Crossfire?

[craiggill2003]

i recently built my first pc which consitts of the GA-MA785GT-UD3H mb, 4g corsair ram, hard drive, dvdrw and a 650w win power psu(tho changing that today for an 550W OCZ Fatal1ty).

Im lookin to upgrade the graphics and dont no a thing about crossfire jus guessed if google it n learn tho im begining to wish i had gone for my first choice in board and seperate graphics.
what cards can i use alongside the onboard 1 rather than now buy another and not use the onboard one?
Or any recommendation from sum1 with a bit of experience thanks in advance.
Craig (novice)

 

[strangestranger]

If gaming then the onboard serves little purpose, a single dedicated card will offer superior all round performance. Hybird crossfire is not worth it IMO.

If not gaming then the onboard on it's own will be fine.

 

[craiggill2003]

the only reason i decided to get a new pc was because my last pc pentium4 2.4 would not play Command and conquer 4 at all, i do play games on it but command an conquer 4 plays totally fine at the minute, am hoping to watch blueray movies via my 40inch bravia on it tho too?

 

[eylee86]

i'd probably stay with this board and get a videocard on there since you are going to play games. It's not like changing the motherboard without onboard is going to boost your performance much anyways right? so why change. Also right now the price of videocards are all over the place because of the new Fermi release. Since you're doing ok playing command and conquer 4 right now you can wait and add a video card when you need to. hope this answers your questions. You can decide than what kind of video card you want depending on the types of games you play.

 

[randomkid]

and at what resolution?

The onboard graphics will play your movies just fine even at full HD but the resolution and settings you play your games will determine what discrete video card will be best for you.

 

[jay2tall]

Nice build for your first I must say. The 785 boards are awesome and you can build a nice AMD on the cheap these days. The 550W OCZ Fatal1ty is probably the best cheap PSU you can find, I recommend it ALOT if people don't mind the red led.

The ATI 4200 onboard is actually really good for all general applications and some very lite low res gaming. However, if you are looking to upgrade we will need to know the below things.

1) resolution of monitor
2) What games will you be playing
3) budget

I always start with recommending the ATI HD 5770. They run about $150 + or - if you are in the US. They are really the mainstream gaming card right now that will run everything you want to are a decent setting.