4850 or 5000 series

[genpatton7]

zzzzzzzz CF does not exactly double your framerates, and you would also need 2 pci-e 2.0 slots running at x16 for the best performance which is only in x48 mobo's. CF scales well but nothing scales perfectly to double it. CF 4850 gets like 30 FPS more in most games but many games also don't utilize the CF.

The 5 series are gonna be utilizing new technology which from rumors may be something like 40% faster over a 4870x2 or something but i dont know, just rumors. In all i would just wait to get the new 5 series instead of using your money on something thats going to be discontinued soon.

I think in your hastiness to downplay the speed of crossfire you failed to grasp the purpose of my posting, with the OP's specs, anything greater than a 4850x2 would be bottle-necked and therefore be a poor investment. While getting a 5000 series card would be awesome, it just isn't practical for the person it concerns. I also said to wait for DX11 cards to come out before buying, not only to see what's out there, but also to get what is sure to be a major discount on a lot of 4000 series cards.

 

[PewPewBangBang]

mmmm i dont really think a single 5870x2 will bottleneck with a duo core at 3.03ghz but i could be wrong. I havnt heard of it bottlenecking with 4870x2 but thats probably because no one does it with that setup. I could be wrong so dont take my word for granted. I've only seen TRI-Fire and up bottlenecking CPU's so far. Correct me though cuz im probably wrong lol.

 

[genpatton7]

mmmm i dont really think a single 5870x2 will bottleneck with a duo core at 3.03ghz but i could be wrong. I havnt heard of it bottlenecking with 4870x2 but thats probably because no one does it with that setup. I could be wrong so dont take my word for granted. I've only seen TRI-Fire and up bottlenecking CPU's so far. Correct me though cuz im probably wrong lol.

Yeah, I ran a 4870x2 with an E8500 @ 4 Ghz for awhile. The bottlenecking wasn't serious, but when I moved to a Q9650 at the same clock there was definitely an fps increase.