getting amazing FPS in games and my cards crank out some CRAZY high bench scores. this setup is FAR better than my TRI-SLI 8800ULTRA's.

the tri-fire drives my 30" dell LCD like no other setup i've ever had.

and... if you need another 3870... i've got 2 in my FS thread in my SIG.

[DonInKansas]

Fit tells you tri-fire rules then points you to the cards he has for sale....:roll:

Excellent salesmanship, my friend!:laugh:

[WhiteLotus]

Sell the cross fire and get the single 3870X2 - heat would be less, IRC power is lower as well.

[3870x2]

dude! EFF THAT!!! im running a 3870x2 and a 3870 in tri-fire and it's GREAT!!! dont let people say it's not worth it. im getting amazing FPS in games and my cards crank out some CRAZY high bench scores. this setup is FAR better than my TRI-SLI 8800ULTRA's.

the tri-fire drives my 30" dell LCD like no other setup i've ever had.

and... if you need another 3870... i've got 2 in my FS thread in my SIG.

Post some benchmarks.

[erocker]

Sell the cross fire and get the single 3870X2 - heat would be less, IRC power is lower as well.

He has a X2.;) Fit has already submitted benchmark scores using both his tri-sli and tri-crossfire setups if you would look here: http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=25995 and here: http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=57308

[WhiteLotus]

He has a X2.;) Fit has already submitted benchmark scores using both his tri-sli and tri-crossfire setups if you would look here: http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=25995 and here: http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=57308

doh my bad:(

[fitseries3]

4, fitseries3 - eVGA 8800GTX (x3) SLI @ 650/1000 - 19852 - Q6600 @ 3923.8Mhz - 436FSB

4, fitseries3 - Ati HD3870X2 + HD3870 Tri-Fire @ 796/1170 - 20556 - Q6700 @ 3800mhz- 380FSB


and i will say... the tri fire setup is loose at best with that score. there's A LOT more coming from that setup... i just haven't had time for benching.

[Cold Storm]

I would have to say that Going Tri SLI or Crossfire is something that if you have the ability to go with do it. The only thing I think you would have to worry about is heat issues, but Fit would know more about that then what I do know. If you think that Tri crossfire is bad, then why go spider?? Its a way to test and see how you like it. You have to try things in order to know if the stuff is worth it.
Thats My two cents

[warup89]

Thats nice, I know anything that involves more than 2 cards its not THAT great, but its because they JUST came out..well kinda, my moto here is to build a rig that would last, so i want to max everything out right now, and 3 cards would defenetly look sexy on my case :cool:, also fitseries, when i come to a conclusion on this, i might buy your card and i think the PSU that you are sellling too. ;)

[trog100]

soon when the new (card crippling) dx10 vista only 3mark arrives things will change.. better card scaling should show up at its default settings..

trog

[spearman914]

No not worth it. When you only have one card you have all the 100% performance for the money you payed for. And if you add an extra card you only get a 20-50% improvement and 50% of your money is wasted. While 1 card that has a newer GPU can outperform it.
Like dual 2900 XT vs single hd3870x2:
2900 xt 512 mb 100%
2900 xt 512 mb 30% which = 153.6 mb
hd3870x2 1 gb you get all the 100% performance you payed for.

[nanohead]

I hardly think even Crossfire will give you much a performance... at this time im no ATI fan the 3870's are hardly worth what they sell for considering a 9600GT(now going for $125~) can compete with it.

Stick with your CF, or single HD 3870. ATM a 3rd would just be redundant too much driver overhead as well.

Sage wisdom from an NV fanboi I see.

I hate to threadcrap, but this is completely UNTRUE and bizarre to say. What is driver overhead. I'm an engineer in the industry, and I've never heard of such a thing. Must be another bogus forum myth like disk defraging and arctic silver 5. The internet is a great thing, but its also good at spreading semi truths.

I've got both 3870 Tri Fire running and another machine with 880GTS SLI in it which I've had for a year. I've have both running next to each other since november,(and pumping lots of heat into my room) and Tri fire since March 8.3 Cat release. They both run fine, but to be candid, the ATI has started behaving more consistently with the 8.3 driver release. I also find that the they consume less power than any of the my past SLI rigs, as the NVidia engineers (many whom I know) don't seem to care about heat, power and noise.

In fact, if you don't mind confusing yourselves with facts (or the internet benchmark version of facts), you'll see that there are plenty of tests and benchmarks that show that 3 Way Crossfire scales well, and produces excellent performance in all games but the severely brain damaged piece of bloatware called Crysis (which is in crisis... sucks on both ATI and Nvidia).

I never get whiny on forum threads, but this response, and several others, simply irks me to no end. All hail the 14 year old adolescent experts on the internet chat room. We have so much to learn from them :banghead:

[trog100]

how about showing us some nanohead.. u know.. real usefull gains from tri-fire.. i think as yet its a waste of money and energy and i aint f-cking 14.. :)

trog

[nanohead]

how about showing us some nanohead.. u know.. real usefull gains from tri-fire.. i think as yet its a waste of money and energy and i aint f-cking 14.. :)

trog

Yeah... :toast:

You're definitely not 14 Troggmeister. You're one of the folks here who contributes and helps all of us learn based on facts that you figure out yourself !!! Many of us try to give actual information, not the other stuff....

Some of the others... well, they say crazy fanboi things day in and day out. They regurgitate internet reviews and chat room posts day in and day out like they are the gospel. My Tri fire system runs smooth as butter on nearly every game, full eye candy, 1920x1200. Good enough for me. The 8800GTS SLI system ran great too (but I needed a pontiac heater core to cool it though :rockout:)

[imperialreign]

my thoughts coming from a Crossfire user:


Some things to take into consideration - most crossfire setups, like SLI, only net about a 50% increase in performance, depending on the game, over a single card setup. 3x GPUs would probably only net 60%-70%. So, it'd be like running 1.65 cards. Is a 50% increase in performance worth the amount of the card in question? And is anopther 15% increase worth the amount of the third card?

Also, if you like to game at a higher resolution, you'll notice the performance increase more. If you prefer lower resolutions, the extra cards tend to make it a lot easier to run the eye candy to improve IQ. Games that are graphically intensive will usually have a major boost with a second card at resolutions higher than 1280x1024. If your monitor is a 16:10 ratio, there aren't many resolutions that fill that aspect, and games will look goofy - there's only 3 resolution setting on my monitor that work properly (1440x900, 1280x800, 1024x768), everything else below that skews the image in some manner. The addition of the second card, for me, let me run most programs at 1280x800 or 1440x900 with full IQ without any noticeable FPS hits.

One must keep in mind the heat output of a second card as well, and if your case's cooling and air flow is up to the task to be able to handle the extra thermal output. Granted, most newer cards exhaust hot air out the back of the case, there's still an amount of radiant heat that's given off, as well as a large, bulky card that could potentially interfere with good case air flow to begin with.


My recommendations? Crossfire is only worth it, IMO, if you can obtain the second card (or both cards, for that matter) for dirt cheap. I'm talking at least 50% off the average price of the card - otherwise, you're not truly getting the full value of the card, y'know? 3 cards? Again, only if you can get ALL of them dirt cheap. If you're looking to crossfire, IMO, a 3870x2 is probably the best route to go.

Y'know, it'd be nice if the manufacturers offered a discount or package deal on multiple cards - it would probably fuel some incentive in the multi-GPU setup.

[erocker]

I don't think tri-crossfire is really worth it with most current AMD chips. On a blazing fast Intel Quad, I can see it having some good results.

[Francis69007]

as far as i'm concerned, 20.2k 3D06 on single X2 :) ....so why adding a third gpu for 300pts ?
duno. or the bench wasn't full optimised...

[Pinchy]

I don't think tri-crossfire is really worth it with most current AMD chips. On a blazing fast Intel Quad, I can see it having some good results.

Why wouldnt it be?

The CPU doesnt have much to do with gaming @ high resolutions for all graphical features such as AA and AF. Sure the CPU may hold you back from massive amounts of AI and physics, but thats a different story. Most of the time, a better graphics card will yeild better gaming performance, independant of the CPU (even if the CPU doesnt allow the graphics card to hit full potential)

Also, duals are up there with quads in terms of gaming, and a 3 GHz 6000+ isnt going to do too badly ;)...

I may be wrong, I mean your the one with first hand experience (with the graphics cards and the differing CPU's...myself never owning an AMD chip). But, thats just what I take it as from what I have read/gathered, so correct me if I am wrong :)