Going 4890 xfire is my rig good enough?

R

RyanH

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 22, 2006
Messages
391
Ok so I'm planning on grabbing a couple 4890s for some crossfire sweetness and I'm sure my rig will be a bit of a bottleneck because its not top of the line. I'd just like to know if there will be any major performance letdown. I have a p35 board still but I'm going to upgrade to an X48 mobo for the full PCIe 2.0 bandwidth for both cards. I'm just wondering a couple things.

1) Is my PSU powerful enough. I plan to be using a Corsair 750TX with this setup. Also it has enough 8 pin cables for 2 4890s right? just checking

2) Ill still be using the Q9450 overclocked to ~3.6ghz like it has been on my p35 hopefully. Would this be decent enough for this system at 1920x1200. I figured I'd still be pretty GPU bound at this res.

Oh and one final question, can someone please give me links to more crossfire HD4890 reviews? I've already seen the ones on techpowerup and x bit labs though.
 
yes your psu is fine and going x48 is a great idea...honestly you might as well jump to x58, coming from a P45, I'm happy that I did and will never look back.

also you might have gotten 3.6 out of your 9450 on your p35, honestly it's a crap shoot if you will reach the same overclocks on a new mobo/set up etc.

but 2 4890's in CF is great, I'm sure you will thoroughly blown away as I plan to add a 3rd in the near future
 
1920x1200 doesnt require crossfire 4890's.. you will basicly get the same performance out of a single 4890 as you would with crossfire 4890's.. sure there are a few games that some what benefit from the second card.. but thats basicly the difference of 12x AA and 8x AA.. then tell me if you actually see the difference.. all ya have to do is look at the reviews and look at the numbers.. most reviews show a single 4890 maxing almost all the games out on a 30" display without an issue.. so if you want to spend another 200 dollars just to go from 8x AA to 12x AA thats your choice.. but in my honest opinion i dont think you will need the second card at that resolution..
 
You'll find x-fire great, I know I do... and your cpu, at that speed, will be more than fine!

The Corsair PSU you mention has 4 x 8 or 6 (convertable) pin pcie plugs so will be dandy for 2 4890's.

Good luck :D
 
Well that's the problem though I can't find any other reviews on 4890 crossfire other then the 2 I mentioned earlier but those showed very good scaling from going from 1 to 2 cards close to 100% in many situations and all those techpowerup benches are run at 4x AA . So ya It'd be nice to have more info then just those 2 benches I posted but I can't find anything else atm. And I really dont want or need more then 4x/8x AA depending on the game, but I see big gains from going from 1 to 2 cards from those benches so far,
 
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I have a Q9450 @ 3.5 and a single 4890. Sure wish I had a second one.

I had 4870-512 Crossfire for a while and the second card added plenty of oomph.

A Penryn Quad at 3.6 is not a bottleneck. Lots of people wish they had that bottleneck if it is.

I see people telling people that a single 4890 is plenty for 1920 and above. IMHO it is most definately NOT. If you don't mind running reduced quality settings I guess it is adequate. Depends on what you play. Looks like Arma2 people wanting a second card. I run FarCry2 @ 1920 with 2xAA and the minimums are just barely in the 30's. Clear Sky was a slide show maxed out. Still won't run Crysis maxed.(I know nobody plays it but it's still the gold standard) There's more. I have a LOT of games but it's 3:30 and JK Defrag running on the machine next to this one has me hypnotized and ready to fall asleep.

Take it from someone who has the system your thinking about running. You'll be glad you have both cards.

I would have Crossfired 4890 but my computer fund is low and 5870 is very close. Many a good deal has tempted me lately though. Shoot, when 5870 comes out, I might snag a cheap one off of FS/FT and wait for what comes after 5xxx series or even see what the Green Goblin has to offer. You never know.
 
Yeah thx for that info wrangler its nice to hear from someone with a similar system. How do you like that gigabyte board btw? I need to find a good x48 board too. I figure 1 4890 wouldnt be much better then the 9800gx2 I have minus the sli scaling and driver issues and low 512mb vram on my card not being anywhere close to enough even without AA.

It would be nice to wait for the new gen but then my rig would be an even bigger bottleneck and i dont see these cards going down more anytime soon I mean you can already find new ones for ~$150 AR ffs the lowest 5800s will start at ~$300 probably. I love my penryn just wish it had a higher multiplier of course but otherwise no complaints from me but the only cpu intensive thing I do is the occasional 3d rendering here and there.

Just wondering what your experience was with farcry 2, I remember when it first came out the ATI cards had a ton of problems with it, texture glitches among other things. Has all that been sorted out? Amazingly I actually kinda dug that game, and ya I like crysis too I dont think theres any shame in admitting that.
 
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RyanH said:
Yeah thx for that info wrangler its nice to hear from someone with a similar system. How do you like that gigabyte board btw? I need to find a good x48 board too. I figure 1 4890 wouldnt be much better then the 9800gx2 I have minus the sli scaling and driver issues and low 512mb vram on my card not being anywhere close to enough even without AA.

It would be nice to wait for the new gen but then my rig would be an even bigger bottleneck and i dont see these cards going down more anytime soon I mean you can already find new ones for ~$150 AR ffs the lowest 5800s will start at ~$300 probably. I love my penryn just wish it had a higher multiplier of course but otherwise no complaints from me but the only cpu intensive thing I do is the occasional 3d rendering here and there.

Just wondering what your experience was with farcry 2, I remember when it first came out the ATI cards had a ton of problems with it, texture glitches among other things. Has all that been sorted out? Amazingly actually kinda dug that game, and ya I like crysis too I dont think theres any shame in admitting that.
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seeing as how the prices have dropped under 200 bucks for the 4800 series cards.. id take a good bet that the 5800 series will be around the same release prices as the 4800's were.. since all amd/ati is doing is going from 55nm to 40nm.. probably increasing the shaders.. but still using 256bit gddr5 most likely with the newer 5-6ghz chips..

if you can get a 4890 under 200 bucks.. then its definitely worth it..
for me.. i cant stand running AA when playing multiplayer so not having a second cards never been an issue.. so im looking at it from a different point of view i guess..
 
Much thanks guru but now I feel more confused then ever. I Wish these other sites would make the graphs over time like Hard does.
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
1920x1200 doesnt require crossfire 4890's.. you will basicly get the same performance out of a single 4890 as you would with crossfire 4890's.. sure there are a few games that some what benefit from the second card.. but thats basicly the difference of 12x AA and 8x AA.. then tell me if you actually see the difference.. all ya have to do is look at the reviews and look at the numbers.. most reviews show a single 4890 maxing almost all the games out on a 30" display without an issue.. so if you want to spend another 200 dollars just to go from 8x AA to 12x AA thats your choice.. but in my honest opinion i dont think you will need the second card at that resolution..
Click to expand...

This is so wrong it's not even funny. 1920x1200 IS the resolution you need to start looking at cf/sli if you want to run games @ max + 4xAA or higher (edge detect or whatever Nvidia has)

Maxing on a 30" with a single card? A lot of multi-gpu settings have issues with games @ that resolution so I don't know what you're talking about.
 
Stanley Pain said:
This is so wrong it's not even funny. 1920x1200 IS the resolution you need to start looking at cf/sli if you want to run games @ max + 4xAA or higher (edge detect or whatever Nvidia has)

Maxing on a 30" with a single card? A lot of multi-gpu settings have issues with games @ that resolution so I don't know what you're talking about.
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qft, I had a 280, 285, 295, 4870x2, 4870x2 x2 and now 4890's in CF x3 and @ 1920x1200 and 2560-1600, even a slight bump in AA/AF and you can make any current gpu stressed easily
 
RyanH said:
Yeah thx for that info wrangler its nice to hear from someone with a similar system. How do you like that gigabyte board btw? I need to find a good x48 board too. I figure 1 4890 wouldnt be much better then the 9800gx2 I have minus the sli scaling and driver issues and low 512mb vram on my card not being anywhere close to enough even without AA.

It would be nice to wait for the new gen but then my rig would be an even bigger bottleneck and i dont see these cards going down more anytime soon I mean you can already find new ones for ~$150 AR ffs the lowest 5800s will start at ~$300 probably. I love my penryn just wish it had a higher multiplier of course but otherwise no complaints from me but the only cpu intensive thing I do is the occasional 3d rendering here and there.

Just wondering what your experience was with farcry 2, I remember when it first came out the ATI cards had a ton of problems with it, texture glitches among other things. Has all that been sorted out? Amazingly I actually kinda dug that game, and ya I like crysis too I dont think theres any shame in admitting that.
Click to expand...

Yea....thats why I dumped the 4870-512's. @ 1920 with high quality settings you will find games that need that extra memory. I mentioned a few above.

Your Penryn @ 3.6 will NOT be a bottleneck for quite some time so quit thinking that.

I LOVE my Gigabyte X48 board.

My experience with FarCry 2 is mixed. I suffer from the bug where if you play the game in DX10, it memory leaks and will crash almost to the minute at 45 minutes. If I play it in DX 9 it runs forever. I have had no visible graphical glitches or anomalies running in either mode. Just the system glitch running in DX 10.
I really like the game though. I like how you can leave the game for a while..... then.... if you feel like driving around the savannah and shooting shit up or starting a fire you can do that. I guess I like the way the missions are segemented. I don't feel artificially pushed to complete any specific objective or see whats over the next hill. I can just play it and then when I am done........go watch TV for a while or do something around the house that I'm actually supposed to do. I like how you can jump in and out of the game and just have fun.

Yes, I like Crysis too and it is the first game I load up whenever I install a new graphics setup and I play until you come out of the mountain so I can see what the performance is in the ice section then..........I shut it off.
 
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