Would a dual core opty @ 3 Ghz bottleneck 2 HD3870 GPU's???

chris21adan

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Feb 27, 2006
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Would a dual core Opteron running @ 3 Ghz bottleneck 1 or even 2 HD3870 GPU's? It'd be great if I could hold onto my socket 939 motherboard and 2 gigs of DDR ram for another year. Anyone?
 

MarcVenice

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Apr 2, 2007
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You'd have to be buying it, for how much ? Dunno, might want to see how much you can get for your mobo, opteron 144 and 2gb of ddr 400mhz ram. With some luck another 100$ added to that buys you a p35 mobo and a e4300 or so, which won't bottleneck you at 3.0ghz. With an opty it's a bit tricky, depending on the price it might be worth it though.
 

chris21adan

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Feb 27, 2006
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I can buy 2 HD3870's for 300 bucks total to go along with a dual core Opty running @ 3 Ghz. Btw, is it true that 2 3870's will give me the same performance as 1 8800GTX???
 

darkxknight

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Aug 5, 2004
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Originally posted by: chris21adan
I can buy 2 HD3870's for 300 bucks total to go along with a dual core Opty running @ 3 Ghz. Btw, is it true that 2 3870's will give me the same performance as 1 8800GTX???

hook me up? and it will most likely outperform a single 8800gtx when its compatible with the game
 

Ares202

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plus crossfire is a hell of a lot better than SLI these days, i think youll probably be fine with the opty but a bigger processor is always better
 

imported_Section8

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Aug 1, 2006
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Originally posted by: chris21adan
I can buy 2 HD3870's for 300 bucks total to go along with a dual core Opty running @ 3 Ghz. Btw, is it true that 2 3870's will give me the same performance as 1 8800GTX???

A HD 3870 for 150 bucks? Where, if you don't mind me asking.
 

Creig

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Oct 9, 1999
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Originally posted by: Section8
Originally posted by: chris21adan
I can buy 2 HD3870's for 300 bucks total to go along with a dual core Opty running @ 3 Ghz. Btw, is it true that 2 3870's will give me the same performance as 1 8800GTX???

A HD 3870 for 150 bucks? Where, if you don't mind me asking.

Ditto!
 

chris21adan

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Feb 27, 2006
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The HD3870's are going for 200 bucks @ Bestbuy. I have a 100 dollar gift card so that's 100 bucks for 1 card and 200 for another without a gift card.
 

Denithor

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Apr 11, 2004
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Take a look at the second set of charts on this page for the reason why. And note that they mislabeled those three charts, they were actually run at a GPU-bound resolution:

We then cranked up the resolution to 1920 x 1200, and increased the world detail slider up to 5 to give us a more realistic situation for this clock speed comparison.

When you are GPU-bound, the CPU takes a definite back seat to the video card. If you are gaming at very high resolution (the only reason you should even consider Crossfire) your Opty@2.85GHz should be enough to push some decent frame rates.

Also, keep in mind that you need a very strong power supply to handle a multi-GPU setup.

EDIT: Just noticed you have a SLI-compatible motherboard and want to run Crossfire cards on it. Will that even work?
 

aldamon

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Originally posted by: Denithor

EDIT: Just noticed you have a SLI-compatible motherboard and want to run Crossfire cards on it. Will that even work?

Yeah, that might be a small problem with the plan. :laugh:

 

chris21adan

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Feb 27, 2006
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Originally posted by: aldamon
Originally posted by: Denithor

EDIT: Just noticed you have a SLI-compatible motherboard and want to run Crossfire cards on it. Will that even work?

Yeah, that might be a small problem with the plan. :laugh:
I never said I was going to use the same board though. I have a crossfire board laying around that I'd like to use.
 

TanisHalfElven

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if your going through that much troube, just pick up a cheap mobo and a cheap core 2. ddr2 is getting cheaper and cheaper (damn it, i paid 150 for my ddr 2gb and now ddr2 2gb sticks are 40 bucks) so that makes it easier to upgrade ram and stuff. after all 2gb is gonna a be a slight problem in the newest of games.