I love to game and have been running SLI since it first come out on the 939 platform. With no new AMD DDR3 SLI boards now or being released in the near future it looks like I'm going to drop Nvidia. I love there cards and SLI but I'm not going to support the darkside (i7/X58). Plus Nvidia's greed didn't help this time.
With that said I have picked out the following parts so far with a decent budget this time. $2000
I'm a gamer so I'm going to run crossfire right away. Which cards would work best for me the HD Radeon 4890, 4870 and which company to go with? This is really the million dollar question because I have never used an ATI product.
So any help would be appreciated.
Message edited by skippyboy92362 on 07-31-2009 at 05:27:55 AM
the x4 is the stronger cpu . After all it has 4 cores instead of the x2 two cores and each of those clocks slightly higher .
You will see a lot of 4870's and 4890's with identical coolers with different stickers to make them look different . They are all reference models and are identical once you peel the brand name off them .
Generally its not worth paying for OC models since thats simple to do using ATI's catalyst control center software .
waht resolution is your monitor? Most gamers would be fine on a 24 inch screen with a single 4890 . Smaller screens make crossfire less worthwhile IMO
SAMSUNG TOC T240 Rose Black 24" 5ms HDMI Widescreen LCD Monitor 300 cd/m2 DC 20000:1(1000:1) and it's resolution is 1920 x 1200. It's only 3 months old. I'm leaning toward something with a better cooling for a GPU. SAPPHIRE Vapor-X 100269VXLE Radeon HD 4890 1GB seems to be what I'm looking for. I'll overclock um myself. Thanks Outlander for the tip.
Also thinking of bumping the power supply to the 850 watt model. I never skimp on power when it comes to the price and quality.
hunter315 I see in your configuration your using GSkill ram. How good is it with timings? I tried OCZ on this current build and had nothing but problems so I switched back to Corsair, but I'm open to try something else.
Not the best timings but they werent very expensive either at $65, they are CL8 at 1.6volts. They ran straight out of the box, surprisingly everything did and hasnt given me any trouble yet.