Need some techy advise!

Hi all,I have a pci-x ati 1950 pro and i'm not sure if i should find
another to enable Xfire (on ebay selling at around £50) or sell mine
for about £50 and buy a single 3870hd currently around £100,eitherway
it would still only cost me around £50.
Any advice on which would be the best way to go with my current setup?

My pc is:
Gigabyte p965-dq6,(x-fire ready)
G6600 (G0) Core 2 Quad,
4Gb DDR2 patriot 800mhz
3 X 250gb Sata 2 (raid 5)


Thanks in advance guys




--
peteec

I suggest the 3970.

See here:

http://users.erols.com/chare/video.htm

It looks like the raw performance (number of ROPS X core clock frequency) of
the single 3970 isn't much less than double that of a single 1950 Pro. I
expect that its real-world performance would be better than Crossfire.
Compatibility and scalability issues would be absent with the single card as
well.

A single card based on the nVidia 8800GT might give the best performance for
the money at the moment, if gaming is your purpose. (I'm not trying to win a
convert to nVidia, but they supposedly have the upper hand at the moment.
That may change at any time.)

Return address scrambled. Replace nkbob with bobkn.

"peteec" <peteec.2868d59@computerbanter.com> wrote in message
newseteec.2868d59@computerbanter.com...
>
> Hi all,I have a pci-x ati 1950 pro and i'm not sure if i should find
> another to enable Xfire (on ebay selling at around £50) or sell mine
> for about £50 and buy a single 3870hd currently around £100,eitherway
> it would still only cost me around £50.
> Any advice on which would be the best way to go with my current setup?
>
> My pc is:
> Gigabyte p965-dq6,(x-fire ready)
> G6600 (G0) Core 2 Quad,
> 4Gb DDR2 patriot 800mhz
> 3 X 250gb Sata 2 (raid 5)
>
>
> Thanks in advance guys
>
>
>
>
> --
> peteec

On Sat, 31 May 2008 00:57:10 +0100, peteec
<peteec.2868d59@computerbanter.com> wrote:

:>
:>Hi all,I have a pci-x ati 1950 pro and i'm not sure if i should find
:>another to enable Xfire (on ebay selling at around £50) or sell mine
:>for about £50 and buy a single 3870hd currently around £100,eitherway
:>it would still only cost me around £50.
:>Any advice on which would be the best way to go with my current setup?
:>
:>My pc is:
:>Gigabyte p965-dq6,(x-fire ready)
:>G6600 (G0) Core 2 Quad,
:>4Gb DDR2 patriot 800mhz
:>3 X 250gb Sata 2 (raid 5)
:>
:>
:>Thanks in advance guys

I'd say definitely go with the 3870. One of them gives better
performance than a pair of 1950 pro cards with the possibility of
adding a second one later for even greater performance.

About 4 months ago I replaced a 1950 pro x-fire setup with a 3870
x-fire setup. With the 1950 pro cards in x-fire I got around 9000 in
3dmark06. Testing with only one 3870 card gave me a score of around
11000 in 3dmark06. Two 3870 cards in x-fire jumped up the 3dmark06
score up to around 14000.

This was in a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4 motherboard with one 16x pcie 1.0
slot and one 4x pcie 1.0 slot using an E6750 Core 2 Duo processor.

Since that time I upgraded the motherboard to a Gigabyte GA-EX38-DS4
which has two 16x pcie 2.0 slots and the processor to an E8400 Core 2
Duo. That setup with the two 3870 cards in x-fire gives a 3dmark06
score of around 17000.

BTW, the 3870 cards I've got are the MSI Overclock Edition with a
default setting of 800mhz for the gpu and 2250mhz for the memory.

me/2

Oops. 3870. (I have one.)

"Bob Knowlden" <nkbob@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:ZsKdnbJ2wY43AtzVnZ2dnUVZ_oHinZ2d@comcast.com. ..
>I suggest the 3970.
>
> See here:
>
> http://users.erols.com/chare/video.htm
>
> It looks like the raw performance (number of ROPS X core clock frequency)
> of the single 3970 isn't much less than double that of a single 1950 Pro.
> I expect that its real-world performance would be better than Crossfire.
> Compatibility and scalability issues would be absent with the single card
> as well.
>
> A single card based on the nVidia 8800GT might give the best performance
> for the money at the moment, if gaming is your purpose. (I'm not trying to
> win a convert to nVidia, but they supposedly have the upper hand at the
> moment. That may change at any time.)
>
> Return address scrambled. Replace nkbob with bobkn.
(Snip)

I would suggest the Sapphire HD3870 with the vapor chamber cooler. It is a
single slot design, and runs about 20 deg C cooler than the ordinary cooler.
Mine are overclocked to 850mhz/2402mhz memory, and they are still far cooler
than the reference design. I think its the Sapphire toxic 3870. Good cards,
quiet as well.