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4ghz i7 coupled with a 4870...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ovr
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Ovr

Ovr

Ovr

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Morning chaps,

Now I think I know the answer to this question already but I'll ask anyway :p

I really want to buy a 5970 but at the current prices I can't bring myself to do it, and I also can't see any games warrenting it just yet. My thoughts were to get a 5850 and then when RAGE or similar comes out, get another one if necessary.

However, I have a 4870 in my machine now and can pick up another one for less than a hundred pounds - I've seen some benchmarks showing that crossfire'd 4870s in a machine similar to mine perform in modern games the same as a 5870 anyway? Is this *actually* true? I figure it'll last me a fair bit until RAGE comes out and maybe the new NVIDIA card will be out then.

Thinking of getting this http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-143-XF, assume it will have crossfire cable as I've lost my last one, doh! Hoping my PSU can take another card too - 650W Corsair TX.

Thanks for any advice.

Matt.
 
I'm about to do a similar thing with my 4850, grabbing a second one (2nd hand, nice and cheap) to hold me over until 5850s drop to a reasonable price for xfire :) your PSU should be fine (I think)
 
I probably would go with another 4870 if the price is right but not 512mb, unless your running at a stupid low rez that memory size is going to limit you in a number of current and future games, especially if you like high quality settings.
 
Toms hardware is actually putting this comparison chart out:

comaprison.png


Which makes me think that spending < £100 on another 4870 makes sense as opposed to £350+ :} If I had the moola I'd just go 58/5970 and get another when possible, but bang for buck seems this is the way to go. Just need to get two of those molex --> 8 pin PCI-E 2.0 convertors, and I don't think OcUK stock them ;(

My current card is a 512mb unfortunatey but at least another 512mb card will push me up to 1gb - am I right in saying that if you used a 1gb card and a 512b card together, the bigger card will only use half it's memory?
 
that's an interesting chart, wonder what the range is between top and bottom of each section :| And unless you are running at really high res (> 1920) 512mb isn't much of an issue (atleast for me it isn't)
 
RavenXXX2 said:
Your games will only see 512mb.
Click to expand...

512mb total? Or per card? Seems a pointless exercise if it's only gonna be 512mb still :(

10 second google confirmed that it'd just use 512mb, ngh. That's put a spanner in the works, not sure it's worth it now ";/"
 
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That chart only compares to the 295 which is about 10-20% fater than a 5870 I think.

So that'd put the 4870 CF very close to a 5870's performance, hope that helps.
 
Very interesting! I guess it's worth it then - wonder if it's gonna get me into trouble with huge texture games as I play in 1920 ho hum!
 
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