Moral Dilemma...Or Is It?

I'm not really impressed with the 6XXX series, but they do scale better than the 4XXX series..... That said if you get the 4870X2's they may or not work well with your games... resale value will be low and worse when the 7XXX's come out. Depending on your game(ie GTA4) you will not see much improvement due to CPU/hard drive bottleneck..... maybe instead a single 4870/4890/4870X2 with your existing 4870? At least till something new catches your eye:)

Have you considered the 5XXX series? Prices should fall soon....

The HX can handle two X2's without breaking much of a sweat. But if I do end up with an X2 I'll just be getting one to pair off with my 4870. If I don't...I'm pretty sure I'll be going with two 5770's. I'm not really looking to spend $300, $400 on a video card with Southern Islands so close.

The 6XXX series is more efficient than the 5XXX, but uses less cores for the comparable card....that makes them some what parallel + the 6XXX doesn't seem to offer much of a bump in performance or any new features....at least any worth an upgrade for.... I hope the 7XXX will be more performance oriented.

As for the games you play I have heard that they crossfire well....

I did recently upgrade from a 4890 to a 5850...Now this is what I noticed...GTA San Andreas: The zebra stripes on distant objects disappeared....GTA 4 peak frame rates went down, but there is a less dramatic difference between the highs and lows/no slowdowns..but, I'll go out on a limb and say my CPU is the bottleneck in my system

The card cost $139 at the Egg but is now discontinued So unless you can find a deal, crossfire with your existing card will be the cheapest option/also from my experience my single 5850 is bottlenecked/ two X2's will heat the house, but probably not game much better than a single X2.....SSD and a i7/bulldozer in the future?

Zepher said:

It looks like 2 new 5770's are almost the same price as a 6950. I would go with the 6950 since it gives you the option to add another one in the future.

That's another unique problem.

I could also pick up the 2GB 6950 and flash it. A bit too many options for me.

Ivan the SoSo said:

The 6XXX series is more efficient than the 5XXX, but uses less cores for the comparable card....that makes them some what parallel + the 6XXX doesn't seem to offer much of a bump in performance or any new features....at least any worth an upgrade for.... I hope the 7XXX will be more performance oriented.

As for the games you play I have heard that they crossfire well....

I did recently upgrade from a 4890 to a 5850...Now this is what I noticed...GTA San Andreas: The zebra stripes on distant objects disappeared....GTA 4 peak frame rates went down, but there is a less dramatic difference between the highs and lows/no slowdowns..but, I'll go out on a limb and say my CPU is the bottleneck in my system

The card cost $139 at the Egg but is now discontinued So unless you can find a deal, crossfire with your existing card will be the cheapest option/also from my experience my single 5850 is bottlenecked/ two X2's will heat the house, but probably not game much better than a single X2.....SSD and a i7/bulldozer in the future?

When I jump ship I'm either going with i5 or i7. And there's one 5850 left at the 'egg, costs $184.99. Tell me you're not going to suggest that...I've already got enough on my plate as is. Lol.

Terronium 12 said:

Zepher said:

It looks like 2 new 5770's are almost the same price as a 6950. I would go with the 6950 since it gives you the option to add another one in the future.

That's another unique problem.

I could also pick up the 2GB 6950 and flash it. A bit too many options for me.

That would work great...if the disabled core had nothing wrong with it...if it did...well

If that happened I could switch to the backup BIOS.

If that weren't the case I'd kill myself. Lulz.