Crossfire not worth it due to market prices?

[Ogre Choker]

I know that Crossfire, in a void, is very much worth it.

But add into the equation one specific element: resell value.

Basically, I'm in a position where I could either get a second card for half of the original release price, or sell my card ---for half of the original release price--. And because of the way technology works, that would actually afford me a better card.



This is solely affected by the price of old technology staying fairly high and the cost of new technology releasing fairly cheap. The cheapest I'm seeing my card on ebay is $130. I can slap that in Crossfire, or sell mine and upgrade


selling it, however, makes more sense because if a crossfire, when it's time to upgrade i won't be able to resell it because then the card will truly be worth nothing.


i really wanted to ruin a dual gpu set-up but considering resell value it's not worth it. thoughts?

 

[benski]

So what is your card, and what would you be replacing it with if you could sell it for $130?

 

[akymo]

Do you have a 5770 ?

 

[17seconds]

People often seem to buy a single graphics card with the plan to add another for an instant Crossfire/SLI upgrade in the future. Then when the time comes to actually buy that second card, more often than not, they seem to go with the latest single card again.

I believe that marketing has gotten us enamored with the latest and greatest video cards, while reality is, a pair of the older cards are almost always faster than one of the new ones. I guess the exception is (and I'm thinking you are in this boat), the ATI 5000 series doesn't have very good Crossfire scaling, so there's the dilemma.

 

[Ogre Choker]

I have a 5830 (yeah i know whatever) and I can get a second one for $130...

Or I can sell mine for $130 and get a 6850 for just $20 more. Then sell my 6850 for the next line. If I get a 5830, yeah it'll stomp almost every game, but I won't be able to sell the when it's time.

 

[benski]

If you can get 130 for your 5830 then go for it.

 

[wolfram23]

^Yeah but good luck, I see 5850s for around that price.

Anyway, do whatever you want. Yeah, if you hold onto them for another year you won't get much for them at all. But how long did you expect to keep it for?

A 6850 is decent, but you won't gain much performance over your current 5830.