Crossfire or not?

[[WU-TANG]GZA]

Lots of us are hoping that the launch of 6950/6970 would start a price war, and forcing both AMD and Nvidia to slash price and have the 6950/GTX570 prices drop to £240~£260 range, rather than averaging at £280~£300.

Ah well, fingers-cross...one more week to go

Agreed !

 

[Drex]

I belive you CAN mix but ideally the same.

Mine is an XFX 4890 and I think getting hold of one is quite easy if you look around.

Yea seen a few now on auction sites cant believe they still go for £100 2nd hand lol.

 

[[WU-TANG]GZA]

Yea seen a few now on auction sites cant believe they still go for £100 2nd hand lol.

You can get them for £85 brand new and boxed if u look on the net : D

Great cards, been REALLY happy with mine and I still dont NEED to upgrade just want to

 

[Abitar]

6850 crossfire is incredibly powerful for the money if you can get them for around £130-140 each it's a really good option to consider.

It is indeed

I upgraded from 5770 xfire and its a quite big performance upgrade, more than I was expecting anyway.

Got mine from OcUK when they were on offer £141 each.

 

[teejay73]

To Crossfire 2 4890's do they both have to be exactly the same, like manufacturer and everything or can u mix?

You can mix them and for a cheaper option i think you can even use a 4870 with a 4890, I think from memory xfire 4890`s were on par with the gtx 295 & 4870x2, how it stacks up against the current top cards i am not sure about.

I also have the 4890 and am looking at the 5870 for £180.00. I think the current gen amd cards scale better than the 4000 sreies, i remember seeing some xfire 4890`s that scaled great on some games and p*** poor on others but for a £100 it could be a great upgrade, then again a 5870 for £100 is also a great upgrade if you sell the 4890!

 

[[WU-TANG]GZA]

You can mix them and for a cheaper option i think you can even use a 4870 with a 4890, I think from memory xfire 4890`s were on par with the gtx 295 & 4870x2, how it stacks up against the current top cards i am not sure about.

I also have the 4890 and am looking at the 5870 for £180.00. I think the current gen amd cards scale better than the 4000 sreies, i remember seeing some xfire 4890`s that scaled great on some games and p*** poor on others but for a £100 it could be a great upgrade, then again a 5870 for £100 is also a great upgrade if you sell the 4890!

Yeah from the benchmarks I'm looking at - for example BC2 @ 1920 x 1200 full anti alias etc:

5870CF = 92fps

5850CF = 76fps

4890CF = 69fps

GTX 460(1024mb) SLI = 68fps

Single GTX 480 = 57fps

That is SILLY performance but yes, hot, noisy and no DX11.

I'm split three ways - add 4890 go xfire, get a 5870 for very cheap or go with one of the new tech coming out soon/out now 6950 or 570 etc....

BAH ! Can't keep waiting with tech - there will always be something around the corner........

Wu

EDIT: Same benchmark but single cards 4890 Vs 5870:

5870 = 52 fps

4890 = 35 fps

For me that is quite a difference for gaming I prefer to be at 60fps+ but getting in the 30s is just wrong imo....saying that my monitor isn't 1920 x 1200 : D

 

[teejay73]

I know what you mean, I always seem to be waiting for the next gen this or that only to keep waiting cos i cant make up my mind, I game at 1920 x 1080 and the 4890 still makes good of what games i have but i hold back on buying newer tiltles as i fear the 4890 might be found wanting if i increase the icandy.

For me the 4890 is still a great card but i am personally swaying to part with £100 and go for the 5870 but may wait and see if the new 6900 cards drive prices down and then see if they are cheaper.

 

[pieman109]

Funnily enough I'm in the same position meself and as I'm using o/b graphics, I'm getting a bit desperate. GTX 570 now, wait for the 69** cards, or Xfire a pair of 6850s although the last choice is VERY appealing. I owned a 6850 for a few days till I moved it on and got a 6870 and the performance increase wasn't THAT much better.
In the past I've had 4850s in Xfire, followed by 4870s in Xfire and the performance increase over a single wasn't that spectacular, but apparently these new ati cards scale exceptionally well and they're cheap for the performance offered even when run as a single card.
Power draw isn't a prob either as the 6850 only uses one 6 pin connector, runs very cool even when overclocked, and the fan is VERY quiet also, I couldn't hear it running at all even when set to 50% max speed. Just have to source a suitable Xfire mobo that does 8 x 8 pci-e bus, the gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H looks appealing.