4870x2 in crossfire ?

[Photron]

An interesting question just came up...someone just asked...since they can"t afford a 5870 or for sure a 5970
but they already have a 4870x2...then what results would they get if they bought an additional one and crossfired them...
So is there a person out there who already has that setup and would like to talk about it's results...?

 

[fpsdominator]

Well it would take alot of effort, but if you did enough tweaking and tried enough drivers and hot fixes you could probably get rid of most of the crazy amounts of microstutter your gonna get, and unless you got a really good CPU its not gonna work at all. But other than that wait for the new NVIDIA GT300s or wait for the ATI 5000's to go down in price.

 

[shubham1401]

Problems with 4870x2 QF:
1.Power consumption
2.Heat
3.No DX11 even when you're spending that much.

 

[cjl]

I have 4870x2 CF, and honestly, here's my opinion

1) It's fast
2) It's power hungry. Ridiculously so. I idle at >350W, full load>800W.
3) It's fast
4) It's hot. I don't need heating - I've got my computer.
5) It's fast

Oh, and did I mention it's fast?

That having been said, now that the 5870/5970 is out, I'd tend to lean away from recommending 4870x2 crossfire, even in the case that someone already has a 4870x2. The gains from the first one to the second one simply aren't huge (though they are noticeable), and you'll need a massively fast CPU to feed them properly. Microstutter isn't really a problem, but IMHO, wait a while and upgrade to a 5970 instead once the price drops a bit.

 

[Photron]

The whole issue revolved around someone trying to beat the price gouge as they already have one of the 4870x2's and I will convey this post to them so they won't waste their time as I can guestimate that they would come up short in the
aria of CPU as well as tec knowledge adequate for the situation (not that I
would do any better as I've a radically limited budget and only a surface level
comprehention of component interdependancy and funtion) but thanks for the info.

 

[jyjjy]

The HD4870x2 is already on par or better than the HD5870. Unless they are using a resolution higher than 1920x1200 I don't see why an upgrade would be needed.

 

[orangegator]

In addition to what's been said, you would need to make sure you have a good power supply and case airflow to add a second 4870X2. From what I hear, tri-fire scales better than quadfire. So, your best bang for your buck would probably be just to add a 4870 1gb to crossfire with the 4870X2.