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Crossfire

grenned

grenned

grenned

Associate
Joined
30 Jan 2009
Posts
124
Location
Stratford-On-Avon
Hi All

New to the forum, just got my new machine from OCuK

I went for the simple sapphire 4850 512mb card, and it runs everything I want to but im was thinking about getting another one for cross fire.

Not being an expert I was wondering whether it was worth it, Thing that worry me is compatibility with older games

Thanks
Dan
 
CrossFire is good, but it depends on your screen res. At 1280x1024 for example, it would be a waste of money.
 
EDIT ^ ^ ^ Well it looks like you have plenty of responses!!! :D

Hi grenned,

Just a couple of q's:

- What motherboard do you have?
- What resolution are you playing at?

If the mobo is an X38, P45 or X48 you should be fine for a second card.

As for resolution i'd say anything over 1680x1050 should benefit from the extra card.

gt
 
Cheers for replies.

Mobo is the Abit Pro35XE , Memory 4gb of OCZ 1066mhz DDR 2, Q6600 running at 3.1Ghz.
Resolution is 1600x1200 from a 20inch Viewsonic Professional Studio Monitor

Old games I have had an issue with were Swat 4, (always love that game) and Train Sim 1, even with the spec of the system It has some framerate issues, but monitoring the card show its not working hard, I know its a direct x7 title so maybe that holds it back, but still like to use it.

The price of the card is currently around £110 so may go for another, crysis runs at 1600x1200 at 4x aa but any higher it begins to slow,

I just dont want to leave it too long to wait for more powerful games, and cannot find the card to match
 
That mobo only has the 2nd PCI-E lane running at x4....which would massively bottleneck the card in that slot.

BTW crapsis at 4xAA will kill any setup.
 
gurusan said:
That mobo only has the 2nd PCI-E lane running at x4....which would massively bottleneck the card in that slot.

.
Click to expand...

What I was going to post so ^^ What he said. I run xfire but only because I bought a bundle I couldn't resist.
I Always advice people to get a Single best card they can afford as other people don't like to tweak as much as me.
If you are a confident tweaker though you'll see some benefits if you go massive rez, otherwise don't bother.
You would be better off selling your card & upgrading to a higher spec Single card option.
 
Ahhh you see, plain advice, i might have to wait and see what comes out in the future, and replace, altho I can see the 4850 doing well (well, when the system comes back from RMA)
 
Yeah agreed, if you want xfire then get a P45. I ran two 2900XT's on a Gigabyte P35 and it was truly terrible.

TBH i'd probably just wait until new gpu's arrive and get one of those instead. :)

gt
 
grenned said:
I went for the simple sapphire 4850 512mb card
Click to expand...
Nice choice! :)

Did you get the older red/single slot or the new blue/double slot hOOver! :D

wayneshd48504ef4.jpg


radeonhd4830rk0.jpg


grenned said:
it runs everything I want to but im was thinking about getting another one for cross fire.
Click to expand...
Heh, that makes no sense at all! :D

I don't believe you were thinking about Crossfire, I reckon you been reading those naughty hardware websites again or perhaps you been listening to my *bonkers* fellow forum posters :p

Firstly the card you have is very nice indeed, you should really give it a good spin and enjoy some gaming, there is always plenty of things to buy apart from yet another uBer GPU (more, more, MORE!!!!).

My advice to you is to stay away from these forums for at least one or two months otherwise . . . . . you will turn into a serious silicon junkie talking more about your hardware than actually using it and your GPU will see very little use apart from displaying forum text/web review benchmarks and the occassional 5 minute gaming session just to see if your 3 card set-up can run Warhead at max max max settings! :eek:

Bear in mind that ATI will be releasing even better cards in a few months, always a bigger fish coming along so hold fire on your spending and struggle along with your humble HD4850 :)

Single best GPU for your personal needs is always best, take no notice of the ePeenies who will encourage you to spend another £300! :o

Go and enjoy your games mate! ;)
 
Ha ha ha, I tried to stay away, but unfortunaly my new system had a faulty stick of ram, and the sapphire card has corruption, It was only 2 days old but I thought ill send the whole system back rather than the bits of there own as I cannot use it without it, so I am now stuck on my Old homebuilt MiTac laptop which is all good but the geforce go6200 didnt allow me to install CoD5 which puzzled me a bit ;)

Admittedly its a very good card, and so far played everything I threw at it, I was looking towards the future. Infact reading this forum has put me off to be honest, what happens when Windows 7 arrives, will be it a new Directx 10. whatever or even 11, so Ill stay with this card until it comes home. The card is the 512 version and only single deck.

Only things I am purchasing for this machine is additions, such as new Joystick keyboard and mouse and so on.
 
grenned said:
Admittedly its a very good card, and so far played everything I threw at it
Click to expand...
Yeah suprising huh! ;)

hd48xxmx5.jpg


grenned said:
I was looking towards the future
Click to expand...
Don't do that, at least when your buying a GPU, there is only here, now, this minute! :cool:

If at any point in the next 6-12 months you feel a single HD4850 is effecting your gameplay then you have the option to buy another (newer) card and sell your older one. A GPU is not a Tattoo, your not stuck with it for life, it's a bit of hardware.

Your very lucky to own a HD4850, let alone two (or 2x HD4870, 3x295GTX etc).

Lastly remember this forum is a mental asylum that is far far removed from the real world (whatever that is anyway!), this place gives a false perspective on what is normal so heed my words . . . if at any point over the next month you find yourself coming up with a *good* reason why you need to spend hundreds of pounds in order to enjoy your £25 game you know your loosing it! :eek:
 
Cheers for that Graph, thats very handy to see actually. And I just realised I have the blue slot Hoover as you called it, just looked at a picture I took of inside the case. At the end of the day I got the PC as it was a month where I claimed a lot of overtime, and the ThisWeekOnly (RIP) deal was on the page, I had to grab it as the cost to build it was only an extra 40 quid, and seemed a great deal. The ATi Overdrive looks a good feature altho all it did was cause my current card to crash so hopefully the replacement will work a lot better

Cheers
 
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