GTX 570 or HD 6970?

[NeciFiX]

Hiya,

Here's my PC:

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Processor OC'd to 4.0 GHz
8GB DDR2 RAM OC'd @ 1186 MHz
550W Rosewill Power Supply
HIS HD 6850 GPU 1GB
Asus Xonar DX Sound Card
Asus P5Q Pro Motherboard
Planar 27" LCD Monitor (1920x1080 resolution)

Here is the Math for my upgrade options. The -$50 is a Newegg gift card.

What do YOU think would provide the most bang for the buck?

GRAPHICS CARD SOLUTIONS:

HD 6850 Crossfire Setup total price:

$144.99 HD 6850
$99.99 Power Supply (Newegg.com - OCZ OCZ750FTY 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Power Supply - does this look good, considering the Crossfire? I think the wattage is fine.)
= 244.99
-$50
= $194.99 (also, there is a -$10 MIR for the graphics card and a -$25 MIR for the PSU, so, this could be as low as $159.99)

GTX 570:
$329.99
-$50
$279.99
-$100-110 from reselling old HD 6850
= $169.99-$179.99

HD 6970:
$349.99
-$50
$299.99
-$110
= $189.99-$199.99 (possible MIR of $10-$20, so, could be as low as $169.99 to $179.99)

Link to my mobo details:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131299

Would Crossfiring on this mobo work fine or would it be a sucky idea and I should just go with the single card solution? The HD 6850 Crossfired appear to have performance that blows the GTX 570/HD 6970 out of the water, but, the benchmarks of those were run on very good PC's with newer hardware.

All benchmarks I've seen have shown the Crossfired HD 6850's would be significantly better than the GTX 570 and HD 6970, and even better than a single GTX 580 which is a monster GPU, second only to the GTX 590 of the Nvidia line, which is very impressive. I already have a HD 6850 I bought a long time ago so I think Crossfiring is the way to go. Also, my PSU I have now is getting old and is only 550W, so, I figure it might be a good bonus to replace that, too. And it turns out I might save $5.00 in the end over the other options! But, what do you guys think? Any issues with drivers I should know about? Are the benchmarks somewhat false in nature?

Thanks,
Necifix

 

[Indigo]

You'd be better off getting a new GTX 570. Both from a money standpoint and a performance standpoint. You usually want to go with the fastest single GPU you can afford in most cases, and I'm not convinced that CrossFire/SLI makes sense for folks until they get a monitor that goes over what yours can do. That, and the 570 is a VERY fast card. It compares favorably to the 6970 and you'd guarantee yourself the price savings vs. the "possible" MIR of the 6970. I'm an AMD guy, so hopefully that carries some weight for ya.

Either way, you'll need to start planning your CPU upgrade eventually, as the Core 2 duos are getting very long in the tooth at this stage, but the 570 should help extend you a bit.