crossfire with hd 4890 overkill?

[uphillcastle]

Hi there I have a pretty average cpu i thinks is a core duo e6600 or of similar ilk. do you think adding a 2nd hd 4890 is wise? or am i just wasting money through the cpu not being able to maximise it?

i will be using it for games mostly

And if you CF a 4890 with a 4870 would that still be ok? I saw a 4870 going cheap somewhere...

 

[D13]

What resolution to you game at?

I used to use a 4870x2 + [email protected] with 1680x1050 res.

There was definite bottleneck, i pushed dodgy temps/volts beyond 3.8 and fps kept rising steadily.

I would advise against combining a weaker card with a stronger one, I heard that the faster card will downlclock to match the slower (not sure about that though).

 

[uphillcastle]

seems to me a bit like a vicious circle, the more you spend on say a gfx setup the more you have to spend on cpu! I am at same res as you. I just wonder whether it would be better to invest in a new cpu and forget the extra card...

 

[D13]

It depends on budget really, just make sure that when you do go for the big cpu upgrade that you pick something that will really go the distance.

 

[kylew]

the faster card will downlclock to match the slower.

That's not the case any more.

 

[Rroff]

E6600 is still a good CPU... but... unless your running it at atleast 3gig theres not a huge amount of point running 4890cf and to really make teh best use you need a faster CPU.