But what if you spent $40 to $50 extra on the R7 260X and paired it with an Intel chip instead of relying on Crossfire?
As we saw before, using the A10-7850K with the R7 250 in Company of Heroes actually reduces performance over the R7 250 itself. Using the R7 250 with the Core i5-4430 allowed for 27.6fps at 1680x1050, though that isn’t really enough for playable performance in our opinion. However, spending $40 to $50 (40 to 50%) more for an R7 260x, you can expect almost 60% more performance in this title for a very playable 43.6fps when paired with an i5-4430.
Metro: Last Light was another game where dual graphics didn’t work very well and as a result the R7 250 was better off by itself. Coupled with the Core i5-4430, we saw an average of 27.8fps from the R7 250 at 1680x1050. The R7 260X on the other hand managed 53.5fps, making it 92% faster!
It appears that the i5-4430 is causing a system bottleneck in Hitman: Absolution that limits the R7 260X’s performance so it couldn’t extend the performance delivered by the R7 250 at 1280x800. However, at 1680x1050 we saw a 9% increase in performance as the average frame rate went from 45.2fps to 49.3fps.
The A10-7850K with the R7 250 in Crossfire managed 78.4fps at 1680x1050, which was 20% more than the Core i5-4430 / R7 250 combo but using i5-4430 with the R7 260X allowed for 55% more frames than the A10-7850K / R7 250.
Dual graphics worked well in BioShock: Infinite, allowing the A10-7850K / R7 250 combo to be 36% faster than the i5-4430 with the R7 250. However, the R7 260X was still 42% faster than the A10-7850K / R7 250 combo with 89.4fps.
The A10-7850K and the R7 250 paired up nicely in Arma 3 with 51% better performance than the R7 250 running solo and the R7 260X / Core i5 setup was only 23% faster with an average of 72.4fps.
