Crossfire 4890/4870 question

[King107s]

I have a 4870 512MB 780/1000 and just purchased a 4890 1GB 870/1050. I'll probably run these together in cross fire till I sell my 4870 for a second of the same 4890. Should I put the 4890 in the first 16x slot or second? Will it make a difference? Can the 4870 hold back the 4890?

 

[CharlieCS]

Yes you can , no it will not make a difference in which slot the card is. Yes it will , first off your available memory on 4890 will be 512 megs same as 4870 , and you will need to run them at the same Core and Memory clocks where the 4870 will hold you back .

 

[King107s]

Yes you can , no it will not make a difference in which slot the card is. Yes it will , first off your available memory on 4890 will be 512 megs same as 4870 , and you will need to run them at the same Core and Memory clocks where the 4870 will hold you back .

I kinda figured that... but having them cross fired would be better than the 4890 on its own right?

 

[CharlieCS]

Well yes and no , some games have terrible crossfire support so those will not benefit ( get the latest drivers ) , but yeah most games will run better , some games will run worse then if you just used your 4890 , since you will have only 512 meg GDDRAM and games like GTA4 require alot , its all really depends on settings and such but most games will likely benefit .

 

[Rich'[ard]]

I kinda figured that... but having them cross fired would be better than the 4890 on its own right?

hmm...they should, but last time i checked on the ATi website, there was a different tab for 4890 drivers ...you know when you select which drivers you want to download, there's a differnet tab for 4890 and 4800 series, if you get what i mean.

nonetheless, if the driver thing isn't an issue, both cards will run at the speed of the slower card, and yes you will get a pretty big increase in FPS, and your q9550 should be able to handle it. majority of games will work with crossfire these days. it was only when the 4800 cards were just released that there were crossfire issues. these issues are pretty much gone now.

 

[King107s]

hmm...they should, but last time i checked on the ATi website, there was a different tab for 4890 drivers ...you know when you select which drivers you want to download, there's a differnet tab for 4890 and 4800 series, if you get what i mean.

nonetheless, if the driver thing isn't an issue, both cards will run at the speed of the slower card, and yes you will get a pretty big increase in FPS, and your q9550 should be able to handle it. majority of games will work with crossfire these days. it was only when the 4800 cards were just released that there were crossfire issues. these issues are pretty much gone now.

The different drivers are probably to support the extra out put types ie HDMI.

 

[Rich'[ard]]

The different drivers are probably to support the extra out put types ie HDMI.

if that's the case, what drivers are you going to run?
because the 4870 might not like the 4890 drivers, and you can't run 2 different drivers on your PC, especially 2 ATi drivers.

have you tried the crossfire yet?

 

[jokers_greg]

curious to see how this goes, give us some screenshots once you have the cross-fire up

 

[King107s]

Sure thing... I get the 4890 on Wednesday.

 

[King107s]

I'm such a sucker for a sale! I just bought a second 4890 hehe

Just a heads up for any interested party... I'll be putting my Sapphire 4870 Toxic video card in the classifieds section for $100 and its only a couple months old.

 

[Rich'[ard]]

I'm such a sucker for a sale! I just bought a second 4890 hehe

Just a heads up for any interested party... I'll be putting my Sapphire 4870 Toxic video card in the classifieds section for $100 and its only a couple months old.

haha, succumbed to temptation.

at least you won't have the drivre problems you coudl've had.
is your 2nd 4890 the same model?

 

[jokers_greg]

damn! atleast try it out first!! lol

congrats on the find!

 

[King107s]

I'm a fan of 3DMark Vantage so I'll run all the configurations and post.

1) 4870 512MB 780/1000
2) 4890 1GB 870/1050
3) CF 4870 & 4890
4) CF 4890 & 4890

SAPPHIRE VAPOR-X 100269VXL Radeon HD 4890 1GB

SAPPHIRE TOXIC Radeon HD 4870 512MB

 

[jokers_greg]

i have the same 4890! LMK how it goes, you put it under water, or using stock cooler?

 

[King107s]

Stock vapor X cooler for now. My Toxic Vapor X stays in the low to mid 40's so I have been very pleased with the design of the Sapphire video card cooling solutions.

 

[King107s]

The Cross Fire set up was successful with the 4890 drivers! No issues at all

I will be getting the second 4890 on Friday and have the last set of benchmark data to post. I'll probably start a new thread for it though.