What do you think of my mid level gaming system - I got ?s 2

[atiguy]

Well I'm putting together a pretty budget system recently. I got a x1950xtx used for $250, and a used MSI K9A Crossfire capable platinum board for $90. I bought a beige old generic atx case that I got for free off craigslist which I have painted with some good ol red and black krylon fusion paint and modded with some crazy huge $3 vents from home depot . I'm cutting corners wherever I can, lol. The new parts I bought for it were an AMD 6000+ processor($229) thermaltake Big Typhoon fan - $50. I got a 630 watt raidmax PSU from Fry's for $50 after main in rebate. And 2GB Corsair DDR2 800 for $108 after rebate. Hard drive is a 7200RPM 300GB Hitachi that I bought on sale at Frys for $90. I decided to go budget because the top of the line stuff is just going to be old in 6 months time any how. So what do you think of my system? After paint and vents, it looks ok, though it's no lian li case. Main game I play is BF2 and I also follow the HL2 series.

The guy I bought the board from and vid card was upgrading to an 8800GTS and a 1.8 core duo intel system.

As for my questions, here it goes....I'm thinking that I cut so much corners I can splurge for another X1950XTX for a Crossfire setup. Now can I just hook up another crossfire X1950XTX crossfire ready card in my system, or is there a specific X1950XTX crossfire card to make this work? Also is the performance gain of a crossfire setup worth doing? Good day to all.

 

[jay2tall]

A Crossfire Setup needs at least one of the two cards to be a "Crossfire Edition" card in the primary PCIe slot. You can have 2 "crossfire edition" cards or one Crossfire Edition card and One Crossfire Ready card. They usually run a little more than the standard crossfire ready cards though but it is not like SLI where you just need 2 identical cards. There is also a spacial cable that comes with the Crossfire Edition cards. A single GTX will beat out 2 1950's in crossfire though. You may consider selling your current card for a 8800 gtx. You will also need a larger power supply to run 2 cards because a 630w will NOT cut it. You will need at the very least a GOOD 700W, I'd suggest a 750 or higher.