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Single Slot VS 16x + 4x Crossfire

Last response: in Graphics & Displays
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Hi. Tried searching on goolgle but not any positive answers.

1) Would a single HD 3870 be better, OR

2) a Crossfire of 3870 and 3850 , with the 3870 on the 16x pcie slot and the 3850 on the 4x pcie slot (taking the Gigabyte p35 ds3p as an example board).

I know at this point that the 3870 would be slowed down to 3850 as Ati has to release newer drivers or something, and also for Crossfire X, which I believe will allow the user to adjust the usage ratio between the high end and mid end Ati cards. Wont this then be a huge advantage over sli (as u need same exact cards for sli)?

More about : single slot 16x crossfire

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I found this article on tomshardware pretty useful.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/PCI-Express-2-0-Crossfire...

Now is it worth it? Crossfire/Sli will allow you to play better at higher resolutions. With the benchmarks i've seen, Crossfire likes 1600x1200 and over, offering better performance in general.

To be honest, do you need the extra card? It wouldn't do any harm to look at selling your 3870 for a 3870x2, if you really need the extra power at high res.

Hello mate :) 
have u read the FAQ:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/245454-15-crossfire...

Is it really necessary to use SLI or CrossFire ?
Well , it really depends mostly on the resolutions and games you play , resolutions like 1920x1200 and higher benefit more from SLI or CrossFire than resolutions like 1600x1200 or lower (I dont mean SLI or CrossFire wont be good for resolutions like 1600x1200 or lower , i am just saying that SLI or CrossFire shines in higher resolutions.)
Also as i said , it depends on what games (with what settings) you play , for example if you just want to play games at good settings (with not everything at maximum settings) then MultiGPU technology isn't needed , but if you want to play with every option at maximum settings, then SLI would help , but again i repeat , resolution is very important.
Caution: Due to some problems (like Drivers and etc) in some games, a single card (like X1900XT) may beat 2 1900XT in CrossFire mode! so dont always think that 2 cards will beat one card.

The last one is 16x 4x, this one is the weakest and doesn't perform very good compared to dual 8x or dual 16x,so i won't recommend it for Multi-GPU configuration. Intel P35 and P965 chipsets support Multi-GPU at
16x 4x mode.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2837

Thanks for the replies. I have read all this before, and well im not looking to get crossfire at 1680x1050 resolutions :) . I was just thinking long term.
I did read the FAQ, Just wanted to know that would the 16x 4x still be better than a single slot .

Thanks acidpython, the conclusion kinda cleared it, that a single slot 16x would still be better than 16x 4x. I guess should just not think to ahead right now :) 
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