[nzaneb]

I'm wondering how much (if any) I'm limiting the capabilities of my 4850's in crossfire, due to my Phenom 9550. The processor is overclocked to 2.7, but I've heard that crossfire doesn't really shine until you get to 3Ghz or above.
Should I get a 9950? I can get a 140W version for pretty cheap right now... what do you guys think?
How do the 140's compare to the 125's?

[Kuroimaho]

You know with all the denebs around I think would be a waste to get a Ph1 even for 100USD over the current one, rather wait for a lower clocked deneb will do 3G and still beat the ol BE.

Btw I wouldn't worry that you leave something in the cards as long as your min FPS doesn't drop too low, can you tell whether you run 80 or 120 FPS ?

[Duo Maxwell]

Depends, what res and games we talking?I wouldn't bother with CF with those cards at less then 1920x1080/1200 or higher. Since yes, unless you're blasting ahead with every quality setting maxed w/ at least 8x aa and 16x af or higher you're still not working those things out fully and thus could be hitting a cpu wall at 2.7Ghz.

Thats not to say that you may not be getting good FPS on those kinds of settings if the game doesn't like CF very much.

Check this out http://www.guru3d.com/article/cpu-sc...re-processors/ for when you are hitting a CPU vs a GPU limitation. Sure they tested with an 8800Ultra, but that was the fastest thing out at the time the chart was done.

Check this as well for the 4850 in CF http://www.guru3d.com/category/vga_charts_crysis/

[AngelfireUk83]

Originally Posted by Duo Maxwell

Depends, what res and games we talking?I wouldn't bother with CF with those cards at less then 1920x1080/1200 or higher. Since yes, unless you're blasting ahead with every quality setting maxed w/ at least 8x aa and 16x af or higher you're still not working those things out fully and thus could be hitting a cpu wall at 2.7Ghz.

Thats not to say that you may not be getting good FPS on those kinds of settings if the game doesn't like CF very much.

Check this out http://www.guru3d.com/article/cpu-sc...re-processors/ for when you are hitting a CPU vs a GPU limitation. Sure they tested with an 8800Ultra, but that was the fastest thing out at the time the chart was done.

Check this as well for the 4850 in CF http://www.guru3d.com/category/vga_charts_crysis/

After reading that 1st Guru3D benchmark I'm really happy I choose a 9550 framerates where decent through out all the game there but I'm puchasing a 48** series card soon with defo 512mb memory onboard. I'm also waiting for my webshop to release the new OCZ 4GB Reaper pack they are getting in stock at £70 then going to go back to VISTA see what numbers I get also buying a WD 640GB HDD Black as my current 250gb is getting rather noisy and sluggish sometimes.

I'll be bottleknecked for sure with the 8600GT it's PCI-E 1.0 and mid range but its better than a 6600GT.

[KTE]

As Duo Maxwell said, it depends entirely on your game settings. At usual settings, no, GPU or chipset is the only bottleneck, not CPU. High-end GPUs like the X2 GPUs are the exception - they require heavy CPU processing, mostly by the driver and hence much more CPU power. Most of the CPU work is driver and audio.