Time for crossfire!

iBeInspire

New member
Hi everyone :)

The times of my HD6850 being a tank and being able to play anything well are over. I've been playing Hitman absolution on quite low settings to get decent framerates, and I'm honestly sick of it.
I have the chance to get a used XFX HD6850 (Same as mine) for £75 off a friend which is very good because with the right CPU that's GTX570/80 level performance for another £75, but I understand this setup would be quite badly bottlenecked by my CPU... BUT I plan on upgrading my CPU in the near future :/

Basically the question is, would the £75 be worth it for now, is there something better that I could do with the money, and would HD6850 xFire be bottlenecked by the FX6300/4300 (OC to hell)..?

Side note : I've also been looking at getting a SSD, but I'm mainly a gamer, and loading times don't bother me all that much, so would a 120gb HyperX SSD be a better buy over a 2nd 6850..?

Sorry for the long post, If you've just read all that, I salute you :)
 
cx430 psu and xfire no.... Not enough power captain.
Save up for something like a gtx660 or hd7850, even a overclocked 650ti would be worth a look if your strapped for cash.
Personally a ssd is by far thing to add to any system. Everything is just so much faster. 120gb is plenty for os, apps and a handful of games.
 
Oh sorry, I haven't updated my sig.
I have a TX550m now, and that'll power it all fine :)
Sorry for the confusion :P

Edit : Updated sig now, hopefully It'll show up :/
 
Umm, I don't know... a sinle 6850 draws almost 130w... It should be fine but straining the PSU... hmm. You could try crossfire, really hard to answer the bottlenecking question. I got the same CPU and frankly... I definitely need another one fast!
 
I think that X3 bottlenecks even the single 6850, so I would get a new CPU first. As far as I know the 6850 scales well in xFire, so if you can get a second one for a low price you should do that. Should be looking at a 80% increase in FPS @1080p in most games. The PSU is fine for xFire.
 
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I would go for a never card if you can afford it, from experience I can say that if your single GPU isn't enough now, adding a second one will only prolong it a little bit, but you will find that it won't be enough again pretty soon. I would sell the 6850, add some more and buy a 7950. Also there are all sorts of games that don't support crossfire and you'll end up turning down the settings to be able to play, like the new Assassin's Creed.
 
See this is exactly what I'm thinking... Just cause it's so cheap, I'm leaning towards just going wit it to see a little boost now, and a bigger one when I've upgraded the CPU in a few months...
I know it'll get outdated eventually, but won't everything else too..?

I don't have the money now to go for something nicer like a 7850/70, if I coud, trust me I would...

The only thing stopping me is maybe the SSD would be a better overall addition to my rig... I'm going to have to buy one eventually :/
 
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