4830 Crossfire

[breadandbubbles]

So im already running an ATI 4830 512mb Sapphire on my Crosshair 3 mobo, with my 955 Black chip. its bringing my system down a little bit, but im on a budget. i thought id just add another 4830, and crossfire them.

now, i dont know ANYTHING about crossfire, but my options are

another 4830 sapphire 512mb for 100 bucks (canadian $)

another 4830, but 1GB, for 120 bucks

a 4850 1GB for 145 bucks.

SO.

first of all, by adding a 4830, is it worth it at all to go with the 1GB? will i notice any difference at all, really? i always thought the size of the memory is a bit of a gimmick. am i wrong?

im not actually considering the 4850. didnt think it was worth an extra 50%. am i wrong there too?

ALSO, i hear the cards onboard power supplying system was on the back. and that a cooling system like a water block or something would not be effective. is this true.

ALSO,

is it worth it to go with liquid cooling in this case? i wont have much room, in my Antec Skeleton case, after these two cards. the heatsinks are HUGE, but theyre very overclockable.

i guess what im asking is: the extra money to go twoards better cooling could just go towards a better card thats as fast anyway, right? am i wrong? is liquid colling cheaper than that?

i dont know what im doing here.

[CoffeeFiend]

is it worth it at all to go with the 1GB? will i notice any difference at all, really?

No point, as each card has to have the same things in memory as the other it won't use the extra RAM at all.

i always thought the size of the memory is a bit of a gimmick. am i wrong?

It's not really a gimmick. More RAM = more space for higher quality textures. But at some point, it's not the limitation anymore (loads of RAM on a slow card won't do you any good, but a RAM upgrade on a really fast card might help)

im not actually considering the 4850. didnt think it was worth an extra 50%. am i wrong there too?

Ideally, you want to use identical cards.

[Zxian]

From the last information I've read, SLI and Crossfire still don't really give you much bang for your buck. You definitely won't get twice the performance. I'd recommend putting that money aside and saving up for a 4870, which will be a significant performance boost. The price difference between the two is currently ~$60CAD, and the 4870 is only going to drop in price with the introduction of the 5000-series cards.

Generally speaking, overclocking and water cooling are not worthwhile unless you know what you're doing. I definitely wouldn't worry about them until you're more comfortable with the basic hardware. Furthermore, overclocking a video card won't usually give you the same performance as the "next" level of hardware (there are exceptions, but those are rare).

[CoffeeFiend]

From the last information I've read, SLI and Crossfire still don't really give you much bang for your buck. You definitely won't get twice the performance. I'd recommend putting that money aside and saving up for a 4870, which will be a significant performance boost.

Haven't checked SLI in a while, but two 4830's in crossfire is faster than a 4870. The performance gains over a single 4830 are pretty good seemingly (sometimes over double e.g. in the COD4 demo)

Either ways, it'll also double power consumption (and fan noise), so I'd still look into getting one faster card (selling the old one to pay for part of it), although the faster cards can be pricey (and power hungry as well)

[breadandbubbles]

my decision is kind of made for me. online classifieds, via kijiji, have a guy advertising a 4850 512mb for $70 (cad). i cant go wrong with that!

i thought about waiting, but for 70 bucks, my two cards will outpace a 4870, at least. well, thats alright.

youre right though, i'll hold off on extra cooling. im not at the level where its worth it anyway.

it was mentioned, that combining two different cards isnt generally suggested?

4850 + 4830, both 512 = not a good idea? it seemed like a good idea, but, maybe im missing something?

[puntoMX]

4850 + 4830, both 512 = not a good idea? it seemed like a good idea, but, maybe im missing something?

Crossfire will work indeed and 70CAD isn't much, just make sure that you test that card before you set it in crossfire .