Crossfire 5850 or upgrade

[trembl27]

Hi!

I currently have a I5-750 and a XFX 5850. My power supply is a seasonic X-650.

I will be playing the BF3 and StarWars the Old Republic on this PC.

My monitor resolution is currently at 1680x1050 but I'll move to my HDTV soon or upgrade my monitor to 1080P.

My motherboard is x16 or x8/x8 so i'm considering crossfire.

Right now, I have the opportunity to buy a second 5850 for around 100-120$.

Would a 5850 "future-proof" my system for these 2 games at least ( if that exist ), not help because it's already sufficient or not be enough?

I could also later buy a 6950/6970/570/580 but I would not be able to crossfire these with my current PSU.

So I'm really thinking this might be a good buy for me and let me use that computer for one more year without hassle.

I OC but only just a little my gpu, and I put my i5-750 at 2.8Ghz.

 

[Embra]

I normally recommend one card, but since you have a 5850 and can get another for ~$100 ..... I would do it.
A cheap upgrade that will last you another year, and then you can look at the amd 7xxx and nvda 6xx's.

570gtx vs. 5850x2

 

[trembl27]

First of all, thanks for the answer!

I'm now wondering also.

Would I be better to

1) Buy a 5850 and crossfire
2) Sell my 5850 for 100-120$, keep my 100-120$ and buy a 240$ video card. I can have a 6950 with 1Gb ram for this price.


When I look at the benchmark on anandtech however, the 5850cf is always better. I'm just wondering if the watts/temps/noise level will be that worse to make me regret going CF. I got a good quality case in Antec Mini P180 ( 120mm+200mm top air exit) + 2 120mm Noctua fans in front for air input, and you can probably guess that I like quiet computers with my seasonic x-650, noctua fans, antec mini p180 case, etc

I'm still not set. But 100$ for 5850x2looks so good on paper!

 

[iam2thecrowe]

there are 2 issues with crossfire
1 - microstuttering, not all people experience it, but if you have it it can ruin the experience
2 - game support - when most new games are released they either dont support crossfire or have poor performance until the first patch or AMD driver hotfix/application profile
If it were me, id go crossfire, try it for a while, and sell both cards if you dont like it and get a 6950. If you dont like stuffing round and just want games to run right then maybe a single card is better for you.

 

[spentshells]

not sure you will be happy with a 6950 over the 5850 not really that big o an increase,
If you can round up another 5850 for cheap its worth a shot