Spaztic_Reaper

Ok, I really love my new system even though it may not be the best, but it's done wonders for me. I recently got a good job with nice income so I was thinking of buying a 2nd sapphire toxic HD 3870 and running them both in crossifre. That would be a lot cheaper considering I already have one toxic HD 3870. But what I was curious about is whether a crossfire setup with dual toxic HD 3870's would work better than a Sapphire HD 3870 X2. Essentially I'm getting the same thing, just one way has both processors and all the memory on a single card.
Just curious on people's opinions on which setup would be better.

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And when we all looked at our friend while sitting next to the train tracks he put an unlit cigarette in his mouth and about 5 seconds later exclaimed "Shit I coulda sworn smoke was coming out of it, mus' be trippin balls."

[hobo]eclipse

with 2 3870's in CF you will still only have 512MB of RAM usable for games, it will not give you 1GB total for games.

For 1 gig gaming RAM u need the X2.

Get the X2 and let me know how mixed crossfire with the cards work!

Judas

actually that's not accurate either as the 1gb ram x2s still is 512mb per chip (if i read everything correctly)

you'll get the most performance from running a single x2 vs 2x single gpu cards.

however you would get an even larger boost from 3x gpus

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Spaztic_Reaper

So mixing the toxic and an X2 sound like the best situation, but do you think there'd be any issues with crossfiring the 2 cards? Can't think of any reason why there would be, but just curious.

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And when we all looked at our friend while sitting next to the train tracks he put an unlit cigarette in his mouth and about 5 seconds later exclaimed "Shit I coulda sworn smoke was coming out of it, mus' be trippin balls."

[hobo]eclipse

i guess it "should" work, DH had a 3x50 card crossfired with a 2900 didnt they?

Spyre

@ Spaztic_Reaper
you can run a 3870 with a 3870X2 quite happily if you wanted to.

@ [hobo]eclipse

Was highly unstable and is no longer possible.

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[hobo]eclipse

thats all that matters!

Spaztic_Reaper

Cool, now I just need the $340, any donations? Should actually be able to afford it near the end of this summer, though I think that my processor will probably end up limiting the full potential of both cards.

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And when we all looked at our friend while sitting next to the train tracks he put an unlit cigarette in his mouth and about 5 seconds later exclaimed "Shit I coulda sworn smoke was coming out of it, mus' be trippin balls."

Spaztic_Reaper

Ok, I just read some reviews on the toxic card, and with those crossfired and oc'd, one guy said that his intel quad core started choking them, even after ocing it. So wouldn't my phenom 9850 BE limit two toxics as well, thus making it kinda pointless to spend the xtra cash to get an X2 to crossfire with my toxic?

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And when we all looked at our friend while sitting next to the train tracks he put an unlit cigarette in his mouth and about 5 seconds later exclaimed "Shit I coulda sworn smoke was coming out of it, mus' be trippin balls."

OldBuzzard

Not as long as the 3870/3870x2 setup still gives you increased performance over a 3870/3870 setup.

It's probably impossible to get a CPU/GPU combination that is exactly matched. You are almost always going to be either CPU limited, or GPU limited.

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When looking for a reason as to why things go wrong, never rule out sheer STUPIDITY

Zelig

Depends on what resolution you game at. If you play at low resolutions, then there probably isn't much point in getting anything past the 3870 for now.

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Judas

the benefits of crossfire in MOST games is seen when running resolutions higher then 1400x900

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Spaztic_Reaper

Sadly, the highest resolution my monitor supports is 1400x990, it's an Acer 19" widescreen, and i really don't want a bigger monitor

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And when we all looked at our friend while sitting next to the train tracks he put an unlit cigarette in his mouth and about 5 seconds later exclaimed "Shit I coulda sworn smoke was coming out of it, mus' be trippin balls."

Judas

Then your riding the line of crossfire being usless/useful..

If you can't make of the gpus for higher resolution.

just start cranking up the settings/ AF 16x and FSAA over 4x

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Spaztic_Reaper

Yeah, that's what I'm mainly lookin for is crankin the settings up, oblivion still gets a bit choppy if I put AA above 4 with HDR on also.

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And when we all looked at our friend while sitting next to the train tracks he put an unlit cigarette in his mouth and about 5 seconds later exclaimed "Shit I coulda sworn smoke was coming out of it, mus' be trippin balls."

Callandor

Piece of advice, get a Samsung monitor or Viewsonic (make sure its original) maybe, Acer is not a good monitor for gaming, watching movies or anything actually. Samsung is the best in fact I believe but if you're planning on getting better visuals and you have the money, then replacing your 19'' Acer with something better would be a smart move too.

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Spaztic_Reaper

Sadly, I don't really have the money for a new monitor, but really I've never had any issues with my Acer, seems to do just fine visual-wise for gaming, only thing I'd really want to gain is higher res., but I'm not gonna spend $200-300 just for that.

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And when we all looked at our friend while sitting next to the train tracks he put an unlit cigarette in his mouth and about 5 seconds later exclaimed "Shit I coulda sworn smoke was coming out of it, mus' be trippin balls."

ChaosMinionX

Little late on the topic.... But a dualGPU card performs better than a crossfired pair... so 2 HD3870's vs 1 HD3870X2 The X2 is faster because of the reduced latency from both GPU's being on the same PCB, and the distance that has to be traveled to communicate is cut down significantly, there is no crossfire link to travel across. So the info from the card goes right from the same PCIE lane and right to your processor. This is marginally better +/- 5% maybe on some things sensitive to latency.

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Spaztic_Reaper

So would it be better to sell my toxic card for a good price and put that money towards an X2 or just wait longer for the X2 and crossfire the toxic and the X2?

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And when we all looked at our friend while sitting next to the train tracks he put an unlit cigarette in his mouth and about 5 seconds later exclaimed "Shit I coulda sworn smoke was coming out of it, mus' be trippin balls."

Callandor

Sell your card, get an x2 and then later get another x2 when you have the cash, much better set up for the long run.

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Spaztic_Reaper

I have one concern though, my processor is an AMD Phenom 9850 BE, stock clocks right now, unsure on howto OC processor. One guy left a review saying he had an Intel Quad core(can't remember which model) and just 2 toxic cards xfired and his processor was actually bottlenecking the cards' performance. So considering the intels are a bit higher on the performance end right now, wouldn't i run into the same problem therefore making xfiring 2 X2s kinda pointless?

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And when we all looked at our friend while sitting next to the train tracks he put an unlit cigarette in his mouth and about 5 seconds later exclaimed "Shit I coulda sworn smoke was coming out of it, mus' be trippin balls."

Callandor

For future my friend, and in any case the single x2 is still the best and most value for money solution.

Edit: don't have to buy the second one anytime soon.

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ChaosMinionX

Its not a bottleneck per say.... more like the cards love a faster processor even well into the 5ghz range they just want more and more. But by no means is a quad clocked over 3ghz choking the card, its only really from a synthetic standpoint that this "choke" is apparent.

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