I'm wondering which card(s) would be a better upgrade: 512mb GDDR3 Radeon HD 4850 - £70.49 each. Total = £140.98 1024mb GDDR5 Radeon HD 5770 - £122.99 I have a 500w PSU and when I upgrade will definitely be getting a crossfire-ready motherboard. So which one would be a better upgade in your guy's opinion? EDIT: From these performance charts you can see that the crossfired 4850s consistently outperform the 5770.
Even though the 4850's perform far better? (I added charts in my original post) In my mind here are the pros & cons for 4850s: +Better performance than 5770 (this is a big factor ) -Slightly more expensive than 5770 (actually I did find them for only £63 each but from a fairly unknown seller) -Crossfire is less reliable & prevents further crossfiring in future -Higher temperatures than 5770 -Greater power intake than the 5770 In retrospect; looking at that list the advantages do seem to be on the 5770's side but that attraction of the awesome price/performance of the 4850's has got me interested & they're reccomended above the 5770 by Tom's Hardware (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-geforce-gtx-480,2598-4.html).
THG is daft. For one, the 5770 is single card, so fewer driver woes (never stop me though.) It's also DX11, which the 4850 will never be, and the 5770 should actually be lower power draw. It's a single PCI-E, so dual PCI-E (one per card) will draw more. Even if they come out the exact same price, the 5770 offers one other thing-an upgrade path. Your dollar, but that's my opinion.
Thanks for the advice , i'm swinging towards the 5770 now. I guess it's a more stable card that's futureproof aswell & the performance difference would only be noticeable in a very small amount of games.
Ok, next time I upgrade I'll definitely be getting the 5770. If I find it's lacking in performance I'll just crossfire in another one & that should give me performance around a 5870 right? Thanks for all the helpful input guys.
