I that sounds good and all. I still think it would be smarter to just get daul ati 1gigs crossfired.
Do you mean the 4870 X2 or two ATI 4870s externally Crossfired? Crossfiring two 4870s externally is not as good as the X2. Performance-wise they are pretty much dead even but there are other issues.
- If you Crossfired two 4870s you'd need four 6 pin power connectors.
- If you bought two 4870s the price shouldn't be all that different than the 4870 X2. It should be cheaper for the 4870 X2.
- In the past people have noticed micros-stutters when using Crossfire but this may have been fixed with the 4800 series and the Catalyst drivers.
- You'll be required to have a Crossfire capable motherboard.
Reasons to go with the 4870 X2
- Cheaper price tag in many cases than buying two 4870s
- You require one 6 pin and one 8 pin power connector instead of four 6 pin power connectors.
- The 5 GB/s sideport bandwidth between the two GPUs
- You only require one PCI-e slot so even people with motherboards that don't support Crossfire can use the card
In terms of going with the NVIDIA 200 series cards and the ATI 4800 series of cards I think that it's a bit obvious which is more feasible.
ATI evolved their entire line of cards. They will release high-end 4800 cards and go right down to entry level cards all based on that generation of cards. What they have accomplished is superb. The only real negative of the ATI 4800 series is the heat they give off and the power consumption being a bit higher than the NVIDIA cards.
NVIDIA created the 200 series of cards and created these monsters and yet turned around and are re-releasing the 9xxx cards. Their approach confuses me in that they are working with two different generations and different architectures.
I have always been an NVIDIA fan since the death of 3dfx and had avoided ATI but in this case I think ATI has definitely taken the better approach. Take PhysX out of the equation and ATI has the better card. Even if the GTX 280 can beat the ATI cards in some scenarios the price point and the performance of the 4870 and 4870 X2 make them the winner in my book.
Let's see what the next generation of ATI and NVIDIA cards has in store for us.