upgrade ideas

[pontifex]

Currently have an 8800GT 512mb. My motherboard is an Asus P5Q Pro.

I'm playing STALKER Clear Sky with most settings set to medium and get about 30-40 FPS depending on area. Everything with DX10 I get maybe 10-11 FPS. I'd like to play games at highest settings or nearest to high.

Thinking about using 2 4850s in crossfire. Is this a good idea? Are there better solutions? Trying to stay under $300 or so.

 

[SolMiester]

I'm not a big sli\xfire fan, so i would sell what you got, and go 4870 or 260\216

 

[faxon]

yea the latest crossfire scales pretty well, but you still usually get better bang for your buck out of a single card solution most of the time. grab yourself a 48701GB and you will probably be good to go

 

[imported_KINGPIN]

wat resolution u play at? wat cpu?

i have the same setup as u

e8400
8800gt bfg oc
asus p5q pro. and also thinking if i should upgrade. i got my brand new for 99 tho. would 4850 be worth the extra 80?

 

[pontifex]

Originally posted by: KINGPIN
wat resolution u play at? wat cpu?

i have the same setup as u

e8400
8800gt bfg oc
asus p5q pro. and also thinking if i should upgrade. i got my brand new for 99 tho. would 4850 be worth the extra 80?

1680x1050
e8400 @ 3.6 Ghz
4 GB RAM
MSI 8800GT
ASUS P5Q Pro
Corsair 650W PSU

I'd definitely sell the 8800GT once I got a new card.

 

[Tempered81]

That same question was just asked over at XS, this is what I replied:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/f...?p=3330814&postcount=8

 

[AzN]

I'm not a big sli fan either but today there aren't fast enough GPU that is faster than 2 midrange cards. 2 midrange cards cost considerably less too.

If you have the board to run SLI or CFX why not?

 

[pontifex]

so should i go 1x 4870 or 4850 CF?

I can get a 4870 1gb for a $280 (AR) off ebay if I use the live.com search 30% cashback or 2 4850s 512 mb for $281 (AR) with the same deal.

 

[Tempered81]

It's now up to you: You want 1 card with solid performance, or two cards with a little more performance but the drawback of hit-or-miss crossfire scaling? Someone mentioned earlier that you can always CFX 4870 1GB's later on down the road.

Just remember if you get two 4850's, you get to overclock twice as much.

:laugh:

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: pontifex
Currently have an 8800GT 512mb. My motherboard is an Asus P5Q Pro.

I'm playing STALKER Clear Sky with most settings set to medium and get about 30-40 FPS depending on area. Everything with DX10 I get maybe 10-11 FPS. I'd like to play games at highest settings or nearest to high.

Thinking about using 2 4850s in crossfire. Is this a good idea? Are there better solutions? Trying to stay under $300 or so.

it is best bang for buck

 

[AzN]

A single 4850 isn't too far off from 4870. Even if it doesn't scale too well you aren't going to see much difference. You should go ahead get 2 4850.

 

[pontifex]

hmm...i think i'm going to do the 4850 CF. Next question though, should I do the 512 MB cards or the 1GB cards for only about $10 more?

 

[apoppin]

if you stay at 16x10 it won't matter in most games

. . . except in Crysis/Warhead ... i haven't played CS enough to notice

since it is only $10 .. i'd get the 1GB version .. and especially if you decide to OC them and/or get a bigger LCD

you will like your upgrade

 

[Tempered81]

x38s and x48s are significantly faster using crossfire Hd4850's for high-res gaming than the p5q pro's P45. FYI

crysis:
http://www.legionhardware.com/...rison/Crysis_Table.png

ut3:
http://www.legionhardware.com/...mparison/UT3_Table.png

 

[apoppin]

it won't matter so much for CF 4850 =)

not as mission critical as for my 4870 or 4870x2/x3 configurations
- i am rebuilding my PC today .. goodbye p35 .. hello x48

 

[MrK6]

Originally posted by: pontifex
hmm...i think i'm going to do the 4850 CF. Next question though, should I do the 512 MB cards or the 1GB cards for only about $10 more?

Your frame buffer is going to be limited to the smallest memory size. If it's only $10, I'd definitely go with the 1GB.

 

[pontifex]

ordered 2 powercolor hd 4850s with 1 GB ram each. Came out to a bit over $400 or so with shipping. getting 119.00 or so cash back from MS live search and whatever I get from the sale of my 8800gt. so it'll be about $294 after the cash back. how much does a used 8800gt go for?

 

[pontifex]

should be here friday! i'll post some info on how well they work once i get them installed and test them out.

 

[pontifex]

got my cards, installed them and installed the drivers. how do i tell if crossfire is working properly?


HOLY SHIT!!!! it's definitely working!!

loaded up Crysis with the settings i used for my single 8800gt which are mostly high with a few mediums. I got about 35-40 FPS average with that.

with my 4850 CFs I'm getting anywhere from 45 to 103 FPS! lol

I just changed EVERYTHING to very high with 8x AA and I am getting 25-35 FPS!!!!

This is fucking amazing!!!

 

[Tempered81]

Originally posted by: pontifex
I'm playing STALKER Clear Sky... Everything with DX10 I get maybe 10-11 FPS.

How does 4850 Crossfire perform here? What drivers are you using?

 

[pontifex]

Originally posted by: jaredpace

Originally posted by: pontifex
I'm playing STALKER Clear Sky... Everything with DX10 I get maybe 10-11 FPS.

How does 4850 Crossfire perform here? What drivers are you using?

haven;'t tried it yet but will here soon

 

[pontifex]

well, i was able to set everything to max in stalker, restarted the game and i get a black screen while i can hear the music playing. it says something about the XRengine.exe crashing.

it also shows that my video drivers stopped working and recovered.


reinstalling Clear Sky and will see if that makes a difference.


nope, same problem

ok, got it narrowed down to enabling DX10. it craps out when i try to use dx10.

was able to play after it gave me that message this last time but when i reloaded it, it would go to that black screen again.

I also reinstalled the latest catalyst drivers.

I don't get it.

when i could play, i was getting 28 to 76 FPS with MAX settings.

 

[pontifex]

what do you guys set your fan speeds to?

 

[pontifex]

i experienced some graphical issues in Assassin's Creed. but only during the startup. Once it got to the main menu and in the game, everything was fine.

I am also seeing some graphical issues in The Settlers: Rise of an Empire - Eastern Realm expansion. It's a sort of RTS/City building type of game and as you explore, you open up new regions, basically areas on the map that you can now see. It still has the fog of war though. What happens is that in some regions, the entire regions is like a solid green color. You can't see anything within that region.

odd...i took a screenshot and then alt tabbed out. when i went back to the game, the green stuff was gone, but one of my buildings has this huge elongated thing coming out of it. took a screenshot, alt tabbed again, went back and it was gone.

bah, now i get more glitches in settlers where it was working fine before.

here are some pics of what it is doing in Settlers. So far this is the only game where the graphics while playing get screwed up.
pic1
pic2

 

[pontifex]

oh snap! i went to put my 8800gt on ebay and when i grabbed the box, i was like "this feels heavy for an empty box". When I open, there sits my old 8800GTS 320. I was like "awesome! more money to pay for the cost of the new cards!" so now i've got the 2 cards on ebay, plus the motherboard I had sent back to Gigabyte for repair. Don't need it any more so I threw that up on ebay as well.

With the sale of these things plus my MS Live Cashback, this upgrade will be fairly inexpensive!