advice please (X1950CF Vs 3870 solo card)

[Darksylum]

I am currently running 2x X1950XTX cards in crossfire (XTX + CF Edition with dongle)

I am looking into replacing those cards with a single 3870 512mb card until I can purchase a quad crossfire board and windows vista. (Currently using a K9A platinum 580x board by MSI and Windows XP Pro)

I was wondering if i would see better DX9 shader 3.0 results using 1 single 3870 in my monitors native resolution of 1680x1050 witch my current X1950 cf setup does not seem to support in most games because of the stupid dongle)

Will this give me better results as a single card solution in DX9 content in x1650x1080 until i can get a quad board and vista and get more 3870's for crossfire?

Right now I am not happy with my x1950 crossfire setup especialy since its not even 2 years old and most of my dx9 games such as F.E.A.R and even World of Warcraft (in certain areas of the world) Can put out some crappy frame rates at times even with my AM2 A64x2 5200+ oc 2.8ghz pushing them.

would this be a good temporary fix as far as an ATi card is concerned? I am tight on funds and will be sellling my X1950's to purchase the new card. I couldnt help but notice that the cards I spent 800 bucks on a year and a half ago are all but worthless now on ebay. so I plan to purchase 1x $200 price point card and save what ever I get left from the sell of my current cards. Would the 3870 be a good performer for the price and give me better results in ultra high resolutions?

[Darksylum]

I was thinking, the 3870 boast much nicer specs compared to a single one of my X1950xtx cards with a much better and refined core while also offering higher clock rates and overall core performance at less power use. can it top the flagship x1950xtx if ran head to head in DX9 content and it would apear that if it can it would also offer better reults in high resolution compared to my current setup due to the lack of crossfire suport I have discovered.

And if so would it be possible to use 1 of my old x1950 cards as a rumored 1+1 or 2+1 physics co processor? or was that never officialy supported? (ran into that little web page again on ATi's website while browsing around, didnt know if they ever did anything with it)

[Apoptosis]

Do you want to run DX9 or DX10??

[Darksylum]

DX9 mostly for now. still running windows XP pro for another half a year or so

[IRQ Conflict]

I'd save your pennies and stick with the x1950's till your ready, or rather the software is ready for you to switch. DX 10 and the OS to run it is just fluff right now and the setup you have will walk all over the 3870/50 with aa enabled.