upgrade time?

[moocow0463]

i have 2 hd4890's in crossfire and it does pretty good on every game i play, but i could potentially sell the 2 cards and get something better like a 6850 and then crossfire that some time down the road but until i had the money for the second card i would maybe lose some performance. or i could maybe sell the 2 cards and get a 6890. or would another part of my system bottleneck a gpu upgrade?

[Darkleoco]

A GPU upgrade is always nice especially from an older Crossfire setup to a single card setup, from the looks of your system I don't see anything that would be a significant bottleneck so my advice is get upgrading X D

[lilhasselhoffer]

?

Perhaps you mean a 6870? Or maybe a 6950?


At any rate, going with a single 2 GB 6870 is a good call in my book. The card comes in at about $200. You'll get faster RAM, more RAM, and the power consumption is a bit more reasonable.

As far as losing anything, I don't think graphic performance will take too big of a hit. I usually run an older CPU and a 6870 and I can run just about anything at high settings 1080p (CPU limited, I'm waiting for the next upgrade).

[John Doe]

I wouldn't go single card after that setup. 4890 CF should perform like a 295, which bases it's power on two underclocked 275's in SLi. And 1 GB vRAM is still sufficient for most games. Looking at these charts, I'd guess your only real upgrade would be a 3 GB 580 or again a dual-GPU setup. Well unless you don't want to wait for CF profiles.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/168?vs=162

[Darkleoco]

I wouldn't go single card after that setup. 4890 CF should perform like a 295, which bases it's power on two underclocked 275's in SLi. And 1 GB vRAM is still sufficient for most games. Looking at these charts, I'd guess your only real upgrade would be a 3 GB 580 or again a dual-GPU setup. Well unless you don't want to wait for CF profiles.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/168?vs=162

Where are you coming up with any of that? a 3 GB 580? You completely ignore all of the other cards that can top a 580 including Crossfire setups with 4 GB vRAM between the two cards.

[John Doe]

Where are you coming up with any of that? a 3 GB 580? You completely ignore all of the other cards that can top a 580 including Crossfire setups with 4 GB vRAM between the two cards.

Reading compherension?

a 3 GB 580 or again a dual-GPU setup.

[Darkleoco]

Reading compherension?

Simply seemed rather odd to me that you only mentioned a 3 GB 580 by name when the sheer cost if it makes it rather impractical compared to a cheaper crossfire setup that will provide more power.

[Anusha]

I have to agree with John Doe.
Dual HD4890 ~ a single HD5870, less DX11.
the only cards faster than a HD5870 are
1. 6970 (which is only about 10-15%)
2. GTX570 (again about 10-15% faster) - no point getting the GTX480 eh?
3. GTX580 which is about 30-50% depending on the title
4. Or any other dual card setup which will give double or more the FPS in almost any title.

[John Doe]

Simply seemed rather odd to me that you only mentioned a 3 GB 580 by name when the sheer cost if it makes it rather impractical compared to a cheaper crossfire setup that will provide more power.

No, I mentioned it because it's the best single GPU. So you don't have to wait for CAT HotFix'es in some cases. I didn't "only" mention it, you read it that way since you're acting like a fanboy. I clearly said; OR A DUAL GPU setup. That's what I'd suggest as well but it's up to the OP to decide on, not you or me. So both suggestions are logicable on their own.

[moocow0463]

ok so it looks like ill hold off for a while, the other thing to consider would be the voltage requirement of the 4890 is quite high compared to other cards also the 4890 runs hotter because of this so overclocking is limited

[Hayder_Master]

Dude if u try to sell 2x4890 that's mean you should think for real jump in performance not a bit different, i will say if you don't get an gtx580 or 6970 keep on what you have, or take an 6950 and crossfire it.