[Darren]

Originally Posted by Jayrod0428

Graphics Card $114.99 - free shipping - $10.00 rebate
HIS Hightech H485FN1GP Radeon HD 4850 1GB 256-bit GDDR3 CrossFire
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814161275

^--- Is this not a dedicated video card? It's also CrossFire capable... I'm sure you might have missed it.

And what do you mean by extortionate prices? Is the Phenom II Quadcore that much better for the price? I'm concerned with heating a quadcore as well. Doesn't it require substantially more wattage as well?

Nice choice in video cards, the 4850 will serve you well. I'd probably drop the crossfire motherboard for a regular one and just pick up a single better solution such as the 4890 or 4870 X2. Heck a single 4850 is overkill.

For the price the Phenom X3 720, 810 and 920 are cheaper and faster than the E8400, it will be enormously faster in a year or two when more multithreaded applications appear.

Power consumption I can not comment on, Phenom IIs have better power consumptions than the i7, not sure about dual cores, I doubt it.


Edit:

Originally Posted by Jayrod0428

Why is one 4850 overkill? I plan to use the rig for gaming, not for the office-PC you alluded to in your first post. Also, I like the mobo I've selected quite a bit, and the Phenom is incompatible with it.

The 4850 actually isn't overkill. But my point is that its more than enough for gaming, even a single 4850 is enough for today’s games. It makes little sense buying a crossfire board with the hope to crossfire in a year or so, because when you decide to find a secondary 4850 they might not be in demand, they are even becoming hard to find now. In a year there will be a one card solution faster or as fast as two 4850s (most probably with DX11) for cheaper.


If you are going to crossfire do it straight away or do not bother at all.

Edit 2:


Also a non-crossfire motherboard would mean that you can put more money into a much single card solution now, crossfire is great when it works.


Edit 3:


You can crossfire any ATI 48xx series together.

For example the 4870 with the 4850 or the 4850 with the 4870 X2

So yes, the 4850 can be crossfired with the 4850 X2.


You have to trust us on this one, drop this crossfire idea. two 4850s and a crossfire ready motherboard will cost way more than a 4890. The 4890 would be faster 90% of the time. - actually performance is about the same, but from a price/performance ratio a single 4890 is the better choice.

The 4890 is only $200

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814161277

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814161276

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127427

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150359

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102831