i-5 2500k Build :) Crossfire+SLI

[Deleted]

Hi, I've got a couple of questions, (again) my proposed build was

Processor - Intel i-5 2500k Over-clocked
Graphics card - MSI GTX 460 or Radeon 6870
Motherboard - Asus P8P67
Psu - CORSAIR 650w TX

But, I've been told that SLI + Crossfire is the way to go (I can't afford another graphics card now, but I will possibly add one at a later date)

I'd have to change my Motherboard to a Deluxe or a Pro model +£60, probably increase my PSU size? (currently 650) +£?, and purchase another graphics card - Is it worth it?
The first two I can do right away, but the latter will have to wait.

Thanks in advance

P.S - Would 2xRadeon 6870 be a good choice for a crossfire build? - I know very little about dual graphics card builds.

[.Aen]

tl'dr

On the postscript,

2x Radeon HD 6850's would be better costwise than dual 6870's. You could just overclock the 6850's yourself.

[Chickensoup23]

Best option would be to go with one better single-GPU card, althought the Radeon 6xxx series have some of the best scaling seen since several years, up to 95%, which is quite tense. Usually it's @ around 80%. You'll for sure get better results with a 6850/6870 than with any other card (scaling + xfire-wise).

Imo thought, go with a single-gpu card if you can.

I personally went with an Nvidia gtx 570, thought it's a personal preference. The Radeon 6950 is also a good choice for the same amount of money. It's up to you, really.

[Dark_Widget]

before anything u gotta consider this, WoW and starcraft runs very bad with the ATI cards, mainly the 5xxx series but seen reports from 6xxx aswell, im currently on a 5770 and gotta play both SC2 and WoW on close to lowest graphics.. eventho i should we ez be able to do em all ultra (this is even suggested by the games), AND also that many ppl report WoW (dunno about SC) not really working with SLI/Xfire..
lots of ppl reporting very bad FPS etc and actually gotta disable SLI/Xfire to be able to play.. with that machine ur prolly not gonna focus on WoW tho but i thought i might be nice to give u a headsup :P GL

EDIT; if u gonna go SLI, start out with just 1 card and pugrade PSU and the other card later (tho iam pretty sure 650 can support 2 GPUs) cuz there's no chanse u gonna need 2 of those cards anytime soon unless ur using 2-6 screens :P with 1 screen its defenatly(typo) enough with 1

hope this helps

[denominator]

before anything u gotta consider this, WoW and starcraft runs very bad with the ATI cards, mainly the 5xxx series but seen reports from 6xxx aswell, im currently on a 5770 and gotta play both SC2 and WoW on close to lowest graphics.. eventho i should we ez be able to do em all ultra (this is even suggested by the games)

I'm going to call BS unless you have some verifying proof. Since I have a 4890 which plays both game full ultra just fine. I also find the fps dips odd since both of those games hardly use GPU..

As to your last point SLI and Xfire hardly work with WoW because they aren't fully supported in the game..

[Kyocere]

before anything u gotta consider this, WoW and starcraft runs very bad with the ATI cards, mainly the 5xxx series but seen reports from 6xxx aswell,

This is simply untrue. I played on a 5870 and had zero fps issues due to the card. My GF uses a 5670 (a very low end card) and also can raid with it. She has most everything set to high and runs fine during raids. WoW is much more cpu based then gpu and saying ATI is bad for wow is just silly.

[Dark_Widget]

I'm going to call BS unless you have some verifying proof. Since I have a 4890 which plays both game full ultra just fine. I also find the fps dips odd since both of those games hardly use GPU..

As to your last point SLI and Xfire hardly work with WoW because they aren't fully supported in the game..

call whatever u want bullshit mate, ur not even using a card of the same series wich i reported have issues, but hey go ahead and google "ATI 5770 (for example) low FPS in wow/SC" and help urself out before starting to jump ppl mkay?

and about SLI/Xfire, im WELL aware of that.. u dident really read the rest did ya? go take ur troll somewhere else im trying to be helpfull here...

---------- Post added 2011-01-11 at 12:59 AM ----------

oh and as a reply to both of you, how come that i run both SC2 and WoW with ALOT less graphix now then befoer? switchd from a GTX 240 to ATI 5770.. and i guess the hundreds of ppl on the SC2/WoW forums are lieing but yea

EDIT; sorry i forgot ALL these posts turn out to "i haz beeg epeen and i knowz moar den ju withaut even luuking!"
but yea to the guy creating the thread, sorry for the flame war they'r trying to cause im just gonna stop it there, and good luck once again

[denominator]

All I'm saying is you have no proof, no benchmarks confirming your statement. Basically it would be like coming in and saying your son is a girl when you know for a fact it is a boy.

Edit:

EDIT; sorry i forgot ALL these posts turn out to "i haz beeg epeen and i knowz moar den ju withaut even luuking!"
but yea to the guy creating the thread, sorry for the flame war they'r trying to cause im just gonna stop it there, and good luck once again

No it really has nothing to do with epeen. You're spreading false "truths" around that are steering the OP in the very wrong direction.

[Dark_Widget]

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/166496813 this MIGHT be enough for you? do read through and notice the admin posts saying its a known issue and asking ppl to post their speccs etc have a fun reading! (tho this is only on the SC2 forum, but im pretty sure few peepz posted about WoW to, i know i should)

now.. google before acting "know it all"

thought i might add it to the post to since u prolly "cba" to see that im rite

"In case you haven't noticed it, Blizzard have finally responded to all of the threads popping up about this issue, and are now gathering data to investigate the problem. Yay!



Go to this thread here: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/933154144 and post your info."

[Shruikah]

before anything u gotta consider this, WoW and starcraft runs very bad with the ATI cards, mainly the 5xxx series but seen reports from 6xxx aswell,

Been running wow for the last 8 months and sc2 since it came out on full ultra at 60fps with my 5970.

[Dedweight]

call whatever u want bullshit mate, ur not even using a card of the same series wich i reported have issues, but hey go ahead and google "ATI 5770 (for example) low FPS in wow/SC" and help urself out before starting to jump ppl mkay?

I think he was calling BS on the fact you stated that WoW and Starcraft have issues running on ATI cards, which isn't true. The 5 and 6 series? Sure they might have issues but ATI cards in general work just fine with WoW and SC.

[vesseblah]

All I'm saying is you have no proof, no benchmarks confirming your statement. Basically it would be like coming in and saying your son is a girl when you know for a fact it is a boy.

Edit:

No it really has nothing to do with epeen. You're spreading false "truths" around that are steering the OP in the very wrong direction.

Well, there's the often quoted and also partially (fatally) flawed TomsHardware Cataclysm benchmark... Relevant pages to this discussion are:

- high end AMD cards and
- high end Nvidia cards

The interesting bit in this chart is that GTX460 does virtually same framerate as doublepriced Radeon 5870, which means Nvidia cards are better at running WoW currently in both price/performance as well as raw performance. It does not mean AMD cards will run the game poorly, it just means Nvidia cards will run the game better in both midrange as well as high end price segments.

[denominator]

I would accept that as a valid proof, however there is just as many in those threads complaining who are running nvidia cards..

Next time your urge someone else to read something, make sure you do as well.

@Dark_Widget

[Dark_Widget]

I think he was calling BS on the fact you stated that WoW and Starcraft have issues running on ATI cards, which isn't true. The 5 and 6 series? Sure they might have issues but ATI cards in general work just fine with WoW and SC.

i wrote; "before anything u gotta consider this, WoW and starcraft runs very bad with the ATI cards, mainly the 5xxx series but seen reports from 6xxx aswell,"
wich can also be read (as intended) that these are the only 2 series i've seen anything about/know anything about or even that anyone CARES about since these 2 series are the most 2 used then again.. if he's trying to display huge epeen.. then it might be okey to read it as he did now once again, im refering to the posts i've seent ya since i couldent bare another secound without proof, nor did u have the balls to look it up urself (then again whats my perosnal gain from lieing?) so PLEASE let this thread be what its supose to be?

oh and.. i dident write that to "show hao guwd" iam at computers.. the post was for the guy creating the thread and im trying to help him out so he dosent end up in the same situation as i did dunno if u want me to appologizing for TRYING to help someone.. GL HF guys

[Dethyx]

1. List all system components (especially CPU)

2. Benchmarks pls

3. I run a single 5770 w/ a core i5 760 3.7 ghz and I get 30 fps in a crowded org. And 100+ in the middle of nowhere.

[vesseblah]

Graphics card - MSI GTX 460 or Radeon 6870

But, I've been told that SLI + Crossfire is the way to go (I can't afford another graphics card now, but I will possibly add one at a later date)

WoW does not officially support CrossFire or SLI, so the question for WoW is pointless. Even unofficially the performance varies greatly.

Either way is totally fine for all other games, but WoW is already maxed out regardless of which card you choose.

[denominator]

i wrote; "before anything u gotta consider this, WoW and starcraft runs very bad with the ATI cards, mainly the 5xxx series but seen reports from 6xxx aswell,"
wich can also be read (as intended) that these are the only 2 series i've seen anything about/know anything about or even that anyone CARES about since these 2 series are the most 2 used then again.. if he's trying to display huge epeen.. then it might be okey to read it as he did now once again, im refering to the posts i've seent ya since i couldent bare another secound without proof, nor did u have the balls to look it up urself (then again whats my perosnal gain from lieing?) so PLEASE let this thread be what its supose to be?

I'm going to step out of this thread now since we're causing it veer completely off topic.. however perhaps in the future you will use proper grammar if you expect people to read your sentences how you want.

[Dark_Widget]

I'm going to step out of this thread now since we're causing it veer completely off topic.. however perhaps in the future you will use proper grammar if you expect people to read your sentences how you want.

aaah the classic "im moving out, watch ur grammer" when all ur trying to say is "snap u where rite and im to small to admit it " nehow, for the LAST time, GL with ur computer build and once again soz for the failish flamewar :P

[Ai]

Like said above the 68xx series cards scale incredibly in a crossfire setup. I'm not too sure about how big of PSU you will need for it but my HX750 is powering both of them. If you want to get the best bang for your money I would suggest doing what -Aendos said and get the 6850 and just overclock them. That is if you want to crossfire them. The only time you want to crossfire or SLI is when the two cards are cheaper are marginally more expensive than the single card but out perform said single card by a good margin.

And to all of you who still thinkg WoW doesn't support SLI/Crossfire, I doubt you have used it before. Running a 6870 crossfire lets me play at full ultra (Inc shadows) lets me play with 60 FPS no matter what zone I am in except Org.

[vesseblah]

And to all of you who still thinkg WoW doesn't support SLI/Crossfire, I doubt you have used it before. Running a 6870 crossfire lets me play at full ultra (Inc shadows) lets me play with 60 FPS no matter what zone I am in except Org.

Many Radeon 5k series cards users have reported CrossFire actually lowers their framerate, both in this forum and in the official forums. It's also well-known fact that CF works significantly better in 6k series than 5k series.

You're either lucky or the bug was fixed in 6k cards, either way, using CrossFire in WoW is not recommended because it's known to cause problems with some configurations, and Blizzard does not officially support it in any way. Also Radeon 6870 is fast enough card to run WoW with full graphics and 8x AA/AF alone without second card, your framerate is CPU capped.