Should I go xfire with 5870 or buy something new?

[2late2die]

I currently have XFX HD 5870 1GB (HD587XZNFC) and I want to upgrade my graphics performance a bit but not necessarily the whole system.

Rest of the specs are:
Gigabyte P55A-UD4P ATX LGA1156
Intel i5 750 Quad Core Lynnfield LGA1156 2.66GHZ
G.SKILL F3-10666CL7D-4GBRH CL7-7-7-21
Corsair TX850W
(and I play on 1920 but am also toying with the idea of trying a few games on three monitors using the eyefinity setup, though it might be three 1680 monitors, haven't decided yet)

It's actually kinda hard to find XFX 5870 these days (oddly) but I did track down one for $270 (Canadian). However, I did a quick look around and it seems that for $270 I can get a decent (maybe good?) card that will be able to handle anything coming out in the near future (am I wrong here?), though I'm not sure if it'll outperform a pair of 5870s.

So what do you think I should do, go with a crossfire setup with two 5870s, or get a single but newer card?
Chances are 5870s xfired will be better in terms of pure performance but they do have all those xfire issues - sucking down more power, generating more heat, possibly less stable(?). Would the performance gains be worth all that trouble?

 

[rolli59]

Not many cards will outperform a pair of HD5870 http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_560_Twin_Frozr_II_OC/27.html
You would have to get a an expensive dual GPU card to do that.

 

[kss207rc]

If thing you don't need to upgrade your 5870 beacuse its performance is very very good,actually is about the same as a gtx 560 and amd 6950 so i dont find any reason to spend any money now and upgrade to something.I advice you to wait until the new ati and nvidia series come out and buy one then.

 

[whitey_rolls]

at 1080P you shouldn't need a second 5870 (I also have an XFX 5870) but if you decide to go 3 monitors a second 5870 will likely be needed.

You would be better off going crossfire as you won't find anything under $500 to compete with 2x 5870's. Regarding the price I'd keep looking - I bought an XFX 5870 in April from ncix.com for $200. I saw canadacomputers had one (not XFX) onsale maybe 3 weeks ago for like $189.99

 

[2late2die]

Best answer selected by 2late2die.

 

[2late2die]

at 1080P you shouldn't need a second 5870 (I also have an XFX 5870) but if you decide to go 3 monitors a second 5870 will likely be needed.

You would be better off going crossfire as you won't find anything under $500 to compete with 2x 5870's. Regarding the price I'd keep looking - I bought an XFX 5870 in April from ncix.com for $200. I saw canadacomputers had one (not XFX) onsale maybe 3 weeks ago for like $189.99

Is going with a non-xfx 5870 an option? I mean, wouldn't it cause problems with the crossfire setup if the cards are not identical?

 

[2late2die]

^ it usually does not cause any problems. just make sure that the card you buy has similar clocks as the xfx one, as during xfire, the clocks of both cards are set to the lower clocks of the two.

Ah, excellent! I think you just saved me $50 bucks - better than Geico! Thanks

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey