bit of a pickle - crossfire or sli

[bisket]

i'm trying to decide between either a 1900xtx or a 7950gx2 and then which MB to buy. the MB has to be micro atx.

i know quad sli is not out yet if i went with the 7950gx2 and i'm not even sure it would work in the sli MB i would buy.

but here's what i'm thinking.

if i go with a 1900xtx i'm thinking this MB:

crossfire mb

and if i go with the 7950gx2 i'm thinking this MB and this if I can go sli with it once the 7950 is able:

sli board

i have a x2 4800+ already to compliment either card and 2 gigs of ram so i'm good to go everywhere but here. i currently run the asus a8v-vm (i believe) micro atx board (it's the one with the 6150 on it) and a 7800gtx. my main monitor is a dell 2405fpw and the 7800gtx just doesn't impress me.

right now i'm leaning more towards the crossfire board and the 1900xtx and picking up a crossfire card soon after.

any opinions/comments/suggestions would be helpful. thanks.

 

[hardwareking]

here's my 2 cents.
Don't go crossfire or sli,cause dx 10 will make that rig of urs obsolete.But it'll be sweet while it lasted.
U should stick with single card solutions(or single slot solutions for the 7950 gx2)
The 7950 gx2 gives the same performance as 2 7900gtx's in sli.But it lacks IQ features that ATI cards have such as the ability to run HDR+AA+HQ AF in tandem.
Well technically it can run HDR+AA,but it can't do it in the fp16 format which most games which have HDR use.
If u are looking for pure performance the 7950 gx2 is ur card.If its balance between performance and quality,then the x1900 xtx.
And is ur x2 4800+ socket 939 or socket AM2?
If its AM2 the nvidia motherboards are on top!!Get the ASUS M2N32-SLI.
If its socket 939 u can get the ASUS A8N32-SLI or A8R32-MVP(crossfire and sli respectively.)
And if u are going crossfire i would suggest getting the x1900 xt cause the crossfire edition specs match the x1900 xt.But if its paired with x1900 xtx,the xtx would downclock itself to match the speed of the master ard.In short a waste of money.

 

[dguy6789]

If it were me and I had no other option, I would probably pick SLI over Crossfire. SLI just seems like a more robust solution. Performance gains seem to be hit or miss with Crossfire, but most games seem to benefit from SLI if you run enough AA or a high enough resolution.

 

[nitromullet]

You have some pretty interesting requirements... I'm not sure which motherboards you intended to link to becasue it looks like you tried to imbed HTML into your post, which this forum doesn't allow. Edit your post and use the link button in the post editor window (the one that says http) to link to the motherboards. That being said, I don't think that a micro ATX CrossFire board exists (there is a difference between Radeon Xpress200 and Radeon Xpress200 CrossFire). I'm also not sure how many micro ATX boards exist that are compatible with the GX2. Check out the list here:

http://www.nvidia.com/content/geforce_gx2_sbios/us.asp

 

[bisket]

thanks nitromullet for that list.

i'm not seeing any micro atx board there so ati may be the way to go here. from reviews i've seen - it seems like the 1900xtx can push 1920x1200 res with AA fairly well - at least better then my 7800gtx.

but whatever MB i get it has to micro atx because my case is a qpack. thx for the info guys

 

[josh6079]

What kind of games do you play/want to play?

What settings do you want to play them with?

What kind of powersupply do you have.

Truth is, we need more information before any of us can really recommend a any card.

 

[Captante]

If you have to go with a Micro-ATX mb, you should either go with a single X1900XT or maybe a 7950GX2 since I doubt a real dual-card setup is going to fit in your case even if you can find a motherboard that supports it.