HD5850 crossfire is it worth it??

[Blade1]

Thinking of up grading to another HD5850 and crossfire them, few questions before i do though:

1. I play games like AvP (newest) cryris, grid and dirt 2 all at there highest settings with between 2x and 4x AA at 1920x1200 and the one card plays them fantastic....so would i notice a great deal by installing another 5850?

2. I also have a ASUS M4A79XTD EVO in my system, this supports 2 pci slots to crossfire, one slot is 16x but two together in crossfire are 8x....will this make a difference?

3. Would i use two bridges to connect the cards if i went ahead?

Many thanks for your thoughts on this.

 

[crinkleshoes]

1.You would notice a big improvement in frame rate in AvP & crysis... grid and dirt 2 wouldn't be a big difference... but you could certainly up the AA even more...

Metro 2033 would benefit a great deal... and I would expect quite a few of the games coming out over the next few months would be nicer to play with a second card...

2. That'll be fine - most motherboards are like that iirc

3. Yup

 

[Ritsugamesh]

Go for it mate. That setup should last you a long time in the coming year or two. You can also rest easy knowing that with the recent show of the 4xx series, you are getting a really good value for your money with 2 5850's.

Enjoy! I'd answer all your questions again but crinkleshoes hit the nail on the head with all 3.

 

[Blade1]

Go for it mate. That setup should last you a long time in the coming year or two. You can also rest easy knowing that with the recent show of the 4xx series, you are getting a really good value for your money with 2 5850's.

Enjoy! I'd answer all your questions again but crinkleshoes hit the nail on the head with all 3.

Thanks for the replies, will go ahead and order....when they come in stock.

 

[Kharbyne]

After looking at the prices of the 400 series this is now the setup im looking towards also

 

[reiyushin]

After looking at the prices of the 400 series this is now the setup im looking towards also

Yea, 1x 480 or 2x 5850 seems like a no brainer.

 

[555BUK]

I went from a single 5870 to Crossfired 5850's and then back to a single 5850 overclocked to 1000core/1200mem. I game at 1920x1200 and to be completely honnst the only difference between crossfired 5850's and a single 5850/5870 is the ammount of AA you can use. A single 5850 can use 4xAA and Max settings on most games versus 8xAA and Max settings for crossfire.

I always play with Vsync enabled so 60fps is all I need. People with 120Hz displays may notice much bigger gains from crosffire, but for me it was largely overkill.

 

[singh_uk]

I am considering purchasing Crossfired 5850s also but have read that the 1GB of RAM is the main bottleneck on the 5850 and crossfiring it, it is still limited to 1GB so at 1080p with high levels of AA the second 5850 is a bit of a waste of money?

 

[engstrom0304]

It makes a big difference when paired with a nice cpu...
I have just sold my second 5850 though because on 99% of games the framerate was far above 60fps (the monitors refresh rate) and there was no point..

One 5850 is powerful enough if you dont game that much.

 

[Blade1]

I am considering purchasing Crossfired 5850s also but have read that the 1GB of RAM is the main bottleneck on the 5850 and crossfiring it, it is still limited to 1GB so at 1080p with high levels of AA the second 5850 is a bit of a waste of money?

What do you think you will do?

 

[regulus]

Apart from Metro and Crysis which practically melts your hardware, a single 5850 is enough for 1920 x 1200 with x 2 AA. Your 5850 should already play all games at good enough settings to please you. Adding another 5850 while nice to have, isn't really needed unless you think Metro and 3 year old Crysis is worth paying £200 + for. Personally I'm going to go XF as the second card is a gift. Otherwise, I would've stuck with the one , OC the pants off it and pick up a second one once they hit the £170 mark.

 

[singh_uk]

What do you think you will do?

Probably what the guy above said - it doesnt make sense to get a 5870 when you can OC the 5850 to similar levels, so I will get 1 5850 to begin with and if it isn't cutting it then add another 5850. Failing that, live with it until the next ATI refresh comes out or the new Fermi/6 series cards by the end of 2010/early 2011, and sell the 5850 since it's pretty good value now (compared to other cards) and I can't imagine it depreciating massively.

If anyone knowledgable can say any more about the 1GB bottleneck issue it would be good

 

[crinkleshoes]

I went from a single 5870 to Crossfired 5850's and then back to a single 5850 overclocked to 1000core/1200mem. I game at 1920x1200 and to be completely honnst the only difference between crossfired 5850's and a single 5850/5870 is the ammount of AA you can use. A single 5850 can use 4xAA and Max settings on most games versus 8xAA and Max settings for crossfire.

I always play with Vsync enabled so 60fps is all I need. People with 120Hz displays may notice much bigger gains from crosffire, but for me it was largely overkill.

Most games yes, but the most demanding games, no...

A single 5850 is not enough to play Metro 2033/Crysis/BF:BC2/AvP on full settings at 1920x1200...

A second one will make Metro 2033 a lot nicer (although will still struggle)... crysis will go from 35-40fps up to more like 55-60fps on max... BF:BC2 will run stable with HBAO on, a single 5850 would give a dodgy frame rate with that on... AvP doesn't run brilliantly on a single 5850 either...

And so I would imagine... with other games coming out soon based on similar & more demanding engines... a single 5850 is going to really struggle to run them on max...

 

[555BUK]

1GB does not really become an issue until you go ABOVE 1920x1200 with lots of AA and texture effects. Unless you have a 30" screen 1GB will suffice, with 2GB largely being a waste of money.

 

[Alex h]

yes it would be better but like others have said only on a couple of games if it was me id have 5850 single wait for the prices to drop see what games come out and if they need extra power buy another 5850 then