Anyone try 3x4850?

muppetkiller · 30 Jan 2009 at 09:51

I have a crossfire set up in my i7 Motherboard.
It can take a 3rd ATI 4850.

1. Would 3 in crossfire work ?
2. Is their any point ?
3. My cards are only 4850 with 512megs of ram.
4. I only play at 1680x1050.
5. I plan on buying a 24inch monitor this year.

Thanks

nalla · 30 Jan 2009 at 09:56

would be nice to have some benchies on that sort of setup i agree, but not sure what performance gains it will hold due to the fact that in crossfire all 3 gpus share the work but only use one cards ram, so even though you have in theory 1.5 gb of ram the system will only use 512, well so i belive, im sure someone will confirm this.

reflux · 30 Jan 2009 at 10:02

To be honest you won't be seeing a massive improvement with two cards at 1680x1050, so three would be a total waste of cash. There aren't many benchies about for more than two GPU CrossFire, but the results available for two 4870X2s show pretty terrible scaling tbh.

Depending on when you upgrade to a large screen, you might be better selling both the 4850s and getting a GTX280, or whatever new stuff is out this year. 512mb cards are a bit lacklustre at 1920x1200 these days

gurusan · 30 Jan 2009 at 10:09

reflux said:
To be honest you won't be seeing a massive improvement with two cards at 1680x1050

Ehh? What a ridiculous statement!

Anyway the potential power of tri-CF is there, but from what I've seen the scaling is not really there as has been said. Perhaps the 9.1 drivers are different though, who knows.

reflux · 30 Jan 2009 at 10:12

gurusan said:
Ehh? What a ridiculous statement!

Why is it a ridiculous statement? Dual graphics really require 1920x1200 or above to give a worthwhile improvement. There's some difference below that, but no worth it IMO.

Vince · 30 Jan 2009 at 10:13

reflux said:
To be honest you won't be seeing a massive improvement with two cards at 1680x1050, so three would be a total waste of cash. There aren't many benchies about for more than two GPU CrossFire, but the results available for two 4870X2s show pretty terrible scaling tbh.

Depending on when you upgrade to a large screen, you might be better selling both the 4850s and getting a GTX280, or whatever new stuff is out this year. 512mb cards are a bit lacklustre at 1920x1200 these days

Scaling on 2 4870x2's is not really camparible with 3 4850's. I'm sure that the sweet spot on the older 3870's was 3 cards, any more and there was little impact, I would have thought this would still be close to the truth.

edit a quick look around the tinternet shows that 3x4850's show very good scaling.

its translated but should help : http://translate.google.com/transla...wtopic.php?t=14075&sl=pt&tl=en&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

HeX · 30 Jan 2009 at 10:14

gurusan said:
Ehh? What a ridiculous statement!

Indeed, difference between 1 card and 2 at 1680 is more than just a bit noticable! Don't know where people get the idea that CF at anything less than 1920+ is worthless :rolleyes:

Stick with two and you'll find it handles anything you throw at it anyway.

gurusan · 30 Jan 2009 at 10:19

reflux said:
Why is it a ridiculous statement? Dual graphics really require 1920x1200 or above to give a worthwhile improvement. There's some difference below that, but no worth it IMO.

..... I used a 4870 and 4850 in CF at 1680x1050 and got around 90% scaling. If that ain't worth it then what is? :confused:

reflux · 30 Jan 2009 at 10:25

HeX said:
Indeed, difference between 1 card and 2 at 1680 is more than just a bit noticable! Don't know where people get the idea that CF at anything less than 1920+ is worthless

I didn't say it was worthless, I said it wasn't as noticeable as it is at higher resolutions, where such a configuration is intended to be used. As demonstrated in both these reviews

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/sapphire-radeon-hd4850-cf.html

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/1534/1/sapphire_hd_4850_toxic_in_crossfire/index.html

That said, I appreciate drivers have moved on since then, but I still stand by my original comment that the optimum resolution for a multi-graphics config is 1920x1200 or above.

gurusan said:
..... I used a 4870 and 4850 in CF at 1680x1050 and got around 90% scaling. If that ain't worth it then what is?

Damn, that's better than the 4870X2. How did you do that?!

Vince · 30 Jan 2009 at 10:28

gurusan said:
..... I used a 4870 and 4850 in CF at 1680x1050 and got around 90% scaling. If that ain't worth it then what is?

It's worth every penny, even more so for those of you with single cards who will pick up second cards as prices plummet ready for new tech. I did it a year ago with the 38xx series cards as prices dropped to £40 for a new card, that game me equivilant of 4850 speed which for me, is more than enough power to last out this round.

jrodga2k5 · 30 Jan 2009 at 10:28

gurusan said:
..... I used a 4870 and 4850 in CF at 1680x1050 and got around 90% scaling. If that ain't worth it then what is?

Only 90% Gurusan :confused:

What a waste at that resolution

gurusan · 30 Jan 2009 at 10:43

I don't know about those tests, the game I got 90% in was CoD4 and on the xbitlabs test they show a drop in framerate with 2 cards :confused:

Went from 110 average to around 210 average

jrodga2k5 · 30 Jan 2009 at 10:47

I Dunno dated 8/8/08 I mean there have been changes in drivers etc since then and as we know, things change

HeX · 30 Jan 2009 at 10:50

And I wouldn't trust anything tweaktown publish.

They are the ones that showed the P45 crippling crossfire to death... :rolleyes:

muppetkiller · 30 Jan 2009 at 11:13

Well i must show some of my results when i was running crossfire on my Qx9650 @ 4400Mhz. Now i have a i7 920 just at stock as i only put it together last night. And i have noticed that the price of 4850 cards have gone down so much. Can pick up a real cheap one for about €80 euros.

But saying all that i must overclock the I7 and see how it plays with my crossfire set up. Im sure it will be better but how much i don't know. And the fact that i only play at a low screen res 1680x1050 adding a 3rd card might not be worth it at all for the moment.

carrot1401 · 30 Jan 2009 at 11:18

Yes, buy another 4850
Buy mine

Lol
Although I could crossfire (although only got a 4850 512mb and just ordered a 4870 1gb so its gonna hold it right back) and also only got antec earthwatts 500 and dunno if its gonna like those 2 cards with a hard drive, e8400 @ 3.6ghz, 4gb ram and 5 case fans :s

jvowles · 30 Jan 2009 at 11:40

I have no experience, for the money it would more than likely be worth a try surely?

Final8y · 30 Jan 2009 at 11:42

VinceB1 said:
Scaling on 2 4870x2's is not really camparible with 3 4850's. I'm sure that the sweet spot on the older 3870's was 3 cards, any more and there was little impact, I would have thought this would still be close to the truth.

edit a quick look around the tinternet shows that 3x4850's show very good scaling.

its translated but should help : http://translate.google.com/transla...wtopic.php?t=14075&sl=pt&tl=en&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Your spot on & one of my 3870 cards is going into a build im making for a friend because 3 is the sweet spot & im Vram limited anyway.

ViRuS2k · 30 Jan 2009 at 11:46

the 4870X2 can scaile really good aswell, look at grid to know that.

its all down to the game and the optimizations aswell as resolutions, great scailing isnt a hardware limitation.