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xFire or upgrade..?

HarryPainful

HarryPainful

HarryPainful

Permabanned
Joined
5 Jan 2008
Posts
4,123
I currently have a 5870 and I am upgrading to a 2500k.

The mobo I am getting can do xfire and I am wondering if I should get another 5870 or upgrade to something else?

If I did up grade it will be to an nvidia card.

My budget for an upgrade will £200 and around £100 if I went xfire.
 
XFire will be cheaper than a good nvidia gpu(nvidia are far too overpriced for the performance.). Wait till the new cards get here (should be very soon), then decide.
 
Unless your gaming @1600 res i cant see a 2500k with 5870 hold you back. Stick with your single card for the time being.
Have you tryed overclocking them?
 
HarryPainful said:
What like?

instability or just not working?

is SLI the same?
Click to expand...

It plain doesn't work. Many major games won't have crossfire support for weeks after release (Skyrim and Rage are two big examples) and when support eventually arrives it will more often than not come with micro-stuttering and performance issues. You will often get newer drivers breaking older drivers' performance as well, so it's a constant juggle as 11.10 may work with half your games while 11.11 will break them for example.

I don't know if SLI is the same but I don't see anywhere near as many complaints for it, and I'm fairly sure Nvidia has provided SLI support much quicker than AMD has for major releases. I do know that SLI also suffers from micro-stuttering though, if not as severe.

It doesn't happen to everyone, but it happens to enough people that it makes it a genuine concern and a valid reason why you should avoid spending potentially hundreds of pounds on a crossfire system only to be plagued by issues that just won't go away even with repeated driver releases. It's a massive risk.
 
Another happy 5870 crossfire user here, with no major issues. Some driver issues with latest games recently, but they seemed to affect single cards as well as crossfire. IMHO, you won't get a better upgrade for £100 than adding a second 5870.
 
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