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3x 5870 or 2x 5970

D

DOMi

n00b
Joined
Jun 26, 2008
Messages
24
Hi All,

Going to build a new rig in about 2 months. Just wondering what setup would be better for playing at a resolution of 1920 x1200 -

3x 5870 or

2x 5970 ???

Thanks.
 
for a single 1920x1200 display...

1 5870 and use the rest of the money for 2 more displays...you will be more blown away w/ your gaming experience then going tri-fire/quad fire...yes true story
 
WTH...

Did you mean an EyeFinity setup or single monitor?

If single monitor... a single 5870 will max out everything... and it'll have overclocking headroom.
 
DOMi said:
Hi All,

Going to build a new rig in about 2 months. Just wondering what setup would be better for playing at a resolution of 1920 x1200 -

3x 5870 or

2x 5970 ???

Thanks.
Click to expand...


Those are all over kill.

First off crossfire scaling starts to drop off after 2 cards.

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/29...5870_graphics_card_in_crossfire_x/index7.html

it be smarter to invest in an eye infinty set up.

Get two 5870s in crossfire and put the $400 used on a third one to buying 2 more monitors.

It will be a much wiser investment
 
yea, 3 cards just cost more than 2, dont perform better. I would consider 5850 cf, you can look up some benches and see not much difference, theres another $200 saved for something else.
 
I'm pretty sure that people saying TriFire doesn't perform better haven't tried it? Because according to people who actually tried it, said it will be faster, BUT it's usually only in 1920x1200 and 2560x1600 it will have an effect.

http://benchmarkextreme.com/Articles/HD 5870 TriFire/P7.html

But if you consider EyeFinity then do not go for TriFire since the drivers are messed up and it will be faster to run 1 or 2 card setup.
 
MaxSten said:
I'm pretty sure that people saying TriFire doesn't perform better haven't tried it? Because according to people who actually tried it, said it will be faster, BUT it's usually only in 1920x1200 and 2560x1600 it will have an effect.

http://benchmarkextreme.com/Articles/HD 5870 TriFire/P7.html

But if you consider EyeFinity then do not go for TriFire since the drivers are messed up and it will be faster to run 1 or 2 card setup.
Click to expand...

I think the point people were making was that the one situation where you would actually want tri-fire (eyefinity) doesn't work, so there is no point in it.

Although having said that, Metro 2033 at 2560x1600 warrants tri-fire at this point, to max out details.
 
I'm not sure Metro 2033 has a crossfire profile yet, so you'll probably have to wait for a hotfix or crossfire application update to get a benefit from multiple GPUs. Seems like a popular game, so it will probably in the next update.

And at 1920x1200 I think you'd be fine with a 5850 even, with the option to expand later. If cost is no object, get a 5870 or two.
 
Balthazor said:
I'm not sure Metro 2033 has a crossfire profile yet, so you'll probably have to wait for a hotfix or crossfire application update to get a benefit from multiple GPUs. Seems like a popular game, so it will probably in the next update.

And at 1920x1200 I think you'd be fine with a 5850 even, with the option to expand later. If cost is no object, get a 5870 or two.
Click to expand...

Would this crossfire profile give my 5970 a boost in this game?
 
Wow thanks,

I actually have 2 monitors now but the way my desk is set up i can't use 3. I will also be doing 3d modeling using Softimage XSI, i know there are the FireGL's for that but I would also like to play games at the most extreme setting possible.

Thanks.
 
DOMi said:
Wow thanks,

I actually have 2 monitors now but the way my desk is set up i can't use 3. I will also be doing 3d modeling using Softimage XSI, i know there are the FireGL's for that but I would also like to play games at the most extreme setting possible.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

I really don't think the extra $400 is worth the money

I would personaly go with 2 5870s its most likely $100 more than the single 5970 and will offer better performance. I don't know how well softimage scales with crossfire but most stuff scales badly after 2 cards.

Its smarter to invest in a better monitor or a desk to set up 3 monitors for gaming.

once you go eyeinfinty you don't want to ever go back.
 
IMO Eyefinity is a joke until someone can make a display with literally zero bezel. That said I would get 2 5870's in Crossfire and use the extra cash to buy your significant other something nice.
 
trudude said:
IMO Eyefinity is a joke until someone can make a display with literally zero bezel. That said I would get 2 5870's in Crossfire and use the extra cash to buy your significant other something nice.
Click to expand...

This guy has never used eyefinity.

Stop making comments about bezels.

Everyone who has a triple screen setup concurs that bezels disappear once you start playing.

Do it. You won't regret it.
 
damstr said:
Would this crossfire profile give my 5970 a boost in this game?
Click to expand...

From what other users have posted on the AMD forums, the 5970 gets crappy performance in Metro 2033 because it either isn't using the multiple GPUs very well, or at all.

Crossfire profiles tell the GPUs how to render a particular game efficiently, and without them a game may either use one GPU or use multiple GPUs, but do so poorly.

If I had the game I'd test, but I don't, so don't take this at gospel; I'm just theorizing based on user comments. But it would explain why the 5970 can do fine at tesselation in the Heaven benchmark (does fine on my multi-GPU setup) but crappy on Metro 2033.

And if you check the 10.3 crossfire profile game list (for games they added in that release), it doesn't include Metro 2033, thus my theory.

So, assuming I'm correct, then yes you should see a good performance gain in Metro 2033 once they come up with a crossfire profile for it.
 
Two 5870s or a single 5970 is the way to go. ATI GPU scaling is not there for 3 or more gpus. I had the 2x5970 setup, so I know from personal experience. Unfortunately, it's just a waste of wattage with the current state of drivers.
 
I think it depends on the games you play, but so far I'm happy with the dual 5970s at 2560 x 1600. I don't think dropping down to one 5970 would really affect my gameplay experience, however; probably a little less AA in a few titles. It is nice to be able to use supersampling in a lot of games, though; it does look a lot better than MSAA. Supersampling is incredibly GPU intensive.
 
Based on what i've seen, it does appear to be using both of my GPU's in crossfire configuation. I am only running at 1360x768 since that is the maximum resolution of my LCD TV, but i'm getting rather incredible performance without a single glitch in Metro 2033. I was able to run in DX11 with all settings max'd out at VERY HIGH, with DoF and Tessellation set to on, and get very good frame rates that almost never dip below 30fps. Even during some of the big battles, I still manage to get around 35-40fps according to the FRAPS counter. If you check over in the Metro 2033 thread, there are a few 5970 owners who are getting some incredible frame rates at resolutions that are much higher than what I am able to use. The only thing that none of us are able to use is MSAA since it appears that we are hitting the VRAM limit with that enabled. I suspect that many people complaining about bad performance are trying to run with MSAA selected than the standard analytical AA.

I have tried turning MSAA on and it was semi-playable, but the frame rates were too erratic with lots of hitching going on.

Balthazor said:
From what other users have posted on the AMD forums, the 5970 gets crappy performance in Metro 2033 because it either isn't using the multiple GPUs very well, or at all.

Crossfire profiles tell the GPUs how to render a particular game efficiently, and without them a game may either use one GPU or use multiple GPUs, but do so poorly.

If I had the game I'd test, but I don't, so don't take this at gospel; I'm just theorizing based on user comments. But it would explain why the 5970 can do fine at tesselation in the Heaven benchmark (does fine on my multi-GPU setup) but crappy on Metro 2033.

And if you check the 10.3 crossfire profile game list (for games they added in that release), it doesn't include Metro 2033, thus my theory.

So, assuming I'm correct, then yes you should see a good performance gain in Metro 2033 once they come up with a crossfire profile for it.
Click to expand...
 
I just saw Maingear's benchmarking of one 5970, dual 5970s, and single-through-tri-sli 480s. It only looks at 2560 x 1600, but when you are talking this much GPU horsepower, a smaller resolution doesn't really make sense.

Clearly crossfire needs some work in a few games; Crysis Warhead looks like you are getting zero benefit from the 2nd 5970. But then Far Cry 2 and the Unigine Heaven demo sees a substantial benefit; almost 100%, depending on the level of AA.

Batman seems some benefit, but not all that great.

So until ATI improves their crossfire scaling, it is going to depend on the games you play. Dual 5970 benchmarks are hard to come by, unfortunately.
 
Balthazor said:
I just saw Maingear's benchmarking of one 5970, dual 5970s, and single-through-tri-sli 480s. It only looks at 2560 x 1600, but when you are talking this much GPU horsepower, a smaller resolution doesn't really make sense.

Clearly crossfire needs some work in a few games; Crysis Warhead looks like you are getting zero benefit from the 2nd 5970. But then Far Cry 2 and the Unigine Heaven demo sees a substantial benefit; almost 100%, depending on the level of AA.

Batman seems some benefit, but not all that great.

So until ATI improves their crossfire scaling, it is going to depend on the games you play. Dual 5970 benchmarks are hard to come by, unfortunately.
Click to expand...

What about this one? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RK9SB52LW6g

Quad 5870 with i7 975 @ 4.6Ghz @ Crysis Warhead 64-bit 2560x1600 Enthusiast no AA

Min: 24.20 fps
Avg: 75.57 fps
Max: 92.35 fps

I got his quote from his video upload.

What u see here is pretty much the limit in 3d coz of the vram. 2AA works limited with avg 63,74 and max 78,67 but it is not perfect in every situation as it exceeds the vram already, but the boost is there. Ati cards can only show a max of 8aa. For high AA settings in Crysis it takes at least 3/4 GF100s or 4 5870 Eyefinitys
Click to expand...

Therefore, quad 5870 CFX is faster than dual 5970 for the best result. And I think 1GB per GPU is limited.
 
Yeah, I don't think anyone would argue with you regarding 4 x 5870 > 2 x 5970; those are faster GPUs, for sure.

Something might be wrong with Maingear's bench, though, if 4 x 5870s give more than double the performance of 2 x 5970s. Something isn't quite right there.
 
1 5870 would be more than enough. Besides, it makes no sense to get more than a 5870, or maybe even a 5850.
 
[L]imey;1035522276 said:
This guy has never used eyefinity.

Stop making comments about bezels.

Everyone who has a triple screen setup concurs that bezels disappear once you start playing.

Do it. You won't regret it.
Click to expand...

^
l
l
THIS
 
My question was -

What is better? 3x 5870 or 2x 5970? No offense but i'm not interested in another monitor or a different configuration or what is a different option than the two I listed. Not to be a dick or anything! Its just so hard to find comparisons like that on the web :S .

Thanks.

Never mind was answered in previous post......:D
 
Crossfire drops averagely after 3 cards but on some games that are heavily cpu dependent. That goes for crossfire in general. World in Conflict is a lot more cpu dependent. Strategy games in general are usually more cpu dependent because of the AI and all that. More gpu dependent games would shine a lot more on a crossfire/trifire/quadfire setup ;). If you exclusively play strategies then a tri/quadfire setup might not be the best thing for you. Everything just depends on the games you play and how much money you have :)

pasta4u said:
Those are all over kill.

First off crossfire scaling starts to drop off after 2 cards.

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/29...5870_graphics_card_in_crossfire_x/index7.html

it be smarter to invest in an eye infinty set up.

Get two 5870s in crossfire and put the $400 used on a third one to buying 2 more monitors.

It will be a much wiser investment
Click to expand...
 
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