Good upgrade from CF 3870 OC?

[TheGardenTool]

This summer I plan on my final LGA 775 CPU upgrade to one of the higher-end quad cores--either the Q9400, Q9550 or Q9650--just not sure which one yet. I'm also toying with the idea of replacing my current Crossfire setup with my two Visiontek HD 3870 OC graphic cards. I like to use my native 1920x1200 resolution for all modern games so there's quite a few that I need to turn settings down to play.

I'm not disappointed with my current setup but as many know anti aliasing isn't a strong point of the 3870s.

I'd like suggestions on some current single and crossfire configurations that will give me better performance than what I have now. I would like to keep this system for another 2-3 years after I upgrade it with no more CPU upgrades and ideally no more GPU upgrades, although I'd be willing for one more after if I needed.

Now as I understand the 5800 series is slated for a summer release. I'm only going to have a couple of weeks this summer to upgrade so if I'm better off waiting for at least the 5800 series I'll need to wait until closer to the end of the year to upgrade. This would probably be fine with me as well as like I said I've been happy with my current setup so far.

I'm currently using 32-bit XP and I may jump onto the Windows 7 wagon assuming it has good compatibility with the older games I still play on occasion.

I am an ATi fan so if possible I wouldn't mind sticking with them. I've enjoyed their products since my Radeon 8500 LE 128MB back in 2002. I did have an 8800GTS 320MB for awhile and enjoyed it but I'm much happier back with ATi.

 

[xBanzai89]

I'm sure a 4890 would be a good upgrade. I remember the reviews showing the 3870X2 being beat by the 4870 often enough. If you're looking for a dual config a 4870 crossfire setup should be nice. If your happy with your setup at the moment there is no reason to upgrade. Probably best to wait till the summer, and see what is going on with the RV870. If it looks like the rumors were wrong just grab something from the current gen.

I still remember years ago one person was wanting to upgrade his 7900 GTX. He played at a high resolution and wanted to know if he should get a 8800 GTX SLI now or wait for the GT200. This was in the summer and everyone thought it would be out in october, boy were they all wrong. He went with another 7900 GTX for a SLI setup to wait for the GT200. While if he just got the 8800 GTX SLI setup he could have enjoyed the setup for about a year. In his case he should have, since he was not happy with the lone 7900 GTX.

 

[TheGardenTool]

If your happy with your setup at the moment there is no reason to upgrade. Probably best to wait till the summer, and see what is going on with the RV870.

Well reading through my post again I don't think I said it right but I plan on doing this upgrade, if I do upgrade the GPUs, during the summer at the same time as my CPU. So yes I will definitely be waiting until summer to do it but I'm just looking for the feedback as what is going to perform better that is on the market now.

I'll have to take a look at some of the older 4870 reviews then. I do remember hearing about problems early on with CF 4850s and that the 4870s weren't scaling very well. I assume this got cleared up with later drivers?

And the 4890s are just higher factory clocked 4870s correct?

Sorry I've been out of the GPU loop for awhile.

 

[xBanzai89]

4890 is the RV790 chip. There was changes to the chip to allow for higher overclocking headroom. Most 4870s have trouble getting to 800Mhz vs 750MHz stock. While the 4890 is 850MHz stock and can clock up to 1000Mhz, with average ones of at least 950MHz. Check out some 4890 reviews and there is a decent upgrade in performance over the 4870.

As far as I know the crossfire for the 4850 and 4870 are fine. They have been out for almost a year so most issues regarding original scaling upsets should be fixed. From the reviews I have seen there has been no issues with them.

 

[The Pharaoh]

If you can stand to wait a month or two (sounds like you probably could) then I'd say do it - the reference cooler for 4870/4890 is annoyingly loud even though it does it's job decently and adding a customer cooler to a 4890 would really reduce it's value with the extra expense. My advice is to wait for a 4890 with better cooling to be released which really shouldn't be long. Personally I'd look for something from Powercolor, MSI or Asus - they seem to deploy the most effective custom coolers.

Also, CrossFire scaling for 4800 really kicks ass in it's current state so have no worries there. I do suggest checking your favorite games and how they scale before even considering a dual card setup though.