X fire Radeon HD 3870 and Radeon HD 3850 or Radeon HD 4850

[liquidpower]

i have now one Radeon 3850 im wanting to run some games at a higher setting now i can buy one 3870 for 100ish and run the 2 cars in x fire or dump my card and get one 4850.

GA-P35-DS3P
4gigs ocz DDR2 800
Core 2 Duo E6600 oc 3.2

 

[theAnimal]

3850 cannot Crossfire with 3870.

What is your resolution & budget?

 

[liquidpower]

3850 cannot Crossfire with 3870.

What is your resolution & budget?

the 3850 can crossfire with the 3870 http://game.amd.com/us-en/content/images/crossfirex/CF_combo_chart.jpg
im looking to spend 100 ish bucks so cross fire with the one card i have and a new one or get the 4850 will the cross fire out preform the 4850

the higher the resolution the better but im not gaming on a 30 in LCD might be nice one day tho

 

[buzznut]

So I think you may be reading that chart wrong. It is not RECOMMENDED that you put a 3850 and 3870 in crossfire because the chipset may not support it. The combinations that are supported (recommended) have a dot in the middle of the square.

I read this to mean you might be able to crossfire an HD3850 and a hd3870, but the current chipsets do not support such a configuration. I have heard of folks who have had trouble with same cards but diffrent memory (one with 256MB, one 512MB, etc.)

Dual graphics cards is still tricky technology, and you may buy that 3870 and find you can't crossfire it.

 

[mactronix]

Go with the 4850, you dont get any dual card complications it wont matter what your chipset is to support it and its a very good card uin its own right. Sell of your own card and you have a quite cheap very decent GPU

Mactronix

 

[meodowla]

'Maziar' described about this in the topic 'SLI / CrossFire FAQs'

 

[4745454b]

First, you can CF those cards. The 3870 will basically turn itself into a 3850, and you will have the power of two 3850s in CF. This however pales to the power of the 4850, more so if you enable AA/AF. Dump the 3850 on CL/Ebay for $50, and buy the 4850.

 

[4745454b]

Forgot to mention, the reason why you don't want to run CF is because you have the P35 chipset. If you have two PCIe slots, the second one doesn't run even with the first one. My P35 does have two slots, but they are 16x/4x. I believe it was toms that ran a review of CF on such a setup, and it constantly turned in LOWER scores then a single card. Unless you have an 8x/8x setup, just stay with a single card.

 

[liquidpower]

and thank you guys im going to sell the one i have now and just buy the 4850

 

[liquidpower]

any one you think is the best out of them im looking at the 512 ones is the 25 bucks more worth it for the gig ones

 

[meodowla]

HD4870 would be a better investment.

 

[Peaks]

any one you think is the best out of them im looking at the 512 ones is the 25 bucks more worth it for the gig ones

That depends on the resolution you are playing and whether you are planning on overclocking it.

Higher resolutions will require more graphics ram as more work is offloaded to the GPU. Plus the added head room is always handy for ocing!!

 

[leon2006]

You may want to consider 4850x2 card. There are 2 versions from sapphire 1GB and 2GB Memory

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102809

Initial benchmarks results from anandtech looks pretty good

 

[Peaks]

You may want to consider 4850x2 card. There are 2 versions from sapphire 1GB and 2GB Memory

really need to know the res and the budget. 4850x2 is quite a lot more money and won't be worth it at a lower res.

 

[4745454b]

Not only is the res needed, but we need to know what types of games he plays as well. RPG/RTS games don't (usually) need a lot of GPU power. If his idea of gaming is playing WoW for 6 hours then any x2 card is overkill.

Assuming he isn't using anything higher then a 22" monitor and doesn't demand the highest settings, then the 4850 is fine. I'd probably move to the 4870 512MB before getting the 4850 1GB. The extra horsepower is probably needed more then the extra memory.

 

[Peaks]

yes i agree.

Another option is to wait until April for the HD4890. There is going to be a 512MB and a 1GB version. even if this card itself is overkill, the price of the 4870 will drop. I have read that the added clock speed of the 4890 is enough to give a 25-30% improvement on the 4870

 

[fruees]

To be honest this isn't a great time to think about upgrading your ATI - given the 4890 is supposed to be out in a couple of months. Regardless of whether you're interested in that particular card, it will push prices of the others down

 

[fruees]

oh **** you posted when I was writing that!

 

[liquidpower]

1280 x 1024 is the res and price range 100 up too 160 so ill just go wate till the new one comes out and then buy the 4850 or unless the 4870 drops way down too then ill get that thank you guys so much

 

[Peaks]

yea both the 4850 and 4870 cards would be fine at that res

Although will you ever be upgrading your monitor to a higher res? Both the 3850 CF and the 3870 CF bench higher at 12x10. Possible because the the other cards optimal performance is at 16x10.

Just had a look at general prices on newegg and they are around the same.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=3870&x=0&y=0

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=4850&x=0&y=0

So I would probably say that the 3870 CF would be a better option for you res. Nut in terms of bang for buck and covering all potential upgrades you might wanna stick with the 4850/4870.

lol I think I am complicating things now....

 

[theAnimal]

Sell your current card and buy an HD4830.

 

[fruees]

+1

Don't bother with another 3870 - try and avoid a crossfire rig if you can, especially as your MOBO wont run both at full speed. In your case a 4830 would be the gaming choice, with the 4850 being the enthusiast option, if you can afford it.

 

[Peaks]

personal i would pay the extra $30-$40 for a higher core clock, higher memory clock and same memory and max res!

But its deside the point. Wait until April and make a decision based on prices then.