HD4830 xFire v HD4850 xFire

[aspire]

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.

I've used an 8800gt for a year and a half and its ran everything I thrown at it.

Chances are a single 4770 will last him just as long. And when he needs more a year and a half later, he can pick up a second one for a fraction of the cost of the first and that'll last him another year or so.

You don't need to get a new fracking graphics card every 6 months, games don't move that fast...

 

[Drizzt]

I've used an 8800gt for a year and a half and its ran everything I thrown at it.

Chances are a single 4770 will last him just as long. And when he needs more a year and a half later, he can pick up a second one for a fraction of the cost of the first and that'll last him another year or so.

You don't need to get a new fracking graphics card every 6 months, games don't move that fast...

This +1

Also, tri fire scales decent with these cards judging from the results on XS. Tri SLI is the one that gives almost no performance benefits.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

Chances are a single 4770 will last him just as long. And when he needs more a year and a half later, he can pick up a second one for a fraction of the cost of the first and that'll last him another year or so.

It may last him a year and a half if he plays at 1440x900 but I seriously doubt it will at 1680x1050. You could even make a case for the HD 4770 being to slow for 1680x1050 now, much less a year and a half form now.

Going by the anadtech article the HD 4770 gets the following fps at 1680x1050.

38.7 Age of Conan High 4xaa
52.3 Call of Duty 5 High 4xaa
31.5 Crysis Warhead Medium no aa
39.5 Fallout 3 Ultra (custom) 4xaa
26.0 Far Cry 2 Ultra High DX10 4xaa
62.0 Race Driver GRID high 4xaa

Out of those 6 tests I would consider one of them borderline unplayable (Far Cry 2) and one of them to be run at unacceptably low settings (Warhead). While the others tests are playable at good settings the HD 4770 only manages to get 60fps or more in one of them.

 

[Drizzt]

I don't see far cry 2 on the results. and What was the settings for the test. Linkage please.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

Far Cry 2 was run at ultra high DX10 with 4xaa. I included the score and the setting but forgot the title.

AnandTech: Faster Graphics For Lower Prices: ATI Radeon HD 4770

 

[Drizzt]

That is a 4770 playing far cry 2 @ that resolution with dx10 + 4x AA with the highest settings. Are you telling me that you could not suffer turning down the AA?

I think aspires point is still valid. And all the more reason for someone to Xfire these cards at higher resolutions.

 

[aspire]

I game at 1680x1050 on my 22" LCD...

Not sure why 31 FPS in Crysis is considered borderline unplayable...

Still, not everyone games at resolutions as high as this, and for the money you can't beat the 4770 plus considering they only cost ~$100 you can buy 2 of them for the same price as the single 4890.


There's also the fact that the lower the initial cost the less it will wind up depeciating. Look at the e6300 Core 2 Duo's they sold for around $150 retail when they launched and still sell for about $80 bucks now, whereas my e6600 that cost me $310 sold on ebay for just $100.

 

[hikaricloud]

^^ That's a really good point, the % of depreciation is much lower than with high end or "bleeding edge".

I know the OP does game at 1920x1200, which was why I recommended the dual 4770 option, which is cheaper than the single 4890 and outperforms it in most cases. As soon as better driver support comes out, the performance will just be that much higher.

 

[gurusan]

At 1920x1200 I would recommend the 1gb 4890 actually....having the 512mb buffer run out is not pleasant. It happened occasionally when I had my old 4870 512mb

 

[hikaricloud]

Ignore kthx.