5770 CrossFire or 5850?

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sparky1_2007

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Which would be the best setup considering there's only a $25 difference.

and putting the fact of power usage, microstutter (if there even is any) and all that stuff, which would you say is better?
 
sparky1_2007 said:
Which would be the best setup considering there's only a $25 difference.

and putting the fact of power usage, microstutter (if there even is any) and all that stuff, which would you say is better?
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I'd wait for some reviews.

HD5770 is basicly half a HD5870. Put half and half together and you get one.

2 HD5770s in crossfire may be as good as a single HD5870 for some applications that can use the hardware. Not all games work well with crossfire or ATI video cards. Alot has to do with the code of the engine running the application.. For folding 2 HD5770s in crossfire would probably work just as good as a single HD5870.


Really have to wait for some HD5770 crossfire reviews. Keep a look out at HWbot.org for multi HD5770 systems. They have all the world records on different type of video cards. I'm sure there will be some new HD5770 multi gpu data showing up soon.

I read that there will only be 10,000 HD5700 cards at launch. Of those 10,000 sold I'm sure there will be a few enthusiast tweakers who will push them to the limts.
 
When in doubt, always go with the FASTEST single card your budget allows over 2 slower cards.
 
CaptNumbNutz said:
When in doubt, always go with the FASTEST single card your budget allows over 2 slower cards.
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Provided you can afford it.

Going with a more affordable HD5770 at launch then upgrading to crossfire HD5770 later on when the price comes down will be an option for many who can't afford to buy the higher priced card to begin with.
 
There's a 5770 crossfire review up at guru3d. Seems to beat/equal a single 5870 in the reviews they post.
 
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SonDa5 said:
Provided you can afford it.

Going with a more affordable HD5770 at launch then upgrading to crossfire HD5770 later on when the price comes down will be an option for many who can't afford to buy the higher priced card to begin with.
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Yes that is another option... but its also an option with every other card out there.
 
5850 - isn't Eyefinity disabled within CF?, Much less hassle with 1 card IMO

If the 5770 in CF was >%35 faster than a 5850 then maybe... but 5850 is pretty fast by itself for the price.
 
SonDa5 said:
Provided you can afford it.

Going with a more affordable HD5770 at launch then upgrading to crossfire HD5770 later on when the price comes down will be an option for many who can't afford to buy the higher priced card to begin with.
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Since the OP asked about the 5850 and not the 5870 and since the 5850 is cheaper then 2x 5770 I think it is safe to assume he can afford it. Oh and the best option has always been to sell your lower end card and buy a single faster card. And sorry but that isn't going to be changing any time soon.

Anyway OP go with the single card. Crossfire doesn't exactly scale properly across all games just like any other mult GPU solution. The 2x 5770 may be able to compete or even beat the 5850 in some games. But over all the single card is cheaper and will provide a better gaming experience as always.
 
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if it was a considerable amount cheaper then i woulda done crossfire, but because the difference lies within 25 bux, i would get a 5850
 
Well before someone links the Anand review as proof that the 5770 in CF easily beats a single 5850. I would like to point out the settings he uses to generate his charts do nothing to depict how these two would compare at the setting any of us would actually use.

Also given some of his results I question whether anyone even watched the screen for signs of rendering issues such as the ones Brent found.

We are just going to have to wait for Brent to get around to putting these 2 setups head to head in real world gaming scenarios before we know anything more then we did before the 5770 reviews came out.
 
The day most games require you to run them in Xfire or SLI is the day I quit gaming. Single card solutions are just easier to deal with.
 
Single card always. That way you can upgrade to Xfire 5850 in the future when you need more power. You can't crossfire already crossfired cards if you start with crossfire. Single card > CF, always!
 
Shadowssong said:
Single card always. That way you can upgrade to Xfire 5850 in the future when you need more power. You can't crossfire already crossfired cards if you start with crossfire. Single card > CF, always!
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I agree with most of what you said, but you are ignoring tri fire and quad fire. However since the number of boards with this ability is limited is nearly a moot point.
 
I had the same question and went for the 5850. I think one consideration is the resolution and eye-candy you want to run as well as the particular game. Looking at benchmarks it appears the 5770 xfire has the upper hand at lower resolutions without things like AA turned on and what not for newer games (at least for FC2) but when you turn up visuals and resolution, the edge diminishes. It seems in older games like COD 5 (rehash of COD 4 engine), the xfire solution is better on all accounts though.

The reason I went with the 5850 was because it doesn't have the crippled memory bandwidth the 5770 does and I think that will be more important for upcoming games (i.e. FC 2 is newer than COD 5 and is one instance of this trend). Plus, I'd rather add another 5850 in the future when prices come down and I need some more horsepower.

There are pros and cons to both though. For me, I didn't want to eliminate expandability out of the gate. On the other hand, xfire was attractive to have 2 fast cards in their own right which I could split up into 2 systems if I wanted (like loaning one to a friend at a lan party or something). Either way, I don't think you can really go wrong with these new cards from ATI.

I've always just gone where the good technology is, regardless of ATI or Nvidia, but recently I've been displeased with some of Nvidia's arrogant business attitudes as of late and I'm happy to throw ATI my business. Props on innovation and pushing the envelope.
 
I came here looking to post a thread on the very same question.
I am leaning towards a 5850 as well but after the very nice 5770 CF performance in the Anandtech article it left me kind of excited.
 
I've used dual GPUs twice in the past (7950GX2, 4850 CF) and both times was left very disappointed. While both showed promise and sometimes really great performance, they were both overall just too inconsistent and plagued with problems (esp the 7950GX2) for my taste. I will not be attempting the dual GPU route again until there is a revolution in the way multi-GPU is handled.

Buy the single faster card.
 
Now I prefer performance I can count on all the time, smoother FPS and fewer bugs.

Go 5850 or 5870 and OC 'em. This is coming from a guy with a long history of using both Crossfire and SLi. If I had to go multi-GPU it would be with SLi. Driver profiles provided faster, greater control and fewer bugs.
 
Historically speaking Xfire has reached new levels of performance on the latest ATI 40nm powered video cards.
 
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