4850 with 3850 512MB?

[jordanclock]

I'm looking to upgrade my motherboard. Nothing fancy, it's just I have the ASRock 4coredual-SATA2 and you can't overclock and use a SATA drive at the same time. I currently have a 3850 512MB and after seeing the benchmarks for the 4850, I'm almost dead set on getting one.

Then I got to thinking... Why not get a Crossfire compatible motherboard and keep my "old" card? I know it would work, I just don't know if it's worth spending another $40+ on a motherboard. I really don't know what kind of performance I'll get out of the combination.

Does anyone know of any benchmarks for Crossfire with different series of cards? It doesn't have to be an exact match to what I want to do, but something similar. Like a 3870 and a 2900PRO or something.

 

[Jax Omen]

You can't cross-architecture crossfire. Meaning you can x-fire a 2900 PRO and 2900 XTX or whatever they called it. You can't x-fire a 2900 and a 3870. You also cannot x-fire a 38xx and a 48xx.

 

[jordanclock]

Then maybe you should tell this guy his Crossfire doesn't work?

 

[Jax Omen]

Well I don't know that guy, but I'd love to see a CCC screenie from him saying that crossfire is, in fact, working, as I've always heard you can't do that.

 

[JPB]

It has been confirmed by ATI themselves that mixing the 3000 series and the 4000 series will NOT work.

Ill find the article and link it.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: JPB
It has been confirmed by ATI themselves that mixing the 3000 series and the 4000 series will NOT work.

Ill find the article and link it.

That would be good, because I heard that you could Xfire a 4000 and a 3000 series together.

 

[lyssword]

29xx + 38xx works, but 38xx +48xx doesnt I guess...

 

[Sylvanas]

Negative Ghostrider the pattern is full

 

[Sylvanas]

Originally posted by: lyssword
29xx + 38xx works, but 38xx +48xx doesnt I guess...

Xt-review reckoned it did a while back on some obscure driver set, I tried it with my 2900XT and one of my 3850's, the two cards were recognized but would not operate in Crossfire.

 

[betasub]

Originally posted by: Jax Omen
You can't cross-architecture crossfire. Meaning you can x-fire a 2900 PRO and 2900 XTX or whatever they called it. You can't x-fire a 2900 and a 3870. You also cannot x-fire a 38xx and a 48xx.

Agree that there are o problems with crossfire compatibility with 2900 pro and 2900xt, they have the same architecture (R600).

2900 and 38x0 are very similar architecture (RV670 is a die-shrink of R600) and there are successful cases of crossfire working (YMMV).

38x0 and 48x0 compatibility will probably be more difficult because ATI have redesigned the architecture for RV770 and withheld any cross-generational support. Still interested to see how the drivers recognise a 38x0/48x0 combo, and which options are available in CCC.