HD4850x2 + HD4850 in Crossfire?

[Sean53221]

Hi -

I currently have a pair of HD4850's in CF. Want more juice, as my 28" monitor is 1080p (1920x1200?) -

If I pull one of the HD4850's out and put an HD4850x2 in its place, will this even work?

Can a decent performance boost be gotten via this route?

 

[TridenT]

Doubtful... -_- Your best option is to go for a 4870X2.

 

[apoppin]

Yes it will work, it is called Crossfire X-3

however it is not going to scale terribly well

are your 4850s 512MB or 1GB ? if 512MB you will hold back the 4850x2/2GB in some situations .. mostly not too much practically, however

 

[Sean53221]

They are 512mb boards.. Visiontek. I see the 4870X2's are 2-slot solutions, which kinda blows. (x4/PCI slots unuseable)... and everyone I've read things from say the HD48X0 series is much more bang for the buck than Nvidia these days... I guess I could sell the pair of 4850's and buy a single 4870X2, leave the 2nd slot open for expansion down the road (HD4870x2's can be CF'd, right? so essentially quad GPU?)

Also I am wondering about the CF - I noticed that some games use both GPUs even though not specifically designed for it, and some don't. Is there a way to force it on for ALL applications?

Also, how long do you think it will be before ATI comes out with their next greatest card, such that the 4870/4870X2's drop in price/become available used?

And one last annoying question - if an app works with a 2-GPU CF config, will it definitely work with a 3 or 4 GPU CF setup?

 

[solofly]

Originally posted by: NewLightNet
They are 512mb boards.. Visiontek. I see the 4870X2's are 2-slot solutions, which kinda blows. (x4/PCI slots unuseable)... and everyone I've read things from say the HD48X0 series is much more bang for the buck than Nvidia these days... I guess I could sell the pair of 4850's and buy a single 4870X2, leave the 2nd slot open for expansion down the road (HD4870x2's can be CF'd, right? so essentially quad GPU?)

Also I am wondering about the CF - I noticed that some games use both GPUs even though not specifically designed for it, and some don't. Is there a way to force it on for ALL applications?

Also, how long do you think it will be before ATI comes out with their next greatest card, such that the 4870/4870X2's drop in price/become available used?

And one last annoying question - if an app works with a 2-GPU CF config, will it definitely work with a 3 or 4 GPU CF setup?

I'm thinking of doing tri xfire with one HD4850X2+HD4850 1GB myself. I currently have three HD4850s with 512MB of memory but one of them will be going to a friend fairly soon. Latest rumors indicate there might be a refresh before the end of the year so I`m gonna hold off at least till the mid of December with this upgrade...

 

[Elfear]

For the resolution you want a single 4870X2 would be plenty. I use one for 2560x1600 and it works beautifully.

 

[solofly]

Originally posted by: Elfear
For the resolution you want a single 4870X2 would be plenty. I use one for 2560x1600 and it works beautifully.

Even a single HD4850X2 for that res would be plenty... (it's all about amount of Vram anyways)