5870 2gb question

[SeaFoam]

So I was thinking, all of us that run eyefinity are running big resolutions - what do you think the performance difference in games would be (like Arma 2)?

 

[friend'scatdied]

I think it will be substantial, but a notch below what 1GB did for the 4870.

Much like the 4870 1GB, I think the 2GB will be the only 5870 that will be worth the money.

 

[SeaFoam]

I thought it might be, especially in Arma 2. You can chose the '3d resolution' so it renders at a much higher resolution than your display resolution but you really get killed on FPS when you start going higher than 125%

 

[SicKlown42012]

Here's a slide that's supposedly from AMD showing how the extra GB of ram helps in Eyefinity. How much of a boost you'll get depends on the game.

 

[shawnoen]

They really should release these cards now because the closer it gets to March 26th the more I think about waiting and seeing what NVIDIA has to offer...

 

[WorldExclusive]

^^^ATI has to see what they are going up against first. I'm sure ATI will have a counter announcement next week.

The 5870 true performance is being held back by the 1GB size so the 2GB version is a must buy.
Also the clocks has rumored to run at 900-950MHz.

 

[billy.blue]

We're fairly certainly going to see these cards the week of the 29th.

 

[SicKlown42012]

If I already own a 5870 1GB, I could buy a 5870 2GB down the line and have them work in crossfire for a total of 3GB, correct?

Assuming they are the same clock speed.

The 2GB card will perform exactly as a 1GB card. The extra GB of ram will be wasted, as the way Crossfire works each card holds exactly the same information in the ram.

 

[friend'scatdied]

The 2GB card will perform exactly as a 1GB card. The extra GB of ram will be wasted, as the way Crossfire works each card holds exactly the same information in the ram.

Yes XFire defaults to the lowest common denominator (RAM, clock speeds, etc.)

 

[billy.blue]

Xfire only mirrors the memory. In the case of dissimilar memory sizes, it either will not work at all or reduce the available to the smaller card. Even the 5970 is really only using 1GB of VRAM.

 

[udneekgnim]

GRRRRR. Seriously that's retarded.

not retarded

just a limitation on current implementation of multi GPU setups