4850+4870 = mixed xfire? wah? O_o

Youve been able to do this for years. As long as the card is in the same "family" (4800, 4600, 3800), you cant CF a 4850 with a 4670 for example. With Nvidia you have to use same exact cards.

So I've been screwed over by Nvidia once again...

you do not have to use the same exact card. You have to use the same series of cards. You can sli different brands with different clock speeds of the same series. Ex bfg gtx 285 stock and xfx gtx 285 black edition. The black edition will downclock to match the slower card. you can even sli a gtx 260 with a gtx 260 216.

Aye, you can also SLi the 9800GTX/GTX+/GTS250 together.

But that's still nowhere near as good Xfiring a 4850 with a 4870...that'd be the equivalent of SLing a GTX260 with a GTX280.

='(

by exact cards he meant exact models... not brands...

But the 4870 basically becomes a 4850.

It still does nto have to be exact models as long as same series. The gtx 260 192 and 26 are defently not the same exact cards. GTX 9800gtx and 9800gtx + or 9800 gtx and gtx 250 sure are not the same models.

Yes. And the point still stands. Youre not going to be SLi'ing a 9800GTX+ with a 9800GT.

Also, the 9800GTX+ and GTX 250 are not completely SLi capatable with eachother. They need to be the same memory size and memory speed of 2200MHz. Among a slew of other things. http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.asp?m=100507674&mpage=1&k... and no this dosent apply to EVGA only models.

you can xfire a 4850 with a 4670

No, you cant.

don't care what that says, i know you can xfire any card from the same generation

LOL  

Yes, ATI is wrong about their own product. And so are hundreds and thousands of forum post. But youre right.

glad we agree

lawls

I am wondering, why would you do this in the first place. Unless cards go out of stock, only then is this an advantage. If you own a 4850, why would you buy a more expensive 4870 to get 4850X2 performance? Why is OP so concerned, he cant do this with Nvidia. Its useless anyway.Alteast IMO.

^ Say you have a spare card lying around and you upgraded to a better card...wouldn't you want to put it to good use?

You have a 4850 lying around but you've upgraded to a 4870...but it to good use by mixing Xfire.

Or say my friend has a spare GPU he doesn't need, I can hook it up to my current build and improve the performance.

The possibilities are endless.

lolz @ the fanboy

I really wish they could make a "sidekick" type of method for mixed GPU's. It would be a nice feature to be able to mix old or less performing GPU's with a more new or more powerful one and have them both running at their max speeds. The weaker one could just take on less. I don't know if this is possible or not but I don't see much reason to mix cards with out such a feature.

^^that is pretty much what Hydra is supposed to do...

You dont want or need crossfire to go too far, because then youll start LOOSING performance. This is why you CAN NOT crossfire a 4800 card with a 4670. When you mis-match cards the stronger card always downclocks to match the weaker (4870 and 4850 for example), so youve now got basically two 4850s and some change.

But what do you expect to happen when you put a 4670 with a 4870? You expect 480 SP's to just...stop working on the 4870 so it can match the 320 on the 4670? It dosent work like that, and it would be a total and COMPLETE waste, hince why you cant do it. They are different chips, period.

You can Crossfire within the same family. 4800 is a family, 4600 is a family. HD 4000 is a SERIES.

CCC says "ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series". Radeon is the family (the fireGL being the other), and you're right HD 4000 is the series.

i think the term "chipset" is more appropriate (just look at the board layout of all the referenced 4800s, and thats one of the identifiers inside CCC) to segregate them. a 4800 chipset, a 4600 chipset, and so on. so basically you can only xfire cards from the same "chipset".

edit: it gets more exciting when you throw in the 4850 gddr variations out there, gddr3-5. are the xfire capable? gddr4+gddr3?