Probably Another GTX260 / 4780x2 Question

Don't know why people's wasting so much money on a 4870x2 when a 4850x2 2GB comes so close to it and is $160 cheaper.

with the extra $160 you would be able to go and buy a new PSU.

Yep, the 4850x2 overclocked each a little and it should meet the stock speeds of the 4870x2. I should know since im quad crossfiring these 2 suckers.

The releasing of it has a lot of driver problems, but the 8.12 and 9.1 catalyst (1/29) had been released and now theres no more problems.

Good luck on choosing mate.

Thanks guys, I took your advice and got:

Sapphire HD 4850 X2 2GB GDDR3 Quad DVI HDTV Out PCI-E Graphics Card

Arctic Power X-Power Pro 950W GTX Extreme Modular PSU - 14cm Fan, 4x PCI-E, 8x SATA

is a 4850/70x2 considered crossfire even though they are in the same card, as far as pcie x16/x8 lanes go? also I hear dual monitors does not work with crossfire, I assume you dont have this problem on a x2 card right?

I'm glad they got the drivers fixed for the 4850x2. That's a viable solution for the OP. As for adding a second card later, besides getting a more vigorous power supply, CrossfireX drivers need to mature before 4 GPU's (whether on 4 cards or two) bring genuine improvements.

My experience with a 3870x2 was good for the year I had it (until it died recently). It was a factory overclocked MSI. Newegg's shipping me a Sapphire 4870x2 as a warranty replacement, which is simply amazingly good luck and why I trust Newegg above any other. The only thing I get at Fry's anymore are DVD's and (soon) Blu-rays, plus household gadgets.

Two good articles comparing platforms and the new Nvidia GTX285 and GTX295 with the 4850x2 and 4870x2 are as follows:

Anandtech (includes results whenoverclocking the 3 CPU's):

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3506

Tech Report:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/16229/7

I'm upgrading to a Phenom II 940 and a 1920 x 1080 Acer 21.5" LCD. That should avoid CPU bottlenecks.

OP, what resolution are you gaming at? Dual GPU cards work best with higher resolutions.

Try looking at the two GPU's in Catalyst Control Center and tell us what you see. Another way to look at your card is GPU-Z. Do you have Vista 64? I've just googled 4850x2 and seen issues with Vista 64 listed at many forums.

Have you tried the drivers from Sapphire's own site? Since there's no reference design from ATI, you may need Sapphire specific Catalyst:

http://www.sapphiretech.com/us/support/drivers.php