So my hard drive crapped on me. I get a BOOT message stating a media cable is disconnected, and some junk on the Geforce card, and I need to order a recovery disk to reformat the computer. I have an NVIDIA GeForce graphics card.

I have an Alienware, and wish to upgrade to the ATI Radeon HD 4890.

Would I have to get a new motherboard to support it?

What MOBO do you have now?

Here are the specs:

[1] Area-51® 790i

Processor: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E8400 3.00GHz 6MB Cache 1333MHz FSB
Alienware P2 Chassis: Alienware® P2 Chassis with AlienIce™ 3.0 Video Cooling - Space Black
System Lighting: Alienware® Standard System Lighting - Fusion Red
System Cooling: Alienware® Standard System Cooling
Power Supply: Alienware® 750 Watt Multi-GPU Approved Power Supply
Graphics Processor: Nvidia GEFORCE 9800 GT 512 MB 65NM
Memory: 2GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1066MHz - 2 x 1024MB
Motherboard: Alienware® Approved NVIDIA® nForce® 790i Ultra SLI™ Motherboard
Includes PCI-Express 2.0, DDR3 Memory, and Support for Intel 1600 FSB
Operating System (Office software not included): Windows Vista® Home Premium with Service Pack 1 – DirectX 10 Ready!
System Drive: Single Drive Configuration - 500GB SATA 3Gb/s 7,200RPM 16MB Cache
Optical Drives : Single Drive Configuration - 20X Dual-Layer Burner (DVD±RW)
Enthusiast Essentials: Killer K1 Gaming Network Interface Card
Dedicated Network Processing Unit (NPU) bypasses the Windows network stack to offload gaming network traffic from the CPU, giving you better frame rates and less latency.
Sound Card: High-Definition 7.1 Performance Audio

This may help

The 790i will support the 4890 just fine. You won't be able to crossfire though.

How much does crossfiring improve? It's for adding multiple cards, right?

depends on the cards used. i think its usually about 50 to 70 percent though.

and if you have a triple card setup, then the third card doesnt add all that much extra performance.

Okay, so I don't play too many games. I play Left 4 Dead, Sims 3, GTA IV, and World of Warcraft from time to time. What would be the best card to get for games such as these? That will give me the ability to enhance detailing and graphics by as much as possible? I've been looking at the ATI 4890 but is there something better out there?

That would depend on the game, resolution, and how well the cards scale.

After adding a second card you can expect a pretty significant improvement for most games. It isn't a 100% increase, more like 50%(I think around there) depending on the game sometimes way less. Adding a third card isn't worth it at all you'll get maybe a 10% increase.

If you want a dual card solution I'd stick with Nvidia, that way you won't have to switch MOBO's. The GTX 275 is about the same price as the 4890. The two cards don't exactly perform the same in some games, but if you'll be playing Crysis nvidia cards will scale better.

If you're going single card, might as well stick with the 4890.

EDIT: hii beat me

For the games you listed you could easily get by with a 4870(which is now better price per performance due to recent price jobs. Poor GTX 260 core 216) However the GTX 260 would do just fine as well, and it would match your chipset.

quote

Adding a third card isn't worth it at all you'll get maybe a 10% increase.

...and would contribute to about 30 percent extra heat methinks.

quote hiigaran

...and would contribute to about 30 percent extra heat methinks.

You think correct. I like to run my cards with a fan speed of 70%. Most cards at that speed idle in the mid 40's, so just at idle you've got an extra piece of hardware at 45c.

meh, once i get some killer hardware, i wont accept anything less than 100% for my fan speeds.

of course, theres always the proper cable management and housekeeping within the case to think about first...

would a 2 gig 4870 be better than a 1 gig 4890?

only if youre running insane resolutions. other than that, youre not going to use all the memory so you might as well make use of the better speed of the 4890.

Maybe.

What size monitor or resolution will you be using?

Also what is the refresh rate?

Remember even if your FPS is above the refresh rate, all you'll be getting is the refresh rate. I'm going to assume that your refresh rate is 60Hz, just because that is the most common.

Depending on the resolution the 4870 should bring you close if not over the 60Hz refresh rate.

If you want the extra speed though by all means pick up the 4890. It's pretty cheap anyway.

I'm at 60Hz on a 47" HDTV