Quick Question

[adamant454]

I've got a Radeon 7870, and it says it's crossfire ready. What does that mean?

 

[Snipeye]

It means you can run another Radeon card to get additional performance. Crossfire is the ATI version of SLI from nVidia. It's pretty much using the power of two GPU's at once to get anywhere 105-180% additional graphic performance. It's not exactly double the power because of inefficiencies in the system, but let's say you own the 7870 when it's brand new, and maybe a year later, you want to increase performance, but cannot afford the cost for a brand new card. The 7870, however, has dropped considerably in price. Thus, you can purchase a 2nd 7870, link them up via Crossfire, and get say 150% performance for the cost of an "older" card.

Note: When you link video cards up together, it will only use the full abilities of the lowest performing card. So linking up a 7870 to a 7850 will mean you got two 7850s (unless you mess with the OC and voltages)

 

[adamant454]

Alright, this makes sense. Thanks!