Cheap alternative to get rig up + running ?

[waynesalmon]

Chaps we are all waiting for the 5870 .... Is there anything else around the 50 quid mark I can get in the interim to get my rig up and running and still play a few games (borderlands etc) . I have a newly built i7 system 3.03 with 6 gig and windows seven . Any pointers appreciated ... must be an ATI card though

Cheers

 

[RavenXXX2]

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-194-AS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=708

Billy bargain, you would easily recoup what you payed for it on the bay.

 

[reflux]

A 4670 or 4730 would do you nicely.

 

[Ast3r]

Go with the HD 3850 X2.

 

[Nuwidol]

A 4670 or 4730 would do you nicely.

I'd go for one of those over the x2 card. Edpecially if you're looking to play newer games that may not have crossfire profiles yet. ATI aren't that quick at releasing newer profiles & by the time they do you could have a 5870...

 

[reflux]

Yeah, that was my reasoning. The 3850X2 is slow, hot and noisy and cheap for a reason.

 

[RavenXXX2]

4670 is nowhere near the performance of the X2 card and is roughly the same price and resale value will be poor, XFIRE profiles are big on ATI's support list now, more so with the new X2 cards on the horizon. X2 retails elsewhere for well over £100, has 1GB of memory and the performance to play games that the OP wants at decent settings, the 4670 " which I have in my HTPC " does not.

 

[reflux]

4670 is nowhere near the performance of the X2 card and is roughly the same price and resale value will be poor, XFIRE profiles are big on ATI's support list now, more so with the new X2 cards on the horizon.

CrossFire profiles for a two year old card that was never officially released by ATi themselves? I'm not arguing it's an option, but as I said, it's cheap for a reason.

 

[RavenXXX2]

Not messing about here, £55 for that card is a crazy price, its way more expensive elsewhere, OCUK got a deal on shed load of them therefore insane low price. To pick a 4670 over it for gaming would be mental.

Of course its going to be supported by ATI, its classed as under the 3800 series and that is still supported, XFIRE or not.

 

[reflux]

Aye but the point is, the older cards get very little work on optimizing them for modern games because it's not worth the time to ATi.

Whilst it's definitely supported in driver releases, what I meant was afaik there was never an official reference 3850 released by ATi - so the 3850X2 is somewhat of an oddity.

 

[RavenXXX2]

Enough said...