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X1800 Xfire or single X1900XTX?

Crazy Otter

Crazy Otter

Crazy Otter

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Joined
2 Jun 2005
Posts
28
What would be the best upgrade?

I already have an X1800XT and my screen runs at 1680x1050, so all gaming would be based on that resolution.

With games like Oblivion on the way, 1680x1050 with AA and AF might push my X1800XT.
 
Why not try it first and then see? No point spending money if you don't need to :)

If you do want to get a second X1800XT then you will have to get a master card(Crossfire edition) unless your existing card is one and you will also need to have a good PSU 500w+ ideally.
 
Nah, I just have the slave.

No problem as far as power is concerned. I have an Enermax Liberty 620 watt and am even contemplating putting my gear back into a CM Stacker, which I was using with a 2nd system. With the Stacker I could use 2 PSUs, giving me over 1200 watts to play with.

I'm just playing WoW a lot at the moment, but wouldn't even some current games benefit from one of the two upgrades. My X1800XT easily runs WoW with all settings maxed out....but then WoW is known not to have very heavy system requirements.

So should I be asking: will I benefit when playing COD2/Serious Sam2 at 1680x1050, all setting maxed out and high AA/AF?
 
I have the Asus Xfire mobo, still boxed until I decide which GPU to get.

Actually, is there any update on the Agea physics card? That might be a factor as well. As far as available PCI slots are concerned, I can't see how an Xfire setup would work with a PCI physics card and PCI sound card.
 
Crossfire X1800's would be faster, but the X1900 would be cheaper.
Wouldnt count on the physics card either.... release date has been pushed back more times than ive had hot meals.
 
It seems that on some games the X1900XTX (FEAR, Black & White 2) is faster & others the crossfired X1800XT cards are faster (Far Cry, Doom 3).

Having looked further there are more games where the crossfired X1800XT are the performance leaders.

Thus getting the X1800XT mastercard is probably the more viable option.
 
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X1900XTX is about 20% faster than an X1800XT. To buy an X1900XTX and sell your current X1800 the total cost of upgrade is about £175.

If you went Xfire then you would have to pay a premium for the master card so thats a cost of £325 for an extra 1-90% performance increase.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/315/11/

If you look at all the benchmarks you will notice that in some games like Q4 - the 1900 is just as fast as the 1800 crossfire setup. But you can clearly see the potential of crossfire with almost 100% increase in performance over a single card and a fair whack faster than an X1900XTX.

£175 for a card thats probably 20% faster in most games if not all or £325 for an extra card that could increase performance by upto 90% in some games and maybe 20% in others.
 
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