Crossfire HD 4850 - what can I gain?

[plewand451]

Recently I have upgraded my rig:
- Gigabyte GA-Z77X-D3H
- Intel Core i5 3450
- Samsung 830 256 GB
- Win 7 HP
- RAM 8 GB
- HD 4850 1 GB (this left from old one)

I haven't got enough money for better graphics card with DX11 support.
I wondering is it worth buy another HD 4850 (for 55-60$) and crossfired it with the current one.
What is your experience with crossfired HD 4850?
Maybe you can come up with better option?
My power supply: EarthWatts 500 Watt (80 PLUS® certified).
I have 100$ budget left.

Thanks in Advance,
Paul

 

[gamerkila57]

no as two 4850 use excessive amounts of power and produce a lot of heat i doubt you can run two on a 500W psu

i say sell your HD 4850 and use that to get a HD 6870, HD 7770 or GTX 560

 

[AdioKIP]

The previous poster is correct, I use to run 2x 4850's. I had a cheap brand 750 watt PSU and things didnt go to well. Everything would work fine until a game actually pushed both cards to max at which time the entire computer would shut off. The 4850's were great cards in there time, but by todays standards they're power hungry. You would definitely need a PSU upgrade to run two of them, but by the time you bought a new PSU and another 4850 you would be almost to the price of a descent entry level gaming card (7750 or so).

Also, most games now are going beyond using 1 gig of VRam, the 4850's only having 1 gig (I only had 512 on my 4850's) will hold them back even though power wise 2 of them in crossfire isnt bad.

 

[plewand451]

gamerkila57 & AdioKIP
thank for your advice - I will try to sell my HD 4850 and rest of the old rig and get HD 6870 (something about 170$). If I won't succeed I will wait for Christmas and buy HD 7870 as a gift for myself.
.HD 7870's max TDP is 175 W, so my PSU should be enough.

 

[gamerkila57]

yep it will be fine

 

[doct3rphil]

I bought a 2nd 4870 on ebay about 6 months ago or so for ~$80 and it was worth it in my opinion. NOW though I would want one that's newer since driver support and power use are not ideal on the older cards. they're stable but i don't like the idea of no new driver updates.

Edit: I have a Corsair 650w PSU. 500w wouldn't be enough.