Cheapest crossfire setup

[stevej696]

Hi

I was jus wondering my brother wants a cheap crossfire system for around £300 which he needs to buy a cpu, mainboard and 2 gpus with. Weve put £120 on the side for the gpus but which is the best for crossfire setup? Ive looked at the 5670 512 ddr5 setup which comes in at £115 but is there any other setups that is better?

He wants it to play COD, Far cry and Dirt at 1650 x 1050 resolution if possible but I can lower the res if performance will improve

On a last note it has to be crossfire not Nvidia SLI and no single card! Brothers orders

Thanks in advance

 

[DragonPC]

1x 6870?

 

[stevej696]

That was my initial thought but no single gpu has to be crossfire

 

[jack-uk]

Why do you want crossfire? get 1x 6870

 

[stevej696]

For some reason he wants crossfire. He has friends who have a crossfire setup so maybe that has something to do with it.

 

[Jamsand]

tell him to get a single card the bench with his friends then he can mock them lol

 

[Ya93sin]

For a budget setup, you don't go crossfire really, unless it was BOGOF, which I sincerely doubt bearing in mind this is computer hardware.

 

[Brooksie]

I would advise getting a nice single card, then you can get a second one in the future

 

[DragonPC]

budget?

 

[BigIan88]

For some reason he wants crossfire. He has friends who have a crossfire setup so maybe that has something to do with it.

If his budget is £120 for the cards, you wont find many decent and reliable cards for that price - decent cards cost that amount upwards for 1.

With that as his budget, id recommend a single overclocked 460 which will wizz all over his mates set ups if they have similar priced systems

 

[stevej696]

Ok so talked with my bro and he finally agrees with the single card setup on the condition that its a decent one! So were going with the 6870 on a crossfire ready motherbaord for the future if he wants it.

So the specs we have so far are:

Gigabyte GA-870A-UD3

8GB of Mushkin blackline DDR3 1600MHZ

Cpu- Still deciding but maybe a phenom x3

Gfx: ATI 6870

As a footnote i was thinking 8gb of memory but could i save the £36 and just use 4GB? Shud it be enough?

Im asking because my bro's starting college september doing 3d modelling and design and would eventually need a pc that can use photoshop etc. Future proof while prices are cheap??

Cheers guys

 

[ruthless_villain]

Ok so talked with my bro and he finally agrees with the single card setup on the condition that its a decent one! So were going with the 6870 on a crossfire ready motherbaord for the future if he wants it.

So the specs we have so far are:

Gigabyte GA-870A-UD3

8GB of Mushkin blackline DDR3 1600MHZ

Cpu- Still deciding but maybe a phenom x3

Gfx: ATI 6870

As a footnote i was thinking 8gb of memory but could i save the £36 and just use 4GB? Shud it be enough?

Im asking because my bro's starting college september doing 3d modelling and design and would eventually need a pc that can use photoshop etc. Future proof while prices are cheap??

Cheers guys

dont get a triple core

 

[stevej696]

x4 then? Or x6 for overkill??

 

[ruthless_villain]

x6 ftw

 

[rwiuviberwVFIUBER]

Wouldn't the 6 core be a waste if it's for gaming? I'd go with the 4 core and get yourself a better GPU

 

[jonowee]

Since Bulldozer is likely to come out June/July (if the rumours are fair), could I convince you wait for BD to push down the prices of AM3... then consider if you're going for 870 chipset to have a look at the MSI 870A Fuzion Power Edition. That thing overclocks like a biatch, let's just call it AMD's Sabertooth.

I'm not familar with graphics rendering to comment on hardware focus requirements; which to prioritise among RAM, GPU, CPU clock or cores.

 

[rwiuviberwVFIUBER]

Since Bulldozer is likely to come out June/July (if the rumours are fair), could I convince you wait for BD to push down the prices of AM3... then consider if you're going for 870 chipset to have a look at the MSI 870A Fuzion Power Edition. That thing overclocks like a biatch, let's just call it AMD's Sabertooth.

I'm not familar with graphics rendering to comment on hardware focus requirements; which to prioritise among RAM, GPU, CPU clock or cores.

That's the board I was originally going to get if I went with AMD, but then I saw the Crosshair and nearly cried with joy. So I decided to go with Sabertooth P67 because I knew if I went AMD I'd end up spending more then I could afford, just on the MB and chipset

 

[stevej696]

Since Bulldozer is likely to come out June/July (if the rumours are fair), could I convince you wait for BD to push down the prices of AM3... then consider if you're going for 870 chipset to have a look at the MSI 870A Fuzion Power Edition. That thing overclocks like a biatch, let's just call it AMD's Sabertooth.

I'm not familar with graphics rendering to comment on hardware focus requirements; which to prioritise among RAM, GPU, CPU clock or cores.

Thats an awesome board I actually forgot that it was reviewed here! (Sorry Tom

) This is looking like the perfect motherboard to be honest.

Ohhh the possibilities!

Ati + dedicated Physics = monster

Looking at the price its going to be not too bad as i was now thinking a 5830 radeon + gts 240 for physics, 4gb mushkin ram, phenom x2 black edition overclocked all running on a MSI 870A Fuzion Power Edition

Total cost around the £350 mark with delivery. What you guys think better than origional thoughts??