muzux2
Forerunner
Oftentimes we've lambasted multi-GPU graphics-card setups as a general waste of money,pointing our readers in the direction of the fastest single-GPU card that their budget allows them to buy.However, of late, both ATI and NVIDIA have cleaned up their multi-GPU acts,and scaling in popular games is such that adding a second GPU - be it on the PCB itself or via another card - makes implicit sense if the value proposition
is just right.
The sub-£100 Sapphire Radeon HD 4830 512MB validates this point by providing reasonable high-end gaming performance on its own but practically doubling average framerate when another is added.Despite initial misgivings, we're impressed with how well Sapphire's non-reference
cooler works, and would recommend the company adding a software-based tool that lets the user modulate the speed of the fan(s) to suit their aural taste. Additional performance derived by a second card gives cumulative numbers, over our four games, which are equal to a pre-overclocked GeForce GTX 280, but the win here is with a substantially lower street price - £200 vs. £330 - and multi-monitor outputs.
Yes, you need to have a CrossFire-supporting motherboard and some games may not show the kind of scaling we've seen in our testing, but a combined £200 buys you smooth performance at 2,560x1,600 HQ settings.hyeah: Kind of begs the question as to whether Sapphire will launch a Radeon HD 4830 X2, priced at around £180, doesn't it?
We'll be taking a look at a couple of GeForce 9800 GTs and seeing how the price/performance proposition plays out in comparison, but, perhaps, multi-GPU setups finally make good sense when the underlying technology is priced so aggressively.
HEXUS.net - Review :: Sapphire Radeon HD 4830 512MB - CrossFire making sense? : Page - 1/10
PS : thats awsome scaling, i guess two of 4830's would cost here 16K, that will even give 4870 a run for its money..
