CrossFire to SLI

[herboren]

I know I have started a few discussions prior to buying my board, which I did receive in the mail by the way. It was the Asus EVO 990X Am3+ AMD. But my question is, although it has XFire support and nVidia SLI support, which would be the best card to improve my gameplay, the only reason I ask is because I know that some multi threaded GPU's only work well with the correct hardware.

I ordered the Zambezi AMD 4X Processor which runs at 3.6Ghz 4MB L2 8MB L3. Which Card is worth getting; nVidia or ATi?

I have read forums and other articles that most people have had issues with ATi drivers and catalyst working with BF3, why and should I avoid this? ATi seems affordable over nVidia but just from personal experience, nVidia has done a great deal with processing power, but they are also a bit more expensive.

I currently run a GTS450(Yeah I know I should be running a GTX or higher) but its on my old system and it still plays out pretty good with fps when playing WoW, Rift I am just bogged down because I am running an old 939 AMD Athlon 64bit at 2.0Ghz single core.

I can't determine whether ATi will be good for Battlefielld 3 and Diablo 3 or GW2 For that matter if they either will be a great option.

These are the specs of the equipment on its way:

G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2133 (PC3 17000) Desktop Memory Model F3-17000CL9D-8GBXM

AMD FX-4100 Zambezi 3.6GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor FD4100WMGUSBX

And this I have already received:
ASUS M5A99X EVO AM3+ AMD 990X SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

 

[crewton]

For gaming either option is fine. I'd go with 6950s for their price/performance.

 

[Dennycrumbubble]

For gaming either option is fine. I'd go with 6950s for their price/performance.

^^^ This. Especially since the 6950s are easily unlocked to run as 6970s, and because CrossfireX is compatible with different cards in the same generation (ie - 6990 + 6950). And it sounds like you have a significant budget, so personally, I would wait and get 2 of these when they come back in stock.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102951&Tpk=Toxic%206950
But any non-reference version will work just fine.

 

[dalmvern]

As you see in my signature below, I am running a single 6950 and max out all the games you are talking about. The only exception is in BF3 I leave the MSAA off, but in WoW I run ultra settings with a minimum FPS of 90...but now that you are upgrading to a quad core, that is going to make such a massive difference! I however would suggest straight up buying the 6970 rather than the 6950 so you dont have to go through the bother of flashing the BIOS, and it is not guaranteed that it will be fully unlocked to a 6970 so I wouldnt take the chance.

 

[CaedenV]

Wait, arent the 7000 cards coming out within a month? Or do they just come out with main stream cards first and then the real heavy hitters throughout the year?

 

[Dennycrumbubble]

Wait, arent the 7000 cards coming out within a month? Or do they just come out with main stream cards first and then the real heavy hitters throughout the year?

The mid- to mid-high-end cards are set to come out this December. The 7900 big guns are scheduled to roll out in next year's first quarter.
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-HD-7900-XDR2-Rambus-Memory,13408.html