HD4830 xFire v HD4850 xFire

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I disagree. 4770 CF is awesome bang/buck and will stay ahead of the 4890 in nearly all situations for some time to come.

I mean 9600GT cards are midrange yet in SLI they are still up there with the top dogs like the 280 in some situations...and they are pretty old cards now.
Exactly, I almost bought 9600gt sli I was so impressed.
They are pretty much exactly the same. Both are low fifties at idle and mid 70's at load. Well besides more heat and power and obviously support, there isn't much else to consider, but those alone are enough to turn me away from crossfire unless I'm using high end cards becuase i'm loaded with cash. I really just don't see the point in crossfiring these mid end( your right, the 4770 etc should not be classified low end) cards when you can get single solutions for not much more that are nearly as good.
Your saving money. Your getting more performance.
What i was trying to say before was that your going to be left with two really old low end cards in about a year.
Stop exaggerating. It's not really low end in a year. Most people with a 9600gt, 3870, 3850, 8800gt can play games just fine and it's approaching a year. And even if they were... that is how technology is. You would also have 1 low end card after a while as well with one single powerful card.
TThis is the same situation as the 9600gt sli vs 9800gtx+ situation, many people went for 9600gt sli over the single card, are not to say many people were happy, but if you look back now, i would rather have had a 9800gtx+ at this time then two9600gt's. This is just my opinion i guess, it's fair for us here to agree to disagree.
The 9800gtx+ gets spanked by the 4850 512mb, let alone 4870 in most games, while the 9600gt's in sli still carry on as great cards.

I did not say that 4850x2 is worse then the other cards i said in my eyes, its a bad choice because mainly it's high power consumption, heat and driver problems that it used to have/may have. (as far as these problems go i know there were a lot of people unhappy with both 4870x2 and 50x2's who ended up gettin different cards).
Actually, I see the opposite with the 4870x2's. People try out gtx280/285 and say "hmm not for me" and go back to 4870x2. At least that is what I have seen when looking for deals on used gtx280's.

And I know a lot of people who love the 4850x2. They are simply thrilled at the performance for it's price. And now there are not any major driver problems that I am aware of, if there ever were any. The only problem originally was that you had to get late drivers through sapphire.
Assuming you don't care about power consumption,
valid
older games
Not valid, what old game do you know that doesn't support crossfire can't be maxed out with a single 4830? Newer games are the ones your getting that 2nd card for. And you can FORCE crossfire in games that don't support it.
temperatures (or have a w/c setup or something planned) then it is a good card for 270, but i would take a gtx 280 over that card for the same price anyday.


Only reason I would take a gtx 280 over a crossfire setup is for folding. Which is exactly why I sold one of my 4850's. I already played all the newest games I wanted to play with excellent performance. Now it's folding time until the newer games and cards come out. I'm just waiting for a good deal to come along.

Not trying to attack you, but I think you are wrong. Multi gpu setups are getting better and better.
 
Might as well go with a crossfire 4850 setup.

Newegg.com - hd 4850

They are about 5 dollars more expensive. They really don't run that hot, only a few degrees warmer than the 4770. My iceq turbo actually idles at 36-38C never going past mid 50's and that's after my OC.
 
The 4850 is about equal to a 9800gtx+ by no means does it get spanked. see here EVGA 9800 GTX+ 512MB Video Card Review - Page 11
but that is besides the point. It's easy to see we both have different views, i see many people going to sli and crossfire nowadays, but for me i never really caught on, i still prefer single powerful cards then dual cards. I suppose your right there isn't probably any older games anymore that a 4830 couldn't max out, but if it were me i was would not want to be left with 4830's in the near future, thats just me. Same reason i would not go for a 4850x2 and would rather a gtx 280.
If you want to base your conclusion on performance only then yes i fully agree with you that a Xfire setup is going to perform better for less. Thats one thing we can agree on.
 
you guys got into it,

and I'm interested in the xFire because after this any money I spend on a computer will be part of a completely new and separate build(by the end of summer), then I'll be going with a single GPU monster

maybe even ATI's soon to be used architecture heh

and forgive me but now that the 4770 has been really brought to my attention it's becoming a nice option, the HD4830's compete with the HD4870 while the HD4770 Xfire compete with the HD4890

only issue to to me the HD4770's cooling, the original reference cooler looks to cool alot better
 
you guys got into it,
Giving our opinions for your benefit :p Hopefully you now can make a better decison.
and forgive me but now that the 4770 has been really brought to my attention it's becoming a nice option, the HD4830's compete with the HD4870 while the HD4770 Xfire compete with the HD4890
4770 is the better choice now.


offtopic: aspire says "the line by line dissections are annoying";)
 
offtopic: aspire says "the line by line dissections are annoying";)

r7n7fb.jpg


This picture comes across to DPG as funnier than it otherwise is.

But that's another story.
 
I am sorry my friend but that is not true. When you turn up the resolution the 4890 wins in just about every game, in many by a noticeable amount. (over the 4770s in crossfire).

That is true only at 2560 res and for some games like Crysis and Far Cry 2 which are more demanding on the frame buffer, which is now maxed at 512MB for the 4770. I play at 1920 and everywhere I've looked (bar Crysis and Far Cry 2, where they are just about even at that res, but I don't like those games anyway) the x2 was quite a bit faster. We will have to wait and see how those frame-buffer demanding games (and resolutions) respond when the 4770 gets a 1GB version.

Check this out, for example: HEXUS.net - Review :: Sapphire Radeon HD 4770 512MB in CrossFireX: beating up on high-end GPUs? : Page - 1/10

Here you will see the 4770 XF beating the 4890 OC 1G in EVERYTHING and by a big margin, except in CoH which addresses the frame buffer per GPU (clearly indicated in the benchmarks), and in 2560 in Far Cry 2 where they report a driver problem for the 4770 in XF. And consider that the 4850x2 is a faster card than two 4770s.

I know I have seen benchmarks with a 2GB 4850x2, gotta find them, because that card beats even the savagely overclocked Atomic-cooled 2GB 4890s.

The 4850x2 is still slightly more expensive than most the 4890s. It's also a huge card, not fitting in many cases.

You are probably right about the size, it is true that I (and most gaming enthusiasts for that matter), usually use very big cases, so in my case that is a non-factor. As for the price, here in the EU I've been seeing the 4890 2GB at just about the exact same price, may not be the case where you live. The 1GB 4890 is indeed somewhat cheaper than the 2GB 4850x2.

A single gpu is almost always a smarter decision than buying two low end cards.

I fully agree with that, but in my eyes any x2 card is just like a "single gpu" since it is one card.
 
4770 CF vs 4890 1gb

- Far Cry 2: 4770 CF wins at every resolution, with or without AA. Source.
- Crysis: 4770 CF wins at every resolution without AA. With AA 4890 wins. Source.
- L4D: Averaging out a tie between the two. Source.
- S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky: 4770 CF wins with no AA, also wins at 1280x1024, 1680x1050 with AA, about 2fps slower than 4890 in 1920x1200. Source.
- World In Conflict: 4770 CF wins at every resolution, with or without AA. Source.
- GTA4: 4890 wins. Source.

Tom's also compared it to a GTX 280 with mixed results. It pulled ahead about half the time, and kept up with it the other half. Source.

Now while I agree getting a better single GPU is good for upgrading purposes later down the pike, it really comes down to what kind of money you have, or will have in the future. While the 4890 is great for overclocking, at the moment it is the worst bang for buck card ATI has.

It's proven that even gaming at 1920x1200, the 4770 CF cards can keep up, and surpass more expensive single card solutions, even with lackluster drivers. That being said, this is all a matter of preference. The OP was speaking of the difference between 4830s and 4850s in crossfire...the 4770s would outperform the 4830s and be on par with the 4850s, if not a little slower.

The upshot to buying 2x 4770s is you can sell them later to get a bigger better card. Or you could buy a big single card solution. Up to you.
 
I would go for a single powerful card first. Crossfire is great but you can only add a second card once (yes I know that tri fire is an option but it tends not to scale well enough to be worth it at normal resolutions)

If you buy a HD 4890 now and need more power in 6 months you add a second HD 4890 which will most likely have had several price drops by then. However if you buy 2x Hd 4770's now and need more power in 6 months you have to get rid of both cards which are now worth a fraction of what you payed for them and buy either one or two new gpu's.
 
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