ATI 4850 CF? OR 5770 ??

[trifty]

Hey there guys .. I now have enough money to EITHER buy an ATI sapphire 5770 DDR5 1GB OR crossfire an ATI 4850 1GB Vapor-X card ..

my current specs is :

AMD Athlon 2 x2 245 2.9ghz am3
Asus M4a785TD-V Evo
Tagan stone rock 600W
ATI 4850 Vapor-x 1GB
Mushkin DDR3 2gb
Kingston DDR3 2gb
Windows 7 Ultimate
Samsung 320GB HDD
HAF 932

Please guys .. tell me is CF 2 4850 vapor x worth it ?? will i really see a performance change ?? or should i use the money and get a 5770 to replace my 4850 instead.. or shud i just use the money and get an AMD Phenom 2 quad 955Be..

Id also like to know if u recommend me to CF , is my PSU Wattage enough ?? thanks !

 

[jyjjy]

Crossfired HD4850s will certainly give you much better performance than an HD5770. The question is whether that PSU can handle it. If it's a quality unit then it can probably handle 2 HD4850s but I've never heard of that brand. I'm not an expert in such however. How many amps does it claim to have on the +12v rail? It should list that info on the side of the PSU.

 

[Maziar]

Hello and welcome to the forums
In terms of performance changes,what resolution do you play at ?

 

[trifty]

erm im not sure where to see.. but it says this .. +3.3v/24A | +5v/30A | +12V1/22A | +12V2/22A | -12v/0.5a | +5vsb/2.5a total = 600W .. the 12v1 and 12v2 = 528 watts ..

 

[jay2tall]

(2) 4850's would easily toast a 5770. A 5770 doesn't even outperform a single 4870 and only slightly outperforms a 4850.

I would just be concerned if your PSU could handle it. And just remember that CF setups generate alot of heat.

 

[trifty]

hello maziar .. my desktop is running at 1920 x 1080(recommended) max for my Acer P225HQ monitor (21.5") for my games .. COD4 i run at 1920 and games like crysis/farcry2/prototype i run about 1280 coz of the lag ..

 

[trifty]

Hey Jay .. yea im afraid of my PSU as well .. erm what do u mean by "CF setups generate alot of heat" .. how will differ from a single 4850 generating heat ? meaning if its CF'ed they will both get hotter easier ?

 

[jay2tall]

Yeah toss in another 4850 if you can. It would be a good, cheap upgrade. Your PSU should be fine. Just watch out for the heat. Your top card will run quite a bit hotter with another underneath it.

 

[trifty]

okay Jay .. i just really hope that my PSU has the juice for it .. btw .. wat about the Quad upgrade .. ? Quad upgrade vs 4850 CF ??..and if under CF will the games automatically use both of em ?

 

[jay2tall]

A 2nd card will give you a far better increase than a CPU upgrade. You have (2) 22A rails with 528W/12v=44A. Your CPU does not use much power at all, so you would be pretty safe. Just don't OC them like crazy. Oced video cards can really draw alot of juice.

 

[trifty]

How will the performance differ if i stick to a single Vaporx 4850 and a Phenom 2 Quad VS an athlon 2 x2 and 4850 in CF .. ?

 

[trifty]

ic .. erm btw ive never OC'ed anything in my comp bcoz i dont noe how and im kind of a pussy for now lolz .. but im just really confused ~.~

 

[jyjjy]

If those specs on the PSU are close to reality than it should be able to handle two HD4850s. For your resolution upgrading the graphics is definitely the way to go for now. A quad core is a good idea for the future but another card will definitely benefit you more for gaming at the moment.

 

[trifty]

okayy .. thanks for the reply .. but is there any way to guaranteee that my psu will handle the extra 4850 ? .. coz im afraid after buying it and my pc wont boot LOL !

 

[trifty]

and also id like to know how much performance boost will i get ?say currently im running my Far Cry 2 in all medium/high at 1280 reso and runs at 50 fps avg .. if i slot in another card .. how much can i boost it ? full 1920 ?

 

[kompako]

Your motherboard only has 1 PCI express 2.0 x16 slot so you wont be able to crossfire 2 4850 with it

 

[trifty]

hey guys.. my mobo has a pcie x16(blue) and a pciex4 (grey) my GPU can run on the x4 but is it worth the crossfire ? one x16 and one more x4

 

[Maziar]

No that's not good,16x4x is the worst CrossFire configuration and won't perform as well as dual 8x or dual 16x,it won't allow your cards to show their full potential,so its better to go with a single card

 

[jyjjy]

If a PCIe x16 slot doesn't limit an HD5970 will a x4 really limit an HD4850?

 

[Maziar]

In single mode no,because it will be at 16x speed but for 2 HD 4850's 16x4x is a big hit:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/crossfire-pci-express,2095.html

 

[jyjjy]

I dunno, that article's results seem a little... odd at best. Looking at the performance summary at 1650x1080 the two charts show 2 HD4870s scaling(at most) 5% and 17%? Even at 2560x1600(low quality) they scale at only 28%. Those are terrible results. Basically that article seems to be saying the only time it makes sense to crossfire HD4870s is at 2560x1600 with eye candy. Is this an accurate interpretation or am I missing something?

 

[Maziar]

Maybe that's because the drivers they used,here is another article too(a bit old but compared 16x4x with dual 8x):
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2837