Is crossfire worthwhile?

[sastusbulbas]

Just wondering if it is worth trying out crossfire?

Is there any benefit and what platform gets the best out of it? Is the 16x/16x the holy grail with no difference from 8x/8x?

What sort of troubles can be expected?

I currently have a new build in line, I will be using my current card, a Toxic 1gb 4870, and am wondering if getting a second is better than waiting it out until current 5**** series cards drop in price?

To be honest I keep reading i5 is the way to go, but is crossfire wothwhile with such?

 

[Mrjobby]

I recently picked up a cheap x48 board and a 4850 to go with my 4870.

Significant boost to my frames in all games at the click of a button, works very well.

Only thing is I have tried it in the past with a p35 board and it was gash so not so sure how it would be on a 8 x 8 lane board.

 

[AMG]

yes I would say so... for the PCIe speeds to make a difference and bottleneck you, you will have to have two X2s in crossfire, which is sick and annoying but other wise you would notice nothing sept for the odd frame rate.

the only trouble you may have is with it doing odd things with certin games that don't like crossfire. microstuttering, again, i believe this happens if the cards are not the same but it does happen. the rest of the time, its games not scaling too well but these issues get sorted as drivers get released.

also crossfiring is easy two cards, a crossfire bridge done..., turn on crossfire in CCC done

 

[coupe69]

Difference is absolutely minimal between 8X and 16X on pci-e 2.0, see here for results using the new 5870, and comparisons between 1X, 4X, 8X and 16X. Only a 2% performance hit using 8X, and incredibly only 5% hit using 4X.

EDIT: If you want extra pci-e bandwidth on P55, you could always get one of the new boards with the Nvidia NF200 chip on it, like the EVGA P55 F.T.W 200/Classified 200, or the ASUS Workstation boards.

Although the amount of money you'd be spending on those boards you may as well go mid-range full fat 9 series core i7.

 

[Arthalen]

I've owned Software crossfire x1900GTs and now Hardware 4870 Crossfire.

I've used Crossfire on both a x16\x4 Gen1 setup and now currently on a x16/x16 Gen2 setup and I have to say, throw as many PCI-EX lines as you can at it. Minimum for me would be 8x/8x for balance.

I'm not basing this on benchmark numbers but actual framerates noticed in games.

If its done right, its worth it. I had major trouble with getting my 4870 cards to crossfire in the CCC options initially, I solved this by flashing my ATI and Asus cards with the same Sapphire BIOS and problems gone.

Gains are dependant on resolution played at and also the speed of your CPU. The higher your resolution, the more work for your cards to do the more benefit you'll see over a single card solution. There's no real point if you game at say 1280x1024 or less. A high end single card would be better.

The better your CPU, the more it can feed your Crossfire platform with work and the better frame rates it will produce.

Q6600 @ 2.4Ghz & 4870 Crossfire = 13,000+ 3DMarks in 3DMark06
Q6600 @ 3.6Ghz & 4870 Crossfire = 20,000+ 3DMarks in 3DMark06

 

[pcredstar]

Hi, I'm in a similar position to OP. I'm planning on building an i5 system and getting a 5850 with the view to crossfire with another 5850 in the future.

So I think I'll just get an x8/x8 mobo as the improvement over x16/x16 isn't worth the extra price. Does this sound good? Thanks

 

[reflux]

Hi, I'm in a similar position to OP. I'm planning on building an i5 system and getting a 5850 with the view to crossfire with another 5850 in the future.

So I think I'll just get an x8/x8 mobo as the improvement over x16/x16 isn't worth the extra price. Does this sound good? Thanks

Yes

 

[sastusbulbas]

I am interested in maximum everything in the GPU options with gaming on probably a 24" monitor some time soon, and either a projector or Plasma TV at times.

I don't really want to have to overclock the hell out the system or drop to medium or low settings in my GPU options to get better framerates to make games like GTA and multiple opponent C&C or DOW type games slow down.

How big a performance difference can I expect between a single Toxic 4870 or a single 5850 or two 4870 in crossfire or a single 5890?

 

[Shakeel]

xfire of two 4870's are great