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Crossfire 4890's or 1 5870 or wait

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1ad7

Registered
Joined
Feb 13, 2008
Location
San Antonio, TX
Price isnt a issue really, 400 5870 or 200 usd 4890x2 or wait and see... Im building a hole new rig sitting around 1700 with a new monitor and a 5870.

Ive thought about crossfire 4890's, that was always the plan but then comes crossfire, possible stutter etc.

Or should I wait for fermis release to drop 5000 prices?

I game at 1920x1080 currently and will stay that way with new monitor, just smaller screen...

All games except Arma 2 are very playable and will improve going from E8500 to 920.

I think ARMA 2 is killing my cpu as my cpu usage is always 100 both cores while gpu jumps between 50% and 99% with near zero change in frame rate, as if it doesnt have to sweat to keep up...

A SSD is part of this upgrade so arma 2 texture lag should cease

Help
 
You have a couple of things to consider..

4890's is a good option, they aren't DX11 like the 5870, but will probably be a bit faster. Not sure if that would be true at high res though.
I don't see how your CPU is causing stutter at 4.27GHz, but maybe it is.

If I was you and didn't really care about cost, I'd go with a 5870. Only because it's a better upgrade path. Dual 5870's (what I have), is just a beautiful thing. Once prices drop, and they will, you can always purchase another and crossfire them. I've seen numerous games where the perform is nearly 2x over a single 5870 - and SLI/CrossFire usually doesn't scale that well.

I would never buy older technology unless price/budget was forcing me in that direction.
 
when will ati and nvidia drop there next new card ? i have no idea how long the curent ones been out as ive been on a hardware vacation .. and i also want to build but its always nice to know when a new card will be released
 
5800 series is only a couple of months old - Nvidia should drop the 300 series fairly soon, but actual dates are sketchy.. Most tend to agree that if it is Q1, it will be towards the end. Maybe March or so.. I wish ATi and Nvidia both had new cards out now, it would be good for the consumer.
 
5870 for sure over anything multiple cards. I dislike multiple cards.

Nvidia should have a new offering out around march.
 
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I had dual 4890's - they were great at first, and I also experience almost double performance in some apps, but eventually I got microstutter, got sick of the noise, heat, and power consumption, so I sold one of them. I plan to get a single 5870 soon, once prices come down a tad. From now on, I think I will always prefer a single card over dual cards, even though there are some gains to be had.
 
5870. Then you have DX11 available and you can always crossfire later once the prices drop. It's more future proof to go with newer cards when you can afford it.
 
until he gets to the stage hes at now in a year or so and he's asking should i get a second 5870 or get the new fangled 6890 with dx 12......

if price really isnt an issue get 2 5870s or a 5890 :)

i'd always recommend buying the newest tech myself
 
Arma 2 has a ****ty texture lag due to tons of textures and ****ty optimization, SSD should improve that a bunch.

My current 4890 hardly gets full use in arma2, I should have plenty of horsepower but I dont... even at 4.3ghz, the guys we have with quads and lesser video cards kick my butt in fps... Arma2 only uses 2 cores but the I7's slay it compared to my core2.

I think as long as nothing changes, Ill grab a new 5870 :). Maybe even a 5890 if I can find one in stock when the time comes.

I appreciate the input and any further input
 
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