Can I crossfire 2x HD 6870 with this system?

[Hishuro]

Intel X38 ATX Intel Motherboard

Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale 3.16GHz

Antec TPQ-850 850W Continuous Power ATX12V / EPS12V

2 x G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB)

WD 250gb 7500rpm

WD 500gb 7500rpm

Antec 900 case

1x CDR/CDRW

1x DVD/DVDR

 

[Maziar]

Yes,your board supports Crossfire so you can use 2 6870s on it.

 

[Hishuro]

didn't know if i had a good enough psu for it though

 

[Maziar]

It's more than enough for 2 6870s,don't worry

 

[BeCoolBro]

You will need to oc the e8500 or it will severely bottleneck the 2 6870s.At 4ghz it should be ok but youu would be much better with quad core like a q6600 or a q9650.

 

[chocobaby]

I dont know about the 2 cards but im pretty sure that ur 2GB of RAM might bottleneck ur GPU 's (if u get them) !

 

[Maziar]

Yes,I forgot about the RAM,definitely upgrade to 4GB.

 

[aznshinobi]

I think you should look into just waiting imo. Wait for SB to come out and cayman and just see how the prices are. Then just upgrade all at once. Most "top" performing cards like the 6870 CF will bottleneck cpu's of older age. Of course correct me if I'm wrong. Umm another thing is, if you don't have money to do the full upgrade (but judging from the card choice and how many of the cards you do seem to have alot of money in the budget) is to upgrade to the Q6600 or the Q9550 like BeCoolBro said.

 

[Hishuro]

I have 4 gigs. Thats 2x 2 1 gig sticks. Also I should go with upgrading my CPU rather then a graphics card? Have a HD 4870 1gig which does pretty good for the most part. Huge gamer and I have heard quads are not really important for gaming still at the moment

 

[Hishuro]

well looking around at some forums with people talking about the quads in games i guess it really couldn't hurt to get the quad anyways. Guess I could do the quad and 1 card for now then.

 

[GoldenI]

I have 4 gigs. Thats 2x 2 1 gig sticks. Also I should go with upgrading my CPU rather then a graphics card? Have a HD 4870 1gig which does pretty good for the most part. Huge gamer and I have heard quads are not really important for gaming still at the moment

True - a dual core with hyperthreading will do nicely for the next three years.

 

[aznshinobi]

You don't hafta get the cpu now you should save up and wait for SB or BD you'll get a better chip for less (if they plan to go with a mid-range pricing) those come out next year. That or just upgrade to a Q6600 that should last you a while.

 

[Maziar]

I have 4 gigs. Thats 2x 2 1 gig sticks. Also I should go with upgrading my CPU rather then a graphics card? Have a HD 4870 1gig which does pretty good for the most part. Huge gamer and I have heard quads are not really important for gaming still at the moment

Upgrading the VGA will give you more boost in performance because almost all games are GPU limited.

 

[aznshinobi]

^ True but, if he plans to play certain games. IE Black Ops a quad core would help as well, from my knowledge, BO favors quads as dual cores tend to lag because of the dual-cores inability to multi-task while running BO.

 

[Maziar]

Yes,in some games(like BO that you mentioned or GTA IV,WIC,FSX Etc.) a quad core will help.
But in "most" games,the effect of an additional VGA is more than upgrading CPU.

 

[aznshinobi]

^ True, he should just upgrade them all at once :lol:

 

[Hishuro]

hahaha k. Maybe I should just wait it out a little more then. System does pretty good as it is. Just had some of the cash now so was thinking about upgrading the gpu. Drawing a brain fart but refresh me by what you mean by VGA? Isn't that a video output?

 

[aznshinobi]

Well what VGA I always thought of it as the actually card. But you could think of it as the video output. The VGA though can also mean the actual card.

 

[Hishuro]

That's what I thought. Guess I took that as something else when I skimmed through on my phone while I was at work

 

[Maziar]

Yep,I should start to use "GPU" instead of "VGA" when I'm talking about graphic cards

 

[rocky_1]

i'm not sure if I much insight but i would definitley upgrade the ram and probably upgrade the cpu to like i5 a least to avoid bottlenecks

 

[Hishuro]

that would be nice... but my motherboard doesn't support the new cpus so I would be redoing the whole system pretty much if I wanted to do that. But on another note I would be "holding back" some of the system if I were to say... I dunno get a 5970? Would I not be seeing it's full potential?

 

[aznshinobi]

Yes, you'd bottleneck it ALOT. I would suggest if you were going to get such a highend card, to wait for Cayman and get that when it comes out. The 5970 is a pretty long card too so you should check your case dimensions first if you do decide to get a 5970.

 

[Hishuro]

Thanks for all the input you guys been very helpful. If I waited it out another month (hopefully) for the Cayman wouldn't I just bottleneck that as well? Here are the specs for my mobo

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131219

So what I'm getting is that I should at some point or instead of a graphics card for right now upgrade my CPU and that should open the bottleneck some?

 

[aznshinobi]

That is correct, I suggest you wait a little longer btw. SB is coming out soon and the i5 SB should prove to stay at the i5 750 pricing of 200$ plus It'll be a great upgrade. Then you should upgrade to the Cayman. Or that's just me.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3871/the-sandy-bridge-preview-three-wins-in-a-row