PC upgrade with crossfire

I'm finally upgrading my 4 year old rig and I'm trying to keep some components from my old machine. This will be used primarily for gaming and under the 1k range. After doing some research I just don't feel like i7s are worth the price when you compare with the i5s. In any case I have a HD 5770 that isn't very old and has worked fine for me. My thought was to pick up another an do crossfire.

Anyway, I had a few questions about if crossfire is actually worth it, if the RAM I picked was right and if the mobo looks decent. Any suggestions or criticism would be great!

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=21457228

Crucial RealSSD C300 CTFDDAC064MAG-1G1 2.5" 64GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I52500K

ASRock P67 EXTREME4 (B3) LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBRL

OCZ ModXStream Pro 700W Modular High Performance Power Supply compatible with Intel Sandybridge Core i3 i5 i7 and AMD Phenom

ZALMAN CNPS9500 AT 2 Ball CPU Cooling Fan/Heatsink

COOLER MASTER Elite 430 RC-430-KWN1 Black Steel / Plastic Computer Case

ASUS CuCore Series EAH5770 CuCore/2DI/1GD5 Radeon HD 5770 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support ...

Already owned XFM HD 5770

Around $770 with all the rebates.

Thanks!

 

Looks like a nice rig. My understanding of X-fire performance is that you'll see, at best, a 1.5X performance increase in games that support X-fire. Of course, in games that don't support it, you'll see no performance gain. I think you'd do better to get yourself a 6850 or 6870 and just use a single card.

 

Are there really huge gains in that card over the 5770?

 

The gains going from the Barts to the Barts Pro GPU are pretty significant. Not to mention the clock and memory speed gains. I would say that going to the 6850 or 6870 will be at least as good as X-firing 5770's, plus you'll have the gains for everything, not just games that support x-fire.

You also have to consider heat generation and energy consumption. Can your system comfortably handle 2 cards?

 

Yeah, that makes sense. After doing so search the 6950s look like good cards. Specifically the MSI ones that you can unlock to 6970. I did some rearranging to try and keep costs down because of the new card.

https://secure.newegg.com/WishList/MySavedWishDetail.aspx?ID=21457228

 

FYI - Your latest wish list link is the private link, not the public link. No one can see it but you.

 

For your power supply, you'll want to change to the newer revision of the same power supply. Same price.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139020

 

Thanks!
http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/P...-na&AID=10521304&PID=4176827&SID=qdzl72ahhil5

 

CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V v2.2 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 ...
$139.99 -$25.00 Instant $114.99

ASUS P8P67 LE (REV 3.0) LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
$139.99 $139.99

COOLER MASTER Elite 430 RC-430-KWN1 Black Steel / Plastic Computer Case
$54.99 -$5.00 Instant $49.99

MSI R6950-2PM2D2GD5 Radeon HD 6950 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity
$279.99 $279.99

Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I52500K
$219.99 $219.99

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBRL
$84.99 $84.99

ZALMAN CNPS9500 AT 2 Ball CPU Cooling Fan/Heatsink
$54.99 -$12.00 Instant $42.99
__________________

 

I'd ditch your mobo because it has only 1 PCI-E X16 slot maybe look at the:

ASUS P8P67 DELUXE at $225

 

As to the Zalman, there's no current side by side reviews younger than 2007. I'm sure it will be fine unless you overclock your CPU plus it looks better than mine and was designed for a LGA775 socket which threw out 125W of heat rather than 95. I have a Coolermaster Hyper 212+ that is doing just fine on my i7 2600K@4.7GHz @ 75C with an ambient of 85F running at %100 load.

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showpost.php?p=1631736&postcount=31

 

Is it really worth it to spend almost $100 extra just for a 8x/x8 the board I posted is x4/x4 when in crossfire. What else would you need a second x16 slot for?

I'll look at other heatsinks and see if there is a better option.