IS it better to get 2 HD4850 in CF vs. 1 HD4870? I'am replacing 2 HD3870 with either one above. However if I do go with HD4870 and then crossfire them later. I would have to upgrade my power supply from what I have which would bring the cost up. Let me know what you guys think here are my specs below and what games I play.
I suspect you'll have a bottleneck with your PCI-E 1 slots. I saw an article that showed bottlenecks with HD 4850 CF on a P45 chipset, i.e. with PCI-E 2 slots running at x8. That's the same bandwidth as your PCI-E 1 slots at x16.
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/ [...] index.html
To solve that, you need something like GA-EX38-DS4 or GA-X48-DS4 or P5E X38 or aBit IX38 QuadGT or whatever (X38 or X48).
HD 4870 < HD 4850 CF < HD 4870 CF, so you have to decide if you accept less performance now (a single HD 4870) + more performance later (HD 4870 CF), or just go with HD 4850 CF and stay there. That depends on you totally.
I've seen people running HD 4850 CF on a 620HX, so I think you're OK. I'd prefer a 750TX or Silencer 750W for it, and especially for HD 4870 CF, but I think the 620HX can handle that too.
CoD4 benefits a lot from Crossfire. Crysis less. Starcraft 2 will probably not be very demanding, because Blizzard traditionally aims to make their games accessible to lots of people.
At this moment cg 4850 offer more bang for the buck, but as it was said above, 4870 offers more in future. In few years GDDR5 is not so expensive as now, so it's possible to see relatively cheaper 4870's. The prize of GDDR3 is not gonna come down at same speed. After a while it will be more expensive to produce.
The reason I'm changing from 2 HD3870 because I sold them at a good price and sold my old processor so the funds are ava. As for perfomance HD4850's in CF ourperform HD 3870's CF by a significate margin. Thanks for your help
They don't have benchmarks for HD 3870 CF in that article, but the 3870X2 is a pretty good equivalent. In Crysis, HD 4850 (28 fps) and HD 3870 X2 (30 fps) are about the same, and a single HD 4870 (35 fps) is an improvement, and two HD 4870 give 46 fps.
They don't have benchmarks for HD 3870 CF in that article, but the 3870X2 is a pretty good equivalent. In Crysis, HD 4850 (28 fps) and HD 3870 X2 (30 fps) are about the same, and a single HD 4870 (35 fps) is an improvement, and two HD 4870 give 46 fps.
CF does not seem to work very vell in crysis a this moment...
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