Should I Crossfire or get a new card?

[secolliyn]

Hello, I am thinking about 1- A new video card or 2- Add an Crossfire to my system

System Spec
Intel DX58SO Motherboard (supports Crossfire)
Core I7 920 Stock (With Stock cooler)
6GB DDR3 1600
520 Watt Corsair HX520W Dual GPU Ready
4X Internal Hard Drives (750GB, 500GB, 320GB, 160GB) All SATA
XFX ATI 5770 (850 Core 1200 Ram) 1GB

Games i play or am looking to play are
Skyrim
Diablo 3
Rage
Borderlands 1 and 2
Homefront
Metro 2033
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Dead Island
Ect...
I am running a 22in LCD monitor at 1920 X 1080 and that is what I prefer to play my games at.
As far as maxing out games I don't need to but if i can it's a great bonus. I would however like to play games at higher levels just not maxed to the 9's
on a scale of 1-10 I would like to have an 7-8

So with all this in mind do you think I should buy a new video card or buy another 5770 and Crossfire it?

Also if I am going to get a new card I would keep the budget at about 200-220 and I really like the support of a lifetime warranty for the card
Buy time for the card would be 3 months or now for Crossfire 5770

Thank you for reading my post and for any advice I get if there is any more information that would let you give better advice please let me know i will be happy to provide the info again Thank you

 

[Supernova1138]

If you're willing to wait 3 months, you might be at the point when the HD 7000 and GTX 600 cards come out, and you would have a better chance of finding an even better upgrade than what you can get now. On the 200-220 budget you would probably be looking at a GTX 560 or HD 6870, which would be slightly less powerful than the 5770 Crossfire. For games that do support Crossfire (Rage doesn't right now, hopefully they will patch that), the 2 5770s would be close to the 6950 in terms of performance. One thing to also consider is you may get a lot of microstuttering with a 5770 Crossfire. Microstuttering seems to be most pronounced on Crossfire setups below the 6950 Crossfire.

In any case, a 5770 Crossfire, or even a single 6870 would max out most of the games you listed at your resolution. You won't be able to max out Metro 2033 on either setup. Everything else you should be able to run on max, I doubt Skyrim or Diablo 3 are going to be as demanding as Metro.

 

[phishy714]

More importantly than anything.. if you plan on Xfiring, you must get a new PSU. 520 watts will not cut it. For cards like that, I would get a 650-700w PSU from a quality manufacturer. This means you have to also add the cost of the PSU to your budget, where as I am sure you would be able to run a GTX 560 or HD 6870 on that PSU without much problems.

Your choice, really on what you can afford. Two 5570's in xfire would be considerably more powerful than any of the cards I listed above by themselves.

 

[Supermuncher85]

If you are buying in 3 months, then ask the question again in 3 months time 😛 prices change, new models come out. Who knows what will be in 3 months.

 

[Cygnus x-1]

I would get a new card... If you CF, your looking at 5870 performance if your lucky. I know from experience, albeit a very fast card in it's day, with games like BF3 coming out, it is starting to show it's age. I get good frame rates in BF3, but the card is ridiculously overclocked,lol

A 6950 is roughly= 560ti which is= roughly a highly overclocked 5870, I have tested. I would consider a 6970 or gtx 570. If not, go the cheaper route and buy another 5770, CF and overclock them.