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Solved Is Crossfire Worth It?

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XxxLunarFangxxX

XxxLunarFangxxX

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Alright all you Pc experts out there, I need your opinions. The thing is, I'm a Pc noob, I'm coming over from consoles, and I don't know much about Pcs at all. So, to get me started, I ordered off of CyberPowerPc, but after I came here and read about how they skimp out on the graphics cards and making your own build is cheaper and better, I read some reviews on the graphics card that it came with, which is the AMD Radeon R9 270, and well... it has average performance, which is okay for now, but I'm going to be playing very demanding games and I don't think It's going to be enough at all and I'll be running into problems. I don't have it yet, it's supposed to arrive on the 21st. I'll post my build, and give me the pros and cons of Crossfire. The reason I don't just buy a single better graphics card is because I have just enough for another AMD Radeon 270. So, here it is guys.

AMD FX-9370 Processor
8GB XPG V2 1866MHz RAM
AMD R9 270 2GB Graphics
GIGABYTE 990FXA-UD3 MB
1TB SATA3 7200 RPM HD
24X DVD+R/+RW DRive

So, this is my build, is Crossfire a good idea? Advantages, disadvantages? And also, I read somewhere that this processor puts out heat like a monster, do I need to buy spare water coolers? No doubt I should have asked for a build and build one myself, but It's too late, I can only improve my build from what I have now with a spare $250.
 
Selena Gomez

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Honestly getting a better single card instead of starting off with crossfire.

Also crossfire is only necessary if you need the extra power.
 
XxxLunarFangxxX

XxxLunarFangxxX

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Will this build get the job done for now? I'll be playing mostly single player games like Skyrim, but also a little Battlefield here and there, and I wanted to play Tomb Raider and Metro: Last Light, but I'm not sure if the card I have can handle those games well
 
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Honestly getting a better single card instead of starting off with crossfire.

Also crossfire is only necessary if you need the extra power.

Will this build get the job done for now? I'll be playing mostly single player games like Skyrim, but also a little Battlefield here and there, and I wanted to play Tomb Raider and Metro: Last Light, but I'm not sure if the card I have can handle those games well

Just like Bossman said, get a better single card (if you're gaming on higher than 1920x1080p, 290x, if you're playing on 1920x1080p, 780 ti) and then run it in crossfire. Chances are you won't ever need to, as the next generation of cards will single-handedly (cardedly?) outperform your current single highest-tier single card. Crossfire / SLI is mainly used for very high end performance, for people running 4k monitors, multiple 4k monitors, and in some cases multiple 2560x1440p monitors.

(Short answer, single> crossfire / SLI unless you're gaming at multi-monitor high resolution.)

To answer your specific questions about the games:
Skyrim - Should be able to max this out on stock graphics, probably not high-end graphics mods though (not 100% on this, as I'm not a fan of Skyrim)
Battlefield - Shouldn't have a huge issue with this at close to max settings. Probably not a constant 60fps, but more like 45-60 depending on what's going on in-game.
Tomb Raider - My ancient secondary rig with a 460 in it had no problem running this at medium-high settings, you should be able to max this I would imagine.
Metro: Last Light - Won't be able to max this at 60fps, I'd expect probably 30-40 maxed out, potentially less.

Edit: I also forgot to mention, AMD cards are notorious for having microstuttering issues when running in crossfire. Although this has improved quite a bit over the past months, it's still a slight issue. SLI can also suffer, but is usually much better about this than crossfire.
 
XxxLunarFangxxX

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Thank all of you for helping me out, I'm an entry noob and didn't really know what to do
 
The_Notorious_BIG

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1+1, in terms of crossfire, does not always = 2.

What my very colourful metaphor means is that if you add one more GPU, so you can crossfire, you're not going gain double the performance. It will improve it, depending on the game, but dont expect double fps, but expect a good gain (like I said, depending on what game it is).

Buying one GPU, like one goodass one will cut the job better. Drivers are still trying to optimize crossfire/SLI, so until the drivers are upto scratch, then we'll see a better improvement, such as 1+1=2
 
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Ive been wondering the same thing for a long time
Crossfire and SLI are worth it when the extra power is needed. I'll give you an example, I at one point had crossfire 7950's on a single 1080P monitor, the truth is I didn't need the extra power at all but I had it anyways. It was great to know that I had the power but in reality getting a single 7970 would've been a better choice because with crossfire and SLI you are more likely to get issues.

When you're first buying your parts, always get the strongest single card that you can afford, don't splurge on two lower ends cards just to crossfire them. If you start with the strongest single card then by the time you need the extra power you can get another one of those cards for cheaper and crossfire it for extra power.
 
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