Buy another 4870 to Crossfire? Or get a 4870X2 or GTX 280?

[tensim]

Howdy chaps,

I'm finding my single 4870 to be just a little under-powered at times when gaming at 1920x1200 (27" monitor). So I'm thinking of adding some overkill horespower to my GPU department to aleviate the issue (better to have too much 95% of the time, than to have too little 5% of the time, that's what I think anyhow

So, my options are:

1) Sell the 4870 for around £120. Then buy a 4870X2 for approx £340, nett cost of £220.
2) As above but go for GTX 280 for approx £310 (includes a couple of games I don't have), nett cost of £190
OR
3) Just buy another 4870 for around £175 and go with Crossfire... This works out the cheapest I suppose, but will it be the best option I wonder?

What are the thoughts of the forum?

Also, can I Crossfire my 512MB 4870 with a 1GB 4870? Maybe this is option 4?

Cheers chaps, ya'll rock

[shaithis]

I would normally say sell the 4870 and get the x2....

But you have the ABit IX38 Quad GT according to your system specs.......you are limited to using BIOS versions 11 and 12 with that board and a 4870x2, else you get no display

Seeing as you have a Q6600, this isn't too bad as most changes in the later BIOSes are for 45nm CPUs.......but it's still something you need to consider.

So, a second 4870 (if you don't mind using up another 16x PCI-E slot) or 4870x2 if you don't mind being constrained by BIOS revision (I don't hold out much hope for ABit to resolve the BIOS issue)

[Webby]

I have to say I would go with the 4870X2 the extra RAM is probably worth the extra cash and the GTX280 is not a comparable performacne level to a a 4870X2 or crossfired 4870s or if you can wait a bit they are releasing the 4850X2 shortly with 2GB of RAM probably in the £250 area and should give performance in the GTX280 region see this review for the 4850 in crossfire for some numbers http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?...hlbnRodXNpYXN0 remember you will have more RAM as well so should get better performance than the 2x 4850s or you could sell the 4870 and buy 2x 1GB 4850's for £260 net cost £140.

Hmm so many options! The only disadvantage to the crossfire set ups is that when a game doesn't support it very well performance suffers this will be especially evident for the 4850's but on the plus side games on the whole are getting very good crossfire performance these days

[tensim]

Hmmmm... didn't know about the BIOS issues with the 4870X2... I'm not planning on upgrading the Q6600, my next upgrade will be to Nehalem later next year (if I feel the venerable 6600 is letting me down, which I actually suspect I won't for quite a while! )

I won't be upgrading my GPU till the same time, so whatever I go with has to be able to run anything and everything for the next 12-18 months, so the 4870X2 is probably the way to go...

I do wonder if I'd get a similar result from going Crossfire with another 4870? Especially if one is a 1GB version... Though if I go the 1GB version, the cost would be around £210, for £10 more (in effect) I can go the 4870X2... so perhaps a bit of a no-brainer?

Or should I sell the 4870 512MB and get a 1GB version, nett cost being around £90 to upgrade... Would this keep me happy I wonder?

cheers

[shaithis]

Well, I have a 4870x2......and the lowest resolution I can game at is 1920x1200 because of my monitor.....the native resolution is 2560x1600.

Even with an x2, I am finding that many games need to be run at 1920x1200 still to keep the eye candy on.

I guess it all depends on what resolutions your monitor supports and what your happy with.

[coffeejunky]

I would rule out the GTX280 already - It performs better than the HD4870, but not as good as dual HD4870s in any form.

I think you should go for another HD4870 - when are you ever going to need 4GPUs in the future?

[tensim]

Plus whatever you do, I would highly reccomend a new PSU - 650w generic PSU will likely not cut it for HD4870 Crossfire or an X2. I would reccomend a decent brand name 700w+ PSU. Preferably Corsair, Antec or PCP&C.

the Dark Power is a very reputable and efficient PSU, one of the best in fact Pretty confident it'll handle a 4870X2 fine (it's one of the reasons I chose it to be honest )

Thanks for the advice though, welcome to Hexus

[coffeejunky]

the Dark Power is a very reputable and efficient PSU, one of the best in fact Pretty confident it'll handle a 4870X2 fine (it's one of the reasons I chose it to be honest )

Thanks for the advice though, welcome to Hexus

Sorry mate....Edited my post after googling it. Looks like they are a company to watch out for in the future.
Thanks for the welcome

[Will404]

Could you get a HD4870X2, and crossfire it with the HD4870, that would be some insane GPU grunt

[shaithis]

I have a suspicion that you would lose half the RAM from the x2 if you did that.

Pretty sure when using SLI/CF it always works based on the lowest common denominator....lowest clock speed, smallest RAM size etc.

[dangel]

seeing as you have a 4870 i'd just add another.

So long as the game scales well with crossfire it'll be on par with, or quicker than the 280 - if not, then slower than. At your res 1900x1200 FC2 performs near enough the same on both solutions (weird) - above that the crossfire pulls away (a lot).

[Webby]

I think FC2 just needs another driver update, although only time will tell. It uses a different engine to Crysis so hopefully Crossfire performance will be better than it was there.

I have to say that on the whole I am quite impressed with how well crossfire is scaling these days, I would (as I posted above) probably take 2x 1GB 4850's over anything else you could get for £260 and when the 4850X2 is released I can see that being the best bang for buck high tier card around.

[Boogle]

I had some fun with a 4870 & 4870 CrossFire setup in comparison to my 280.

Mass Effect:



Clear Sky (ATI left, NV right):



HL2 in Motion:

NV
ATI

If you can't see the differences / issues, then a second 4870 / 4870 X2 would be a good idea I did find the 280 overall smoother in games than the CrossFire 4870s. The 4870s were the 1GB model.