3x4670 1GB crossifreX or 4870 1GB ??

[Falcon20]

I'm Currently running 2x4670 in crossfire with a Q6600 CPU, with intel 975 chipset

But I don't no weather to spend the money on a 4870 ($389 AU) or
buy an extra 4670 1GB and make a 3 x crossfire rig ($151.00 AU) and sell the 2x4670 I have

I'm really undecided, any help or suggestions would be appreciated

 

[gkay09]

well if u can get gud rates for the 4670 , then sell them and buy a 4870 1GB...
because u can run into problems wit crossfire and they may nt scale well...so y the hasssle, get a single 4870...

 

[jonpaul37]

i agree, the single 4870 1GB will give you less issues and will probably out-perform # x 4670's... sell em if u can and scoop up a 4870 1GB (Sapphire if you can)

 

[Falcon20]

Thanks allot.. I'll try and sell the two 4670 I have

 

[megamanx00]

Yeah the 4670 generally doesn't do as well in crossfire as the previous 3800 series due to memory bandwidth limitations, so I wouldn't think adding another 4670 would give you too much of a benefit, but you can look at the performance of 3way 3870s and 3850s to get an idea of what improvement you could possibly get. Overall it would probably be better to go with the single 4870.

 

[gamerk316]

One card solutions with a better card are almost always better than any dual setup. And BTW, you can't CF 3x ATI cards anyway (although you can technically CF a 4870X2 with another 4870)

 

[Falcon20]

Really ?? just look on youtube, there's videos with people that have 3 x crossfireX and on ATI's website it states "multiple GPU scaling" with up to 3 or 4 cards or are they telling lies ?

 

[cjl]

One card solutions with a better card are almost always better than any dual setup. And BTW, you can't CF 3x ATI cards anyway (although you can technically CF a 4870X2 with another 4870)

Actually, you can. The problem is just in the number of expansion slots you have, but you can definitely run tri or even quad crossfire.

 

[gamerk316]

Actually, you can. The problem is just in the number of expansion slots you have, but you can definitely run tri or even quad crossfire.

Tri-CF is only supported by CF'ing a X2 with another single model of the same card (4870X2 + 4870).
Quad-Fire is only supported by CF'ing two X2 cards (4870X2 + 4870X2).

This is how it was just a few months ago, and if a driver update changed this, i'm sure I would have seen all the fanboys go nuts...Its the same deal as with SLI on the other side of the fence (only the 9800GTX and GTX 280 can tri-SLI, otherwise the same rules apply)

 

[cjl]

Tri-CF is only supported by CF'ing a X2 with another single model of the same card (4870X2 + 4870).
Quad-Fire is only supported by CF'ing two X2 cards (4870X2 + 4870X2).

This is how it was just a few months ago, and if a driver update changed this, i'm sure I would have seen all the fanboys go nuts...Its the same deal as with SLI on the other side of the fence (only the 9800GTX and GTX 280 can tri-SLI, otherwise the same rules apply)

Nope. Crossfire is different. It supports up to 4 GPUs in any form (if you wanted, you could even do 4 separate single GPU cards). Why do you think the single GPU cards have a pair of crossfire connectors, despite only needing a single connector for two way crossfire?

For example, here's 4 3870 cards in crossfire:

http://www.hardspell.com/pic/article/2007/11/19/small/842ea235-3a7b-49da-9ebb-9bcf302896ac.jpg

 

[rpaulg87]

Crossfire most definatly supports Quad with four 4870s, 4850s, or whatever, my motherboard alone is structured that way.
You can use 4x say 4870, or one 4870x2, and two 4870s, or one extra for tri, etc etc.

 

[gamerk316]

I stand corrected then. I've never had an ATI card (friend had a 9800 Pro he gave to me; tried it once and it stunk)