Someone Please Give Me A Straight Answer!!

[Revelate]

Hello all, long time viewer of these baords, first time poster. I come here for a lot of information but I see a lot of Squabbling when this question Im abotu to ask is asked. I am struggling to make up my mind. And before I continue ill tell you what my PC is and I would appreciate a simple answer please

AMD Phenom II 940 Quad BE @ 3ghz (Stock clock)
8gig HyperX Kingston DDR2 @ 1066mhz
GMA78-DS3HP Motherboard (Gigabyte) PCIe Slots Run at 16x(Main)/4x(Second)
9800 GTX 512mb Card

I dont think I need to tell you anything else unless you kindly ask for it

My Question is, I'm on the prowl to get 1 or 2 new Video cards. What should I get?

$$$$ Are Not an issue. But please dont turn around to me and say a 295 or a 4870x2 Unless its Viable. What I do have my heart set on is;

2x4870's 1gig Crossfired AU$271 per card ($542 in total).
4890 AU$353.
285 AU$509
4970x2 AU$589

Now the reason I ask this is because tonnes of poeple say the 4890 is fractionally slower than the 285 or the OC'd card can beat the 285 in some cases. 2 4870's Crossfired are the same price nearly as 1 285, are 2 4870's better than 1 285 with my Motherboard only running a 2nd PCIe Slot at 4x. These are the sort of things I need answered.

I'm jsut really confused and when I go to buy it I want to buy the right one I dont want to get it then regret it. I am Also prepared to spend less money if it gives me almost or as good as perfomance as the cards above it. I dont necessarily want the best card but a very good or best combination.

Thank you in advance for your help

 

[jennyh]

Don't run a 2nd 4870 on a 4x pci-e bus. You might be ok with another 9800gtx on it however, at least you'd lose less than what you would with a 4870 in there.

 

[Revelate]

Sorry I forgot to mention its not an SLi Board only Cross fire so I cant have 2 Nvidia cards. (I can have 2 Nvidia Cards but I cant Sli them) is what I should say.

 

[coozie7]

What resoloution are you using, and how much AA do you use?

I would suggest a fast single card rather than Crossfiring, your MB is PCI-E 2.0 which has twice the bandwidth of the older versions but would still limit a fast card, and therefore the whole Crossfire system.

 

[Mousemonkey]

^+1, biggest badass card you can afford.

 

[witcherx]

.. 4890 oc to 1ghz... and spend the rest to plant some trees... you wont regret it.. cheers...

 

[Irish]

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/asus-nvidia-gtx-295-sli,7971.html

end of your quest right there.

 

[Jaysin]

Considering those crazy AUS prices, the 4890 definitely seems the best value and bang for your buck. OC it to 950-1000MHz and you have a GTX 285 beater for $156 AUS less.

This is a no-brainer.

 

[Revelate]

Thanks everyone for your Reply, After continuing my quest for information I did read a lot about the 4890 OC'd being able to keep up with the 285. So I am going to go for that card. The resolution im running at the moment is 1680x1050 but I do have a 1920x1200 Screen also whcih I will get back soon. So thanks for your help and btw irish, dude a 295 as it came out was Overkill, that monster you linked is like................. WTF who needs that????

Thanks again for all your help

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Ummm, the x2 cards run on only 1 PCI slot, so, you wont lose any performance at all on the x16 slot with a x2 card. Just a thought