6850 crossfire?

[SheepBeast]

Hi there

I've currently got an Asus 6850. My mate's brother is ditching his current card (which is also a 6850) due to overheating issues. I'm pretty confident that with a bit of a clean and some new thermal paste I can sort those out. Would it be possible to crossfire his card with my current one (different brands)?

He's said he'll sell me it for £25. Taking into account the chance that there may be a more fundamental problem with the card (which I might be unable to fix), and the microstutter issues I've heard are present in a Crossfire 6850 setup, do you guys think it'd be worth it for me to do this?

I should probably say, I do game a fair amount, and I'm perfectly happy with the performance of my single 6850 as it is right now. It handles everything at max or near max settings at 1080p. I just have to turn AA off which is fine because I don't like it anyway.

 

[SheepBeast]

Sweet, thanks guys. Got a good mobo so that won't be an issue, same goes for power supply (I like to overinvest in core components so I have good upgrade options).

What do you mean by "AMD CAPs"? Crossfire and SLI are a couple of the areas of PC tech where I'm least knowledgeable. I know roughly how they work etc, but I've never done it or researched it so I'm not clear on the details

 

[SheepBeast]

Cool, thankyou

The other thing I was wondering... I may invest in a new cooler for the 2nd 6850, firstly if reseating doesn't help, plus also for better looks.

My current 6850 is an Asus DirectCU II version. Is it possible to buy a DirectCU II cooler by itself? I guess 2nd hand would be the way to go on that one?

Alternatively, I am considering just buying two of these. I want my system to look homogeneous (yeah im OCD) but that'd be quite a lot of money.