9800gtx+ for 2 ati 4830s?

[Jonwall]

So ive been trying to trade my 9800gtx+ for a bit now for a 4850, and someones just emailed me saying that he has 2 4830s, one still in the box. Not entirely sure if he means he will trade both for my single card, or if ill have to pay $50 along with my card for them.
Anyways point is my new motherboard has quad crossfire support so i want an ati card, would it be worth it performance wise to get 2 4830s to replace my 9800gtx+? or should i just hold out and wait for someone to offer a 4850?

[cadaveca]

Yes, 4830 is 640 shaders, 575mhz, basically equivalent to 3850x2. 2 cards would be 1280 shaders, 575mhz

4850 would be 800 shaders @ 625mhz...so with a small overclock, the 2x 4830's would be a bit better.

Mosy 4830's are even on the 4850 PCB...and are really 4850's with 2 of 10 shader blocks disabled.

[Jonwall]

crappy thing i found out lol, BOTH are dual slot coolers, and the only 2 pci slots would be covered by them on this mobo. Does anyone know if i could say run one card in the top slot as normal, and the second in the third slot at 8x rather than both a 16x? If thatll work i may just go for it. Cant switch to a usb wireless card since i have a big antenna for my pci one lol.

[donimo]

games that favour crossfire will be better, games that don't will be worse, seems to be what Ive gathered.

[Jonwall]

ya pretty much lol, thats why i was hoping for a 4850 now then buy another one down the road, then at least a 4850 is close to the 9800gtx+ in performance and wont be too noticable in games where crossfire doesnt kick in

[cadaveca]

I've actually only seen 3-5 titles not use crossfire. When I title first releases, if they are not part of ATI's circle, then you'll have to wait for a driver update, but only Crysis stands out to me for lack of Crossfire support.

[Jonwall]

well this pretty much cancels out one part of my question lol, here i am thinking "this sucks i wont have any free pci slots if i do this", 30 minutes later i LOOK at my motherboard, the second blue x16 slot is below the second pci slot, so ill still have access to one pci slot even with 2 dual slot cards. Pretty bad when you dont even remember the layout of your mobo :(
Depending on what this guy wants cashwise i think im gonna go through with it, hopefully its 50-$75.

Edit: He wants $100, think its still worth it?

[1Tanker]

Just out of interest Jonwall, exactly which eVGA 9800GTX+ is it...specs? Just wondering, because i have a BFG 9800GTX+ OC...which i really like, and i bought it to upgrade from my HIS 4850(Nvidia is better for Folding). So i have both, and would prefer another 9800GTX+ over my 4850(i hate ATI drivers and CCC ). I may consider a trade.

[Jonwall]

its the superclocked edition, not sure on the exact clocks but the guy is already coming in a few hours to trade lol.

edit: he did say last night the he "may" not show up though, so if he doesnt we could still do a trade.

[cadaveca]

Here's a review of 4830 Crossfire:

"Crisis Management CrossFireX" Two ATI Radeon HD 4830s against One ATI Radeon HD 4870 (page 12) - X-bit labs

I wouldn't blame you for wanting singlecard, given the hype behind Crossfire issues; I even related alot of issues myself. But most of the issues related in this review I never ran into, or are very minor:


Here's thier conclusion:

Judging by the test results, you can indeed save on your graphics card in the time of economical crisis. As you could see, the CrossFireX tandem of two Radeon HD 4830 cards is generally faster than the single Radeon HD 4870, which also costs more. Therefore you can buy one cheap Radeon HD 4830 and then, half a year later, buy another such card to get a nice performance boost for very little money. Or you can save today by buying two Radeon HD 4830 cards as they will be cheaper than one Radeon HD 4870.
At the same time, you have to be prepared to certain difficulties and problems if you decide to go CrossFireX. Even if you are lucky not to have any problems with the installation of the driver and control panel, you won’t be able to avoid the problems in games. The jerkiness in Far Cry 2 makes the gameplay most uncomfortable, for example. There are image defects in 3DMark Vantage and Unreal Tournament 3. CrossFireX mode is disabled in Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason when you change the display resolution, and in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.:Clear Sky you need to restart the rendering engine manually to enable CrossFireX. Besides, a system with two Radeon HD 4830 consumes more power than a system with one Radeon HD 4870. If you are not scared by these difficulties, and you still hope for improvements in the next versions of Catalyst, the Radeon HD 4830 CrossFire configuration may be an appealing solution for you in terms of price/performance ratio.