Performance increase?

[Shucky]

Hey all new to the forums, you have some pretty cool digs here, stepping in for some questions I have on the new system I've built a week ago. OK I just stepped out of the realm of AGP into PCI-E, my setup is Corsair 650 Watt PSU, K9A2 Platinum MOBO, Phenom 9550 2.2Ghz X4 CPU, 1Gig X2 OCZ 1066 8500 Ram, right now two IDE drives 250 gig WD HD, and HP 640 DVD RW, Green Neon case with 6 fans 3 intake 3 exhaust, All right the kicker a BFG Tech 8800 GTS G92 512 for graphics. I neglected to do deeper research on the mobo at the time in my neglect to this, the board is a ATI chipset and thus is setup for Crossfire it still runs exceptionally well, beautiful in fact, however I would like to at some point setup two graphics cards all the forms and tech spots I read say I'm going to have to do it with ATI cards as oppose to the BFG card I now have.

Now my question, I'm looking to get two MSI 4850's and give the 8800 to a friend for his Bday, will I notice a big jump from the single 8800 GTS G92 card I have as of now to the two 4850's I'm thinking of getting? Also will I notice a drop in visual graphics going from Nvidia to ATI on some games, I play a lot of Id games, and a few Infinity Ward games as well. One thing that concerns me is on reading about dual 4850's not meeting any higher scores in 3dmark06 than a single card would do. Some of the examples I have seen only rate up to about 1000 more marks. Right now I average 10,778 marks with the 8800 GTS G92 I'm a bit scared to make the jump to two 4850's in Crossfire and blow that much money just to see 11,000 or 12,000 marks. Unless someone could tell me otherwise one way or the other would this be a good jump or not I might just stick with what I have.

Any help would be great thanks.

[martini161]

you wont notice to big a gain in real world performance with a crossfire setup like taht. why do you want to run dual graphics cards?

[InspectahACE]

I agree with martini....if you were to do dual graphics cards, in my humble opinion, SLI would be best....performance wise anyway, but with your current motherboard, that kind of leaves ya in a pickle..you could always do the dual gpu graphics cards to give you similar performance to 2 cards which both ATI and nvidia have...but you might have to upgrade the psu(maybe) in that event..that also depends on which graphics setup you go for..the choice of ATI card you have, and the current BFG card you have..I don't know the real world differences between the 2 models are...somethin tells me you're better off with just the BFG(nvidia) card..but I never really messed with those ATI cards in particular

[Shucky]

OK, so in this aspect would the ati 3870 X2 Card be better than the 4850 or 8800 GTS at that point I would like to put at least a ATI card on the motherboard strickly because of the chipset. The only reason for a dual setup was strickly for performance reasons, I would assume of course with one single top end card you get great marks and with two you would get even better, but like I said I don't want to drop a bunch of cash on two cards and only see a small amount of a jump. If the case is that I see better marks with a X2 Card I would go for that however I don't want to take a hit in Visual graphics by going to a 3870 X2 as appose to the 4800 cards. I'm really kind of at a lose at this one.

[DMB2000uk]

Are there games that you aren't happy with your current FPS in?

What resolution do you game at? and what quality settings do you generally use in game?

Single nvidia cards on a chipset meant for ATI crossfire will not impact the performance of the card in any way.
The same would occur if you were to run an ATI card on an SLI chipset board.

You will get better fps with the 4850 crossfire setup, but the question remains whether you will notice it as you should already be getting decent fps with your 8800GTS (unless you have a really high resolution monitor).

Dan

[martini161]

Yeah,unless you game on a 24 inch monitor or above, you only see an increase in synthetic benchmarks

[Methious]

I've got (and run) an 8800 GT, a GTX-260, 2 Sapphire 4850 Toxics in Crossfire, and a Sapphire 4870, the Toxics in Crossfire turn out some good numbers in Synthetics but their kinda craptastic in games. Maybe 6-9 FPS increase, but in 3Dmark Vantage just about doubled the score to 12000 (up from 6 some thing).

IMO a good single card or a good dual GPU single PCB card is the way to go. Like in Crysis in Crossfire the opponents have no heads. Single 4850 Toxic runs great. Single 8800 GT runs great. GTX-260 or 4870 runs fantastic.

If you really want headache free great graphics though I'd run gtx-260 or gtx-280, less heat in the case than the 4870. The 4870 though OCed with the CCC profile trick to kick the fan, it turns some darn good frames and synthetics. Plus the 4870 and 4850 will Crossfire if you want more later.

[Shucky]

Are there games that you aren't happy with your current FPS in?

What resolution do you game at? and what quality settings do you generally use in game?

Single nvidia cards on a chipset meant for ATI crossfire will not impact the performance of the card in any way.
The same would occur if you were to run an ATI card on an SLI chipset board.

You will get better fps with the 4850 crossfire setup, but the question remains whether you will notice it as you should already be getting decent fps with your 8800GTS (unless you have a really high resolution monitor).

Dan

Its not that I'm unhappy with it at all, really its two fold in a way, I would like to put together a ATI/AMD setup like said before I hadn't thought about it being a crossfire Mobo and didn't realise I would need two ATI Cards to do so, so I picked up a 8800 GTS and happy with it, however I'm trying to build myself a system I'm not going to have to upgrade for a long time while I have the money from school. I can't SLI the 8800 GTS on the Mobo so I want to think of the future and get a ATI card maybe two to keep from upgrading anytime soon. Like I've said the systems great, and if it had been a Nvidia chipset I would stay with the 8800 GTS and maybe add another later. As of now I can't SLI two of them because of my chipset so even in the future I wouldn't be able to put dual 8800 GTS in the system. Pretty much just wanted to know if I would be taking a hit going to ATI or not.

I had been playing on a system for four and a half years before this one, it was a Asus 939 AGP motherboard, 6800 GT, 2 gigs of ddr pc400 ram, and a 3200+ CPU. At the time I had the chance to get PCI-e Board however didn't and kicked myself tell now with this system, so needless to say I'm trying to complete a rig that I don't kick myself over, and not have to upgrade for quite awhile.

[skier]

can you get a new board and SLI with another 8800GTS? i'm sure two 4850's would cost more than a board and 8800GTS and you would probably get better performance(though i could be wrong) can someone support this idea...

two 4850s= at least $340 if you get the cheapest ones off newegg
8800GTS+ ASUS M3N-HD =190+140= at least $330 lol, so it's close, but the 8800GTS has a MIR of $30

any performance differences guys?

btw, the M3N i was looking at was a 750a nforce SLI chipset

[Shucky]

can you get a new board and SLI with another 8800GTS? i'm sure two 4850's would cost more than a board and 8800GTS and you would probably get better performance(though i could be wrong) can someone support this idea...

two 4850s= at least $340 if you get the cheapest ones off newegg
8800GTS+ ASUS M3N-HD =190+140= at least $330 lol, so it's close, but the 8800GTS has a MIR of $30

any performance differences guys?

btw, the M3N i was looking at was a 750a nforce SLI chipset

I could yes, but rather not, I like the board I have already tweaked things as in my ram to run at what it should 1066 plus set affinty for my cores on some programs. Also the board still has room to upgrade incase of course they get software correct to do crossfire X 4 setup, and If I need to much later. I thank you for the thought of saving me money, that was what I was thinking about when I picked up the Mobo it was cheaper than some of the others I was looking at the hole setup Board, CPU Ram, Graphics card only cost around $665, which my wife and I agreed I had 1,200 to spend. I already have the Case, PSU Fans, and HDD and DVD RW.

[martini161]

yeah but do you game at like 1920x1200 or something? you get better performance with a single good card that a bunch of infieror cards, unless you game at very high resolutions