>>3218
What model would you be looking at?

>>3221
err um... probably a Radeon 5000+ or something around that depends on what my budget will be by the end of the summer. want to update for Battlefield 3, defiantly from Newegg.

And what's your mother board?

the new one ill get is a MSI 870A-G54 AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130275)
whats the mobo got to do with it? other than having another pci port for the gpu.

>>3229
More out of curiosity than anything else. I've always used Nvidia, so I just wanted to see what's up.

But back on the main subject, yeah you should be able to get something more recent. I don't know if going with a different make would change something or not.

Post what you get and how it works out.

>>3230
i asked around with some of the people i know, and my brother said i need to make sure the MoBo is crossfire compatible (i dont know what a old 90's board game has to do with it but ok. lol jk) he also said something else but i cant remember but im going to go with just that here is hoping that it works

ill probably buy everything around the end of October so the parts get here, and i build the rig by the time Battlefield 3 comes out.

>>3231
>FOR ANY CARDS NOT LISTED: If the cards are NOT of the same generation AND series (57xx, 68xx, etc) they CANNOT be Crossfired
http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview.cfm?catid=262&threadid=142339
You probably already saw this, but just in case. I googled "crossfire compatibility chart" because I didn't know what it was.

Ah that helps.

so wait, if the Mobo has crossfireX do i still need the 2 inch bridge, or cable like this (pic), or is all that taken care of on the board?

Are you running dual monitor? How old is the x1650 anyway? I'm wondering if you're not just better off getting something recent to replace the current one and not worry about crossfire.

yeah i know i wont be able to crossfire the card i have now with the one im looking for. it was more of getting an understanding for the concept, like if i was to get a Mobo with CFX (crossfire) would i still need the bridge thing that goes on top. i dont think i will dual monitor, i herd it slows down your GPU

>>3241 sry i was on another computer that ones is me

Er, considering that card's about 5 years old I'd recommend just plain ditching it.

About Crossfire, the mobo does matter because depending on the built in PCI-E lanes, installing two video cards may result in the speed (max and standard atm being 16x) being split into something like 8x/8x, 16x/4x, 16x/8x, whatever. Basically, a poorly suited motherboard may end up slowing down your video cards so that performance in watching videos or playing games has not benefit over a good single card. But assuming you got a 16x/16x mobo, I still hear it can be a problem where games are concerned because of compatibility issues and the need for a separate driver. All in all, unless you're computing protein folding, doing video processing, or using photoshop heavily (as in multi-tasking professional graphic designer heavily) I would say it's more trouble than it's worth. That said, it does have a performance increase. Speaking purely about power, it can indeed be significantly better than any one card. However, for most people, to get this sort of high performance Crossfire arrangement makes no goddamn financial sense compared to a single card. If you still want to go through with it, I won't stop you but this would be as far as my advice goes. And yeah, you'd still need the bridge.

By the way, sounds like you're upgrading a lot; you changing the CPU too? I ask because AMD will be coming out with a new line of CPUs in a few months and they'll need a new type of socket, AM3+. I just figure even if you're not going to wait and buy one of those new CPUs when it comes out, it'd be nice to get instead of the current AM3 boards just in case you wanna upgrade down the line. Otherwise, the one you linked is already a good choice!

And I'd be happy to help out with planning the build/upgrade if you want~