Hey guys,

Just wondering if anyone here has dual ATI 4850's running in crossfire... if so, what kind of performance do you get in BC2 and other newer games. I have one 512mb 4850, but am thinking about buying another identical one and running it in crossfire. It's either that, or spend a couple hundred dollars on a newer card which will most likely not yield as good a performance.

My system:
Intel core 2 duo 3.0ghz wolfdale processor
4GB ddr2 800 RAM
Saphire ATI Radeon 512mb 4850
ASUS P5Q Pro mobo

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___________Fireteam Zulu | Graphics Team Leader | SFC____________

You'll prolly run into your processor being a bottleneck for the cards. So the answer is " it depends " on if your cpu can pump out enough info for the cards.

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New Siggy; What do you think?

well I'm pretty sure my cpu isn't outdated yet... that would be the next upgrade after the video card though.

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___________Fireteam Zulu | Graphics Team Leader | SFC____________

I meant if you did Crossfire. Its a whole different ball field when your just running one card compared to two cards.

Its going to be more of a test it out kind of deal;

Check the FPS with one card, then add the secondary card and if the min FPS hasn't increased then two cards isn't helping you.

I personally would want the processor to be equal to if not more than 3GHz for one card to keep the fps up and the bottlenecks down.

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New Siggy; What do you think?

the nice part of the ati crossfire is they don`t have to be identical.something to think about

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I am running dual 4850's in crossfire. My research found the proformance is about equal to a single 4870 card. I run both WaW and BFBC2 at max settings with no problems. except in BFBC2 there is a directX issue so I forced the game to run under direct 9 or 10 can't remember which one. I don't run any utility to display frame rates in BFBC2 but in WaW I get a consistant 90FPS. I am running on a Quad Core 2.6 Intel now but got the same FPS on my old dual core 2 with the same memory config as yours. It would be a cheap upgrade for you with a nice perforamce boost.

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well right now I get perfect performance on max settings in WaW, however, BC2 my pc has a bit of trouble with... I've been reading on Tom's Hardware about running dual 4850's and they said the performance should be that of one new 5830. That's kinda disapointing to me that you've found it to only be as good as a 4870, because that doesn't seem worth a 200 dollar upgrade. (200 dollars because I would need a new power supply.)

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___________Fireteam Zulu | Graphics Team Leader | SFC____________

Prolly more than that ^_^

my personal rule of thumb is never buy cards that look like this


Always get ones that look like this


Also dont skimp on the PSU, make sure you get one that has good strong rails to power the cards fully; Karows cards may not be being pushed to there limits due to a power shortage on a rail. ( i cant remember if it was Wesley or Karow who has the Dell ) OEM computers are built to sustain what comes with the computer not added parts. Not to mention OEM graphics cards aren't as good as parts you buy from say Newegg or Tigerdirect. People simply buy from them because its easier than building a computer. ( Sorry Karow i just used you as a reference )

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New Siggy; What do you think?

well my dad's rule of thumb is the opposite. The heatsink on my card looks like the first one that you posted.

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___________Fireteam Zulu | Graphics Team Leader | SFC____________

Basically the top ones end up being the cheaper cards; The bottom ones end up costing more :)

The more you pay the better your card is going to be ( in theory )

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New Siggy; What do you think?