Crossfire related question

[JetEngineJesus]

hey gang, have a question for you:
am buidling a new box from the ground up in the spring & have started doing research on components so i can keep my eyes open for deals. I do a lot of multimedia stuff on my box (motion design, graphic design with all the standard programs like AEX, illustrator, PPro2; not so much on the 3d side of things, but am hoping to get my feet wet on the 3d side at some point in the next year or two), and do a bit of gaming, but not enough to warrant having, like, an X1950 XTX... don't think most of my apps won't benefit too much from a hot card, but AEX7s open GL support will definitely come in handy.
I've been thinking about doing a Crossfire setup with two midrange cards, rather than just buying one super-high end card. Given what i plan to use my system for, is a Crossfire setup even worthwhile? and if so, what sort of recommendations can you guys make for me? a couple of x1600s? maybe even lower?
I'm an ATI guy, btw, & would prefer to stick w/ the ati chipset, but am not married to it...
Thanks in advance; any help you could give me would be much appreciated!

 

[n7]

Nope.

CF/SLI on a lower end setup = waste of money.

Excepting a few extremely rare cases where high end cards have been overpriced (nVidia 7800 GTX 512 MB vs. 2x 7800 GTs was one), dual cards are never a good buy unless you actually put both in at once, & they (plus the more expensive CF mobo) cost less than the same performing card.

And that simply isn't the case with anything out there today.

 

[hardwareking]

a single x1900 xt would offer more performance than 2 x1600 xts.U'd be better off getting 1 high-end card.
x1900 xt's can be had for cheap now-a-days.there are 256mb and 512mb versions.Be sure to get the 512 version.Better performance.
Will cost u around $330+.Much better performance than 2 x1600s

 

[JetEngineJesus]

thx for the tips!