4870 or 4850 in xfire?

[michwolverine88]

Hey im buildin a pc right now and plan to try ati instead of nvidia.. current specs so far...

Core 2 Duo E8400 (hoping to oc to around 4.0GHz)
4 GBs (2 x 2GBs) OCZ Reaper 1066 PC 8500
ASUS P5Q Delux P45
Thermaltake 700W


I can't decide between one HD 4870 or running 2 4850's in xfire

My resolution is at 1680x1050 currently and probably will be for about 3 or 4 months till i can buy a new monitor but i just can't decide what to buy let alone which brand is best... VisionTek, Powercolor, or Sahpire? all good reviews on Newegg...

Anyone with some experience id appreciate the help im a noob when it comes to pc's and with vid cards :screwy:

p.s. Most 4850's are around $200 so the extra money isnt an issue just wanna know best bang for the buck and what you guys think..

Thanks! :attn:

[glock19owner]

:welcome:

Since you are going to be running a P45 board...its better to run one card so I would go with the 4870...

The reason why its better to run one card on a P45 board is because in CF mode both cards will only run at 8x8...single mode will run at full 16x

If you would of gotten a X38/48 chipset board...then it would of been better to run 2x4850's...the X38/48 chipsets run CF at 16x16...thats where you will see CF really shine...

As for brand...they are all good...Visiontek does offer a lifetime warranty though

[michwolverine88]

Hmmm I see... Well that does make a big difference in my choices good thing is i havnt ordered anything yet but I might have a new plan....

Gonna buy 1 HD 4870 and then in about 3 months i think ill upgrade to a HD 4870x2 and get a new monitor with it... this one looks real nice and should go nicely with the 4870x2 but i will settle with the single one for now http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009125 :santa:

Thanks a lot though for the info i would have never spotted the 8x8 thing!

This place is great btw thanks again for the help

[deathman20]

P45 board has little inpact in performance over a full 16x 16x lane board with 4870's, so with 4850's its going to be alot less of an impact.

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=571156

So really your board would be fine with 2x 4850's. Of course it wouldn't see maximum potential of the cards but it would be faster than a 4870 by a good margin if the game supports it.

[benbaked]

If money is not an issue, then this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102768) is the best ATi card available right now.

[deathman20]

If money is not an issue, then this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102768) is the best ATi card available right now.

Indeed that would be a cheaper upgrade if you plan on going to that anyways in the future. Depending on where you live that is.

[glock19owner]

Actually there is a bigger difference then what the thread test show...(given not that much when it comes to %...but 7FPS more in Crysis is a lot in reallity)

Complete Crossfire Chipset Comparison (http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=761)

[deathman20]

Actually there is a bigger difference then what the thread test show...(given not that much when it comes to %...but 7FPS more in Crysis is a lot in reallity)

Complete Crossfire Chipset Comparison (http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=761)

Rather trust someone from our site doing the tests then a review site. Personally preference thats all.

And given the fact like I said even though the CF 4850's might not be maximum power you'd get like on a 16x board using 8x's it still beat out the 4870 though, and get close enough to a 280GTX to make it worth the money. For $300-400 (depending on rebates) its a nice purchase. Then again so is the 4870X2 even for $550ish (in the US that is) probably be a better choice if you do plan on getting that card in the future as is, where your not going to be spending money on a card, then selling that one and getting a new one again loosing some money in the trade. Only issue with that is making sure you have enough power in the system to use such a card.

[glock19owner]

Only issue with that is making sure you have enough power in the system to use such a card.

I definetly second that statement...3870 Tri-Fire was putting a hurting on my OCZ 600w GameXstream...the 4870 is just a little under what my power comp. was on the tri-fire...

And if you ever plan on running quad-fire with dual 4870 X2's...you would really need to by in the 1000k -12000k PSU range...

As for the compairisons...Edmund did a great job on his testing...but its always nice to have more then one compairison...and Legions is a pretty well respected review site...so it was really in compairison :)

[IWasHungry]

P45 won't hold back 4850s by any significant amount. Either get those or a 9800GX2. There isn't any reason to buy a 4870 given 9800GX2 is $20 more.

[necrokiller]

512mb really doesnt do justice to that card with GDDR5....wait for the 4870 1GB if you can...I believe it will be ATI's best single-GPU card.

[deathman20]

512mb really doesnt do justice to that card with GDDR5....wait for the 4870 1GB if you can...I believe it will be ATI's best single-GPU card.

The ATI cards don't have the bottleneck with ram as the nVidia cards do. There won't be a huge difference between 512Meg and 1Gig, thanks to ATI's memory management. Yes it will be better but in this question is it really worth the price, which more or less is $50 or so probably.