upgrade for my 9800GX2

Hai im new so be gentle :P

I have quad Sli setup of 2x 9800GX2's, but i hardly ever run them in sli as i get crackley sound or bsod's or loads of other stuff, oh and 3 monitors wont work in sli :(

Any ways, im selling my old parts and was looking to get a inbetweener card whilst i wait for the DX11 cards to be realeased.

I'm after somthing with more grunt than the 9800GX2 and as i only use 1 most of the time, somthing that is faster than just 1 i guess althoguh if its close to the speed of quad that would be nice ;)

Anyways, so far i have been pointed towards the 4870X2 or 2x 4890 cards in crossfire.


Anyone have thoughts? i dont mind not using 3 monitors, as long as i cna use at least 2 ;)

Diak

The HD4850X2 2gb should be a bit faster than a single 9800GX2 but has four outputs:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/2GB-S...DVI-I-x-4-HDMI

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/s...tml?sap-4850x2

A review comparing both the HD4850X2 2gb and the 9800GX2:

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/645/1

There is also this HD4870X2 which has multiple outputs:

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/s...ml?NOV-4870GL#

It is meant to be this card:

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/...deluxe_review/

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?op...0433&Itemid=40

Basically it seems both the Palit and Gainward cards are the same AFAIK.

Lordy that Novatech card's big-ass! Also, I assume as a standard 4870X2 it'll only support 2 outputs simultaneously, despite having all 4 types of connector...

One big advantage of the 4850 X2 is that you can uncouple the cores, so it can effectively be used as 2 4850s powering 4 monitors, all with independant resolutions / refresh rates etc. Or, obviously, you can recouple them to run 2 monitors with a huge increase in performance. If you're literally just looking for a stop-gap the 1GB version is under £150 at Scan - I'm not sure whether the 2GB version would make *enough* difference to be worth the extra £30...?

Avoid 1Gb 4850x2 from what I've read. 2Gb for the extra £30 is better bang per buck.

Well it all depends on what you use your pc for and the rest of your specs
Unless you're running a new i9 cpu and x58 motherboard then you have an Sli motherboard which means you cannot use 2 ati cards in crossfire.

As s stop gap waiting for DX11 cards, then don't go into ridiculous money, a single 4890/4870 or a GTX260/275 will do fine and should be just above the power of a single 9800GX2.

Depending on what OS you use, you will have to physically unplug the extra monitors for the second GPU to activate, which will obviously render the 4850X2 slower than a 9800GX2. An HD4870X2 with another smaller card not used in crossfire might be a wise idea.