[ehpexs]

I'm going to be running either two or three 7950s in early March. From what I've heard dependent on the game crossfire can either work or do nothing (iRacing.) My question is, for the gain in performance 3 cards has over 2 (and apparently less microstutter) what are the penalties seen in driver issues, scaling issues and compatibility issues?

 

[Crooksy]

When I went with multiple GPUs a few years ago, I found the performance very hit and miss. Some games worked without an issue but then the majority seemed to have some sort of issue or required setting up. I then decided that it wasn't worth it and got a single fast card, and always will now until I see some seriously significant changes.

However, this was a while ago so things could have gotten a lot better but i've heard that the issues can only really get worse with more cards. I personally would ditch the cards and go for the fastest single solution.

 

[Vlasov_581]

for 3 monitors i'd go with 3 gpus.......oh wait...i did lol

......oh and don't forget the psu

 

[bdenpaka]

Any more than a single card and you'll come across bumps here and there. Nothing that a little bit of time and tweaking usually can't fix. I would recommend 2-way Crossfire over 3-way Crossfire, just to prevent even more problems that may occur.

I'm running 2-way SLI with 670 FTW.

 

[cainy1991]

In my experience, the difference of adding a third GPU has been nothing short amazing (owned 5770 tf and 6870tf)

I have never encountered any issues with drivers(that I wouldn't have gotten with two cards)

Only one game out of my games list didnt scale to the third GPU(skyrim)

Microstutter became a thing of the past..(big issue with 5XXX and 6XXX cards)

scaling was very decent for the 6870's... not so much for the 5770's (but hey it was a present

) I would imagine its only better again with the 7XXX
(very good on intensive games such as metro, BF, crysis 2 hi res with dx11 and the witcher 2)

heat was the only real issue I ever encountered that was annoying... make sure your cases airflow is good and
maybe invest in a couple fans for your side panel