What's better, two 4850 in CF or a 4890?

[zettler]

For a gaming PC. For $170 I can get either and the rig will handle them...

Thoughts

 

[LOUISSSSS]

i'd go for the crossfire because i think it performs better, esp under 19x12 or higher

 

[zettler]

Thanks. I was typing that as I drove....my bad.

I just built my son a new rig with a gigabyte EP45-UD3P, 4 gig of OCZ and a 750w PS. I am using a Q9450 CPU.....

 

[heyheybooboo]

I ain't the video guru around here but I think 2 HD 4850s in Crossfire would slobber-knock a single HD 4890 for the most part .....





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[LOUISSSSS]

yea go for it, and ur psu is definitely ready forit

 

[zettler]

Turns out the 4850's are $200 and the 4890 is? 170. Still a good deal?

 

[DaveSimmons]

I prefer hassle-free performance from a good single card instead of worrying about whether ATI will bother to optimize game X for crossfire.

What resolution is your monitor? Even at 19x10 the 4890 offers good performance, though the crossfire setup will be better when it works.

 

[LOUISSSSS]

yea crossfire has been very trouble free these days. most problems are user errors. the drivers are very mature by now

 

[lavaheadache]

yea crossfire has been very trouble free these days. most problems are user errors. the drivers are very mature by now

i concur... running trifire with excellent results

 

[blanketyblank]

Another option is to get a 5770 when they are on sale for like 140. Then get a second if they go down in price in a few months. No reason to even consider 4850 CF since they lack the memory for the more demanding games anyways. 4890 is faster than a single card, but in most games now I consider the difference negligible since extra fps don't matter until you can't go over 30 fps with the 5770.

 

[yh125d]

I personally went for a 4890 for $165 back in july rather than two 4850 512's for $210. I'm glad I did. Less room, less heat, less power, never worry about being memory capped or CF issues. Only niggle with the 4890 is the chokes whine a little sometimes, but quietly

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

If those are 512MB 4850s, you'd probably be better off going with the 4890 and its 1GB of VRAM.
Was in the same situation as the OP and went the 4890 route. Didn't regret it.

 

[evolucion8]

There's a review around (I can't seem to find it) that showed that the VRAM limitations with the HD 4850 CF are less evident compared to a single HD 4850, I have no idea why. But If you can get an HD 5770 and buy another for later it would be a better buy.

 

[zettler]

Well, this was a Best Buy deal and then a NO deal.

I was able to get the 4890 on clearance AND a use a 10% off coupon to get it for $170. Then, I get home and find the 4850's (1GB) are also on clearance but for 84.50 - when you can find them. I am in Springfield, IL and had to go to the St. Louis area today and they had two 4850's BUT would not PM the other Best Buy's clearance price, nor would they PM Fry's as the closest one was in Chicago...

They said I could buy the 4850's at regular price and take them to a BB store who had them on clearance to get the money back but I am not sure I will find one close enough...even though the Springfield store had them on clearance a few weeks ago but not at $84.50.

You see I have been building a new gaming PC for my son and the 4850 (512MB) card will not run in this rig! Whether it got screwed up when I took it out of his former PC, or there are driver issues, or whatever, I keep getting the ATIDVIG2 or whatever error and am fed up trying to troubleshoot it!

I just bought him the new GIGABYTE EP45-US3P motherboard, am using the OCZ 4GB RAM, and have the Q9450 Yorkfield 45 nm CPU, so its not a bad build

I have the store credit at BB and hate to spend any more on this rig as I had told him that I "was" going to bump his Graphics card up on his birthday in May from the 4850 (512) but now I moght just have to give him the 4890 as I cannot get the 4850 to work properly in this rig - it worked it his former rig.

Right now I am beat and have spent the last three days working on this when I should have been doing other things so I am open to easy solutions - if there are any for my predicament!

Thanks again for hearing me out!!!

 

[LOUISSSSS]

Sounds like a driver problem. Reinstall but go in safe mode and run ccleaner after uninstalling and before installing

 

[zettler]

Sounds like a driver problem. Reinstall but go in safe mode and run ccleaner after uninstalling and before installing

I hadn't built a new PC in awhile and my first time with the gigabyte MB. On my first software install I tried to do the Catalyst before totally down updating the XP. That was when afterwards it said this catalyst required Net.......something and while it booted up when all was done, I kept getting the Blue Screen after 45 seconds.

I went ahead and reinstalled XP after reformatting the hard drive and when all was said and done, the new catalyst drivers gave me the same result.

However, I haven't tried cleaning the drive in safe mode but can't see that this new, clean install would require that?

The PC was running without any overclocking too. For that I am now very Leary....

 

[drew726]

If this was an older rig and you already had a 4850, i'd say get another but if you're building a new one, id say get a 4890

 

[VirtualLarry]

I hadn't built a new PC in awhile and my first time with the gigabyte MB. On my first software install I tried to do the Catalyst before totally down updating the XP. That was when afterwards it said this catalyst required Net.......something and while it booted up when all was done, I kept getting the Blue Screen after 45 seconds.

Blue screens? Is your power supply powerful enough?

 

[COPOHawk]

I just ran into this one on a customer computer. Stupid ATI drivers got corrupted. Try booting into safe mode and disabling/uninstalling the video card through device manager. Otherwise...go to msconfig and have minimal services at startup...so you can get to device manager before BSOD happens. You need to be able to get to the point of uninstalling the package through Add/remove programs...then reinstalling using the updated drivers from ati.com

I had this happen on clean XP Pro install where the ATI drivers were the only other thing installed!!! It made me very unhappy ;*

 

[zettler]

I just ran into this one on a customer computer. Stupid ATI drivers got corrupted. Try booting into safe mode and disabling/uninstalling the video card through device manager. Otherwise...go to msconfig and have minimal services at startup...so you can get to device manager before BSOD happens. You need to be able to get to the point of uninstalling the package through Add/remove programs...then reinstalling using the updated drivers from ati.com

I had this happen on clean XP Pro install where the ATI drivers were the only other thing installed!!! It made me very unhappy ;*

This is most likely the problem as my power supply is a new 750w one - Etastis?? I am going with the 4850 and will let you know how it goes.

Now about pushing that CPU......

 

[zettler]

I just love ATI drivers!!!!!!! NOT!!

I just did a clean install of the ATI drivers AFTER cleaning it several times under SAFE mode and now new problems.

Oh, and I went ahead and then installed the new HD 4890 and now I am getting:

* an issue when it boots that says "MOM.implementation" missing

* and now that it boots, when I right click on Catalyst it comes back with, "Could not load file or assembly 'CLI.Implementation' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified."

Man I am sick of this! These are the Catalyst 10.1 drivers too!

Any thoughts???

 

[evolucion8]

Never install drivers in safe mode, it lack of several services which are required for the proper installation of driver devices. Make sure you have the latest .Net frame work installed, the latest VC 2005/2008 iteration and the latest Windows updates.

 

[zettler]

Never install drivers in safe mode, it lack of several services which are required for the proper installation of driver devices. Make sure you have the latest .Net frame work installed, the latest VC 2005/2008 iteration and the latest Windows updates.

Hope, I just "UN" installed the old drivers in SAFE mode and reloaded them in regular. I am starting to wonder if this GIGABYTE MB has issues too as I keep losing the video (driver issues)...

I am really put out by this build as I have NEVER had problems like this before and I have built at least a dozen PC's in the past, from AMD to Intel, and never had issues like this with a ATI card.

Right now I trying to do an install of Windows 7 on a separate 400GB WD hard drive that is the same drive as the one I have been trying to use from the get-go. I was able to get my son a special from Digital River at Christmas time and just now downloaded it from the links I had from the email they sent me. When I tried to install from the .exe location, it got all the way to the end and came back that it couldn't do so because of folder issues.

Then, I tried it on the clean 400GB WD HD and same problem. Downloaded it twice too. Now the link was first downloaded from my email on another PC but I also copied it over to the new PC via a USB. Right now, I just do not know what to do as I thought maybe going to Windows 7 from XP Pro might fix things but I cant even get the install to work...

This was the 64-bit version - is that an issue???

 

[bryanW1995]

go down to one stick of ram. run memtest, 10 passes min. if it passes then try things out again.

a few years ago I went from a 1950xt to a 3870 and had all kinds of trouble. finally, aigomorla told me that I had a bad memory stick. sure enough, I did, so whenever I tried to install anything it got corrupted. It had probably been bad for a while, but I hadn't installed anything in a long time so I didn't notice it. naturally my first thought was that it was the video card.

 

[blanketyblank]

I'd check the RAM first before anything. I've run and installed windows with a bad stick of RAM before, and it can cause a lot of headaches. It often works fairly well so you don't even know you have a problem till some programs have problems or you blue screen.