UPDATE: 5850 vs 5870 vs 4870 CF

[Painman]

Painman. If PhysX/CUDA means nothing to you, why then do you feel like your face has been pissed in? If you didn't care one bit, I'd expect a comment like, "meh, who cares?" . Not something like, "I feel like Nvidia pissed in my cheerios." To me, that means you do obviously care.
So how much longer are you going to tell us that you could care less about PhysX and then in the next breath tell us how upset (face,piss) you are. I've never seen anyone "not" care about something so adamently. Except maybe a girl who is in love but will never admit it.
You know the saying, "the lady doth protest too much."? I think we are seeing a relative of that situation here.

I guess I woke up on the wrong side of the bed that morning.

I care about GPU PhysX insofar as it being something that might compel me further down the road, if not right now. But I don't like the all-or-nothing stance of nV regarding a consumer's choice of main renderers.

I've actually owned more Green cards over the years than Red, so if you see me giving nV a hard time, it's not because I dislike their products. But you might have noticed that I don't like their CEO very much.

 

[ChorniyVolk]

How do you upgrade from 3 4870 GPUs to one 5870? I mean, you'd be losing power for a few features, so it's more of a trade no?

spinejam, I don't know how much used 4870x2's go for, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say it'll cost more than that deal for two new 4870s that I can crossfire.

But assuming two in crossfire are equal to an x2, I have to go check out some benchmarks to see how it does against the 5870.

 

[ChorniyVolk]

Oh, and on top of that, how much do you think drivers in the next month or so will improve the performance of the 5800 series? For a bit of perspective.

 

[SniperWulf]

Performance wise, 1 5870 ~ an x2 ~ 2x 4870 1GB in crossfire. If you shop around, you can find an X2 for just over $200 or so. FWIW, I just sold my x2 and picked up a 5870. Couldn't be happier.

Not only do I have the same performace of my last card into this one, is it quieter, runs cooler, AND now I have the option to add a second one at a later date.

 

[ChorniyVolk]

An x2 for just over $200? Really? And I thought the two 4870s for a bit under $300 was a good deal.

Shop around where? Are we talking a new card or used?

And you guys think it's my best option too right? I seem to think so, it'll hold me over with high performance, and I can sell it for a good price when Fermi comes out and I can make a decision on which side to go with.

I wonder when stocking on the 5800s will be better.

 

[T2k]

Since my expected 5850 X2 2GB aka 5950 is a no-show I am too thinking about sticking with my current config/adding a standalone 4850 1GB to the mix to make sure I'll have decent, smooth framerates in Call of Pripyat...

 

[lavaheadache]

Since my expected 5850 X2 2GB aka 5950 is a no-show I am too thinking about sticking with my current config/adding a standalone 4850 1GB to the mix to make sure I'll have decent, smooth framerates in Call of Pripyat...

trifire is quite the potent setup. I have next to zero issues with my 4870x3 rig

 

[Panthur]

Is there an issue that some of the latest games do not support crossfire set-ups ...or is this incorrect?

 

[lavaheadache]

I'm sure there are some random and obscure times that there are scaling issues but it will usually only take 1 month until the latest cats come out to fix any problems with crossfire. I haven't come across any problems yet