Crossfire Questions

[dropbearz]

Hi all,

I'm thinking about upgrading my computer to a Crossfire system, but have a number of questions that I'd like an answer to before I go ahead. I've done my own research but everything seems a bit complicated so I'd rather ask for advice here.

Firstly, does a crossfire set-up of two 512MB 4850's outperform a single 1GB 4870 in modern games? I appreciate not all games support crossfire, but am I right in thinking that mostly newly-released titles do?

Will Windows 7 support Crossfire, and does Windows XP currently support it?

Finally, what would be a good motherboard of around 100 to 150 £ that supports crossfire? I currently run an e2180 at 3GHZ and I'd like to be able to obtain that clock on the new motherboard.

Thanks for your help, and sorry for the wall of text.

 

[stoner133]

Most nw titles do support it, Crysis, Crysis Warhead, Call of Duty 4, Call of Duty World at War all support it. I would expect the Beta of Windows 7 to support it and when the final release is out it will. Windows XP supports Crossfire. Two 4850's would be close to a 4870 1Gb unit, but I would run the one 4870 1Gb version and then add a second when I could.

 

[alvine]

two 4850's are way faster than 4870 1gig......

 

[xxcoop42xx]

two 4850's are way faster than 4870 1gig......

agreed

 

[dropbearz]

Thanks for your help.

Assuming im going to be going for two 4850s in crossfire, what would be a sensible motherboard to use of around 150 quid, that can still overclock well?

Would my current e2180 (at 3ghz) be a bottleneck in the system?

 

[50bmg]

Windows 7 supports it. I have win 7 beta installed with 2 3870s CF'd. It is beta, so the drivers are a little off, but i am sure they will get that fixed by retail release.

 

[Zenthar]

If you don't already have a 4850, just check the 4850X2, it might save you the trouble of finding a good XFire MB. A single 4850 costs a bit more than 150$USD and the 4850X2 cost 300$ so you might save 10-20$ on the cards, but maybe you can save more by not getting a Crossfire MB.

 

[aevm]

Thanks for your help.

Assuming im going to be going for two 4850s in crossfire, what would be a sensible motherboard to use of around 150 quid, that can still overclock well?

Would my current e2180 (at 3ghz) be a bottleneck in the system?

GA-EP45-UD3P

No, not really. Maybe a bit. Read this:
http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=770&p=5

 

[Crashman]

Thanks for your help.

Assuming im going to be going for two 4850s in crossfire, what would be a sensible motherboard to use of around 150 quid, that can still overclock well?

Would my current e2180 (at 3ghz) be a bottleneck in the system?

ASRock P45XE is the top value for two mid-range cards in Crossfire:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-p45-core,2110.html

It overclocks great, it performs great, it has proper crossfire support for single-GPU cards, and it's dirt cheap.