Ryan220
11-12-2009, 10:26 AM
Last night I Crossfired my 4890s and came to a couple of conclusions about it and thought I’d post them in case anyone else is thinking about Crossfiring
1) Neat case installations and Crossfire just dont work – my case now looks like a hand grenade has gone off inside it.
2) The heat generated is considerable – Ive had to reverse the flow of the side fan so its now an extractor. The upside is I dont need the radiator on in my computer room anymore – seriously.
3) Cost - my pair of 4890s cost me a measly £231 – bargain!
4) The performance boost – Im getting some excellent scores in the benchies (50 to 100% increase (perhaps the additional 4 gig of Ram has helped too?)). Its a bit hard to notice any improvement in gaming as a single 4890 ran almost every game I have at 1920x1080 max eveything, however, it’ll be good for the 2 years until I upgrade my machine.
5) Simplicity – its a breeze to set up. Stick in your extra card connect up the power and the crossfire bridges and away you go. OK, so you’ll end up b*ggering around with sata leads and pcie power leads and perhaps have to move a HDD, but its pretty easy
6) Noise – read the reviews and you’ll believe your computer will sound like Dyson on crack with a pair of these badboys running – not true for me, the noise levels havent perceptibly changed.
The only Crossfire game compatibilty issues I have had are with L4D2 whereby the game stutters when I first join a game or when the map changes after the safe room. This is a known issue and is solved by ALT-Tab ‘ing out of the game and then back in again. The other being dirt 2 – for some reason if I select 60Hz I get major stuttering but at 59Hz its all fine (running 1920x1080, max everything)
If you’re thinking about it then I would suggest go for it. For a budget set up its really very good
1) Neat case installations and Crossfire just dont work – my case now looks like a hand grenade has gone off inside it.
2) The heat generated is considerable – Ive had to reverse the flow of the side fan so its now an extractor. The upside is I dont need the radiator on in my computer room anymore – seriously.
3) Cost - my pair of 4890s cost me a measly £231 – bargain!
4) The performance boost – Im getting some excellent scores in the benchies (50 to 100% increase (perhaps the additional 4 gig of Ram has helped too?)). Its a bit hard to notice any improvement in gaming as a single 4890 ran almost every game I have at 1920x1080 max eveything, however, it’ll be good for the 2 years until I upgrade my machine.
5) Simplicity – its a breeze to set up. Stick in your extra card connect up the power and the crossfire bridges and away you go. OK, so you’ll end up b*ggering around with sata leads and pcie power leads and perhaps have to move a HDD, but its pretty easy
6) Noise – read the reviews and you’ll believe your computer will sound like Dyson on crack with a pair of these badboys running – not true for me, the noise levels havent perceptibly changed.
The only Crossfire game compatibilty issues I have had are with L4D2 whereby the game stutters when I first join a game or when the map changes after the safe room. This is a known issue and is solved by ALT-Tab ‘ing out of the game and then back in again. The other being dirt 2 – for some reason if I select 60Hz I get major stuttering but at 59Hz its all fine (running 1920x1080, max everything)
If you’re thinking about it then I would suggest go for it. For a budget set up its really very good