crossfire vs sli ? New build

[86JR]

Which is best ?

By this i mean, more reliable, better driver support ?

Im speccing up what I hope to be my last upgrade for a good while, as my 260gtx and q9450 combo wont let me play bc2 maxed out at 1680x1050.

I like to buy the best so i dont have to worry.

Games wise, well i want to broaden my horizons, in the past i only played bf2, but now i wish to play

bc2
bf3
c&c4
avp2
ruse

etc all maxed out.

Going to buy a dell 27" screen when they sort their act out and they a bit cheaper.

No interest in eyefinity.

The cards im looking at are

5850 x2
260gtx x2
285 x 2
5870 x 2

cant afford quad sli / quad cfire, dont have psu for it.

I currently have

q9450
4gb pc8500
gigabyte p45 DS3
Antec 900
260gtx
Corsair 850w non modular

was looking to buy

Intel Core i7 980X
Asus P6X58D
Kingston HyperX 6GB
Lian Li PC-P50R

Whats best then ? Am i going to see any increases going for the higher spec cards over two of the lower spec cards ? Should I just buy a single, dual core gfx card ? Is one 5870 good enough ?

Thanks

 

[86JR]

according to this chart, from what i can work out, the 260 gtx 216 sp SLI rig is the best VFM

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/...e-3/Sum-of-FPS-Benchmarks-1680x1050,1699.html

Already owning one of these cards, its even more VFM for me ?

one card = score 419, two cards 780, a 5970 is 800.

So i wont be far off 5970 performance!?

 

[86JR]

Right, i just overclocked my 260 from 575mhz to 620/1336/1000 (gpu/shaders/mem) using evga precision.

I then went into bc2 settings and enabled the max of everything, vsync off.

IT ran well, but a little choppy.

turned HBAO off and I dont see any problems except in big tank battles.

Could my quad core be bottlenecking the card, or have i reached my graphics card limit ?

I can try to OC it more, or upgrade it.

 

[86JR]

so 720/1440/1152+ ?

Will try that tommorow

Card didnt go over 65 deg C on the half hour I played at 620mhz

 

[86JR]

Oh yeah does anyone know how to make precision log things ?

I cant find out what fps it does in game, the fps counter is in my taskbar but when i window out it resets to 0.