5870x2 Running CryEngine 3

I played with a single HD 5870 running CryEngine 3 in DX11 at the AMD event in California, and it was very smooth, everything was turned on at 1920 and it was running beautifully on one 5870. I actually went too far off the map they had to test on and got stuck inside an invisible wall, they had to Ctrl-Alt-Del out of the game and restart it, I guess I was too [H] for it :D
 
I can already point to one thing that's full of it about that article. AMD can probably sell that card at $499.99 and make a profit on it. The fact is that's what the retailers might (conjecturaly) sell the card for. I'd bet their cost is much lower than that. High end video cards usually have about a 30% markup on them from dealer to retail. I doubt that has changed with the 58xx series parts.
 
The snapshot of Cryengine 3 looks like crysis to me...

Hard for pictures taken with a camera of a game on a display to come across over the Internet, but I can speak from experience playing around in CryEngine 3 in DX11, it was butter smooth at high settings, and looked fantastic. I think where Crytek has really improved this engine is in the performance, using DX11 the engine felt very fast on a single HD 5870. It is hard to gauge what a game will look like from a tech engine test, it is obviously up to game developers and designers to create and incorporate their own art assets into the game. Meaning world detail, lighting detail, art, textures, can look very different in a real game. This technology test is to show some of the effects of DX11 and performance of the engine, and they succeeded in putting the engine and DX11 in a positive light.
 
Hard for pictures taken with a camera of a game on a display to come across over the Internet, but I can speak from experience playing around in CryEngine 3 in DX11, it was butter smooth at high settings, and looked fantastic. I think where Crytek has really improved this engine is in the performance, using DX11 the engine felt very fast on a single HD 5870. It is hard to gauge what a game will look like from a tech engine test, it is obviously up to game developers and designers to create and incorporate their own art assets into the game. Meaning world detail, lighting detail, art, textures, can look very different in a real game. This technology test is to show some of the effects of DX11 and performance of the engine, and they succeeded in putting the engine and DX11 in a positive light.


Nice! I'm glad you shared that. Cant wait.
 
I can already point to one thing that's full of it about that article. AMD can probably sell that card at $499.99 and make a profit on it. The fact is that's what the retailers might (conjecturaly) sell the card for. I'd bet their cost is much lower than that. High end video cards usually have about a 30% markup on them from dealer to retail. I doubt that has changed with the 58xx series parts.

They also fail to mention that manufactures save money and able to lower prices when there is a die shrink i.e. Sony and Microsoft consoles. The profit margin is going to be greater on the 5800 cards.
 
Crytek's focus with CE3 was performance, not eyecandy, since they want to market this to consoles as well.
 
They also fail to mention that manufactures save money and able to lower prices when there is a die shrink i.e. Sony and Microsoft consoles. The profit margin is going to be greater on the 5800 cards.
Manufacturing costs are usually lower, but it depends on yields. They also have to recoup the cost of developing the improved process in the first place. I have no doubt that ATI would make a nice profit off of selling the 5870X2 at $500, but it isn't as clear-cut as saying "40nm is cheaper".
 
new crysis is developed with consoles in mind so i expect new series run that game like butter cause they must make 7800gs and x1900xt run it smoothly too lol
 
I can't decide: GTX 295, GTX 280 SLI, GTX 275 SLI, or 5870 x1 with overvolt...

I guess there aren't enough tests out yet to make this decision, right?
 
Nvidia's DX11 GF100. At this point if you haven't bought a graphics card, wait till late 4th QTR.
 
I can't decide: GTX 295, GTX 280 SLI, GTX 275 SLI, or 5870 x1 with overvolt...

I guess there aren't enough tests out yet to make this decision, right?
I would go with the 5870 out of those, since you always have the option of adding another if you need more performance.
 
I own an EVGA GTX 280, want to sell it for $200. I also have an EVGA GTX 275 coming in next week from the step-up program (from a GTX 260 which was bought in July), which will be unopened, and I don't really know how much to ask for it. Want to sell both now, or keep one or the other and double up & go with one of the above options. So there is a time factor here. I guess I could sell the 280/275's now and get a floater POS card for cheap until Q4?
 
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I played with a single HD 5870 running CryEngine 3 in DX11 at the AMD event in California, and it was very smooth, everything was turned on at 1920 and it was running beautifully on one 5870. I actually went too far off the map they had to test on and got stuck inside an invisible wall, they had to Ctrl-Alt-Del out of the game and restart it, I guess I was too [H] for it :D

Hehe
 
I played with a single HD 5870 running CryEngine 3 in DX11 at the AMD event in California, and it was very smooth, everything was turned on at 1920 and it was running beautifully on one 5870. I actually went too far off the map they had to test on and got stuck inside an invisible wall, they had to Ctrl-Alt-Del out of the game and restart it, I guess I was too [H] for it :D

Is it just me or the" new Crysis" looks alot worse then, lets say first Crysis? the graphics was not good to me :confused: Maybe its just me what do you think about it did you saw any improvements over Crysis & Crysis Warhead? did they improve the textures? it was awful in Warhead would say at least imo.
 
Of course, as i stated earlier in this thread, this is not "Crysis", this is a technology demo of CryEngine 3, a gaming engine, real games can look different in detail and complexity with this engine
 
I own an EVGA GTX 280, want to sell it for $200. I also have an EVGA GTX 275 coming in next week from the step-up program (from a GTX 260 which was bought in July), which will be unopened, and I don't really know how much to ask for it. Want to sell both now, or keep one or the other and double up & go with one of the above options. So there is a time factor here. I guess I could sell the 280/275's now and get a floater POS card for cheap until Q4?

Do whatever you want. I'll play my 5870 and enjoy it right now! :
 
Hard for pictures taken with a camera of a game on a display to come across over the Internet, but I can speak from experience playing around in CryEngine 3 in DX11, it was butter smooth at high settings, and looked fantastic. I think where Crytek has really improved this engine is in the performance, using DX11 the engine felt very fast on a single HD 5870. It is hard to gauge what a game will look like from a tech engine test, it is obviously up to game developers and designers to create and incorporate their own art assets into the game. Meaning world detail, lighting detail, art, textures, can look very different in a real game. This technology test is to show some of the effects of DX11 and performance of the engine, and they succeeded in putting the engine and DX11 in a positive light.

when did you start working for AMD? ;)
 
Why don't they take some effort in making current cards run Crysis well? My 4870X2's performance in Crysis isn't as good as I think it should be. The multicore efficiency seems lacking in Crysis. There's hardly a framerate increase when using both GPUs as opposed to only 1. As I see it, this is the AMD/ATI SNAFU. They seem only interested in attracting new customers rather than satisfying current customers. They want to pull people away from buying the next gen of Nvidia cards, rather than focus their effort in delivering the CCC profiles and crossfire efficiency that people paid for in the current generation cards.
 
Why don't they take some effort in making current cards run Crysis well? My 4870X2's performance in Crysis isn't as good as I think it should be. The multicore efficiency seems lacking in Crysis. There's hardly a framerate increase when using both GPUs as opposed to only 1. As I see it, this is the AMD/ATI SNAFU. They seem only interested in attracting new customers rather than satisfying current customers. They want to pull people away from buying the next gen of Nvidia cards, rather than focus their effort in delivering the CCC profiles and crossfire efficiency that people paid for in the current generation cards.

really? when I use 4870X2, I have about 60-80% fps increase compare to single card..

or you playing under 64bit mode? since 64bit Crysis is fucked up with Crossfire.
 
Why don't they take some effort in making current cards run Crysis well? My 4870X2's performance in Crysis isn't as good as I think it should be. The multicore efficiency seems lacking in Crysis. There's hardly a framerate increase when using both GPUs as opposed to only 1. As I see it, this is the AMD/ATI SNAFU. They seem only interested in attracting new customers rather than satisfying current customers. They want to pull people away from buying the next gen of Nvidia cards, rather than focus their effort in delivering the CCC profiles and crossfire efficiency that people paid for in the current generation cards.

Crysis is a performance pit on anyone's card. But to say that AMD/ATI have done nothing to try to improve performance.. well I can't really agree. Just take a look at the 9.8 Release notes. I'm sure these changes benefited current and future (at the time).

Taken from the 9.8 Catalyst Release notes:
  • Battleforge DirectX 10/DirectX 10.1 - performance improves up to 15-50% in CPU limited settings with the largest gains in CrossfireX configurations
  • Company of Heroes DirectX 10 - performance improves by up to 10-77% in CPU limited settings
  • Crysis DirectX 10 - Dual CrossfireX performance improves as much as 10% and Quad CrossfireX performance improves as much as 34% in CPU limited settings
  • Crysis Warhead DirectX 10 - Dual CrossfireX performance improves as much as 7% and Quad CrossfireX performance improves as much as 69% in CPU limited settings
  • Far Cry 2 DirectX 10 - Dual CrossfireX performance improves as much as 50% and
  • Quad CrossfireX performance improves as much as 88% in CPU limited settings
  • Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. DirectX 10/DirectX 10.1 - Dual CrossfireX performance improves up to 40% in CPU limited settings with Quad CrossfireX performance improving up to 60% in CPU limited settings
  • UnigineTropics OpenGL - performance improves 5-20%
  • UnigineTropics DirectX 10 - Quad CrossfireX performance improves 5-20% in CPU limited settings
  • World in Conflict DirectX 10 - performance improves by 5-10%
 
Crysis is a performance pit on anyone's card. But to say that AMD/ATI have done nothing to try to improve performance.. well I can't really agree. Just take a look at the 9.8 Release notes. I'm sure these changes benefited current and future (at the time).

Taken from the 9.8 Catalyst Release notes:
  • Battleforge DirectX 10/DirectX 10.1 - performance improves up to 15-50% in CPU limited settings with the largest gains in CrossfireX configurations
  • Company of Heroes DirectX 10 - performance improves by up to 10-77% in CPU limited settings
  • Crysis DirectX 10 - Dual CrossfireX performance improves as much as 10% and Quad CrossfireX performance improves as much as 34% in CPU limited settings
  • Crysis Warhead DirectX 10 - Dual CrossfireX performance improves as much as 7% and Quad CrossfireX performance improves as much as 69% in CPU limited settings
  • Far Cry 2 DirectX 10 - Dual CrossfireX performance improves as much as 50% and
  • Quad CrossfireX performance improves as much as 88% in CPU limited settings
  • Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. DirectX 10/DirectX 10.1 - Dual CrossfireX performance improves up to 40% in CPU limited settings with Quad CrossfireX performance improving up to 60% in CPU limited settings
  • UnigineTropics OpenGL - performance improves 5-20%
  • UnigineTropics DirectX 10 - Quad CrossfireX performance improves 5-20% in CPU limited settings
  • World in Conflict DirectX 10 - performance improves by 5-10%

Hi Blackforge. I'll concede the point that they have made some effort into tuning CCC for performance in these games. Please consider that this is the driver update from 12 months after I bought the 4870X2... and Crysis was released nearly 9 months previous to the 4870X2's release. In the case of Crysis, we're talking about driver optimizations that should have been done before the card was on market.

Also, just curious if you intend to get the 5870 and/or 5870x2 and if so, when you intend to get it. Myself, I'm still undecided.
 
I can already point to one thing that's full of it about that article. AMD can probably sell that card at $499.99 and make a profit on it. The fact is that's what the retailers might (conjecturaly) sell the card for. I'd bet their cost is much lower than that. High end video cards usually have about a 30% markup on them from dealer to retail. I doubt that has changed with the 58xx series parts.
Exactly... Back in the day of the Radeon 9800 and the likes of the GeForce series. Kits as (memory/PCB/GPU) that were being sold to reputable companies like BFG and VisionTek where going for around $235.00 and they were selling the cards for $399.99. The consumer base really has no idea how much markup there is on video cards and parts in general. It's a pretty good profit.
 
They also fail to mention that manufactures save money and able to lower prices when there is a die shrink i.e. Sony and Microsoft consoles. The profit margin is going to be greater on the 5800 cards.
Technically yes, but it's NVIDIA that would save the greatest amount. You have to remember that NVIDIA makes the GPU's. They usually sell these GPU's as kits and not by themselves to manufacturers. Hence why a "reference design" is created in the first place. Most companies don't have the resources to design their own PCB layout, etc... Majority of them will by the kits that NVIDIA offers, slap their "stickers" on them and sell it as their own brand.
 
Exactly... Back in the day of the Radeon 9800 and the likes of the GeForce series. Kits as (memory/PCB/GPU) that were being sold to reputable companies like BFG and VisionTek where going for around $235.00 and they were selling the cards for $399.99. The consumer base really has no idea how much markup there is on video cards and parts in general. It's a pretty good profit.

It depends on the part. From manufacturing, to distribution, it may be a bit higher than people would imagine. From distribution to retail the profit margin is usually pretty bad on computer equipment and parts until you get to the higher end parts. At that point the margins are fairly good. Sometimes the distribution to retail price is bullshit too. Take the Athlon FX-55 for example. When I worked part time at Comp USSR it was listed at $999.99 retail. Cost was shown in the system to be around $850.00. That's a nice profit margin for Comp USA but the problem is that we damn well know the FX-55 or any premium CPU isn't really any more expensive to produce than a less expensive chip with the same amount of cache, cores, dies, and features. What makes it more valuable is their rarity in terms of binning but that probably doesn't account for the 60%+ markup such a CPU has over it's cheaper brethren.
 
Technically yes, but it's NVIDIA that would save the greatest amount. You have to remember that NVIDIA makes the GPU's. They usually sell these GPU's as kits and not by themselves to manufacturers. Hence why a "reference design" is created in the first place. Most companies don't have the resources to design their own PCB layout, etc... Majority of them will by the kits that NVIDIA offers, slap their "stickers" on them and sell it as their own brand.

Wrong. NVIDIA doesn't make anything. They are a fabless design company. They design GPUs and design a reference card to use their GPUs. They contract out the manufacturing of all this hardware to companies like Flextronics or Foxconn who then ship the cards to NVIDIA. Then NVIDIA turns around and resells them to BFG and other companies. Some of these companies like BFG and EVGA then take the reference cards and further bin them to sell as factory overclocked parts and or modify them with thier own cooling designs that they either design and have built for them under contract, or that they build themselves.

Some companies design their own PCB's and use components of their choosing aside from the GPUs themselves. ASUS is one such company that has done this in the past but more recently they usually only design and build variant cards like the ASUS Mars Edition.
 
Yep, that's very true... As you said for the Higher-End models, the markup's are pretty high. I would seriously peg the kit price of the 5870 to be around $250.00 to $280.00 the most. Usually you can sort of "guess" the price of what it should be by comparing the complete lower end model of a familiar chip, ala 5850. Considering a lot of them use similiar PCB, resistors, capacitors, etc...
 
I'm willing to bet the 5870x2 kit AMD will be selling to manufacturers is around $325.00 or less
 
Hi Blackforge. I'll concede the point that they have made some effort into tuning CCC for performance in these games. Please consider that this is the driver update from 12 months after I bought the 4870X2... and Crysis was released nearly 9 months previous to the 4870X2's release. In the case of Crysis, we're talking about driver optimizations that should have been done before the card was on market.

Also, just curious if you intend to get the 5870 and/or 5870x2 and if so, when you intend to get it. Myself, I'm still undecided.

I have had my 4870X2 since the first month it was released and went through some of the intial driver bugginess. So I'm trying not to come off like an ass/jerk... even though I know I probably will. I will say I've been much happier with this card than my previous dual 3870X2s.

I've found Crysis performance increases mentioned in several driver releases (these were the quickest/easiest to find):

http://www2.ati.com/relnotes/Catalyst_97_release_notes.pdf
http://www2.ati.com/relnotes/Catalyst_96_release_notes.pdf
http://www2.ati.com/relnotes/Catalyst_92_release_notes.pdf
http://www2.ati.com/relnotes/Catalyst_812_release_notes.pdf

Not too long after all the complaints came out about Crysis performance and Crysis Warhead/Farcry 2 were announced, Crytek themselves said they would no longer be patching the game. This was even after admitting they could make some changes to improve performance. I know Nvidia was heavily working with Crytek during the Crysis development and AMD maybe could have done better, but that is why you're seeing CryEngine 3 demos on AMD hardware now.

Just comparing the benchmarks at the time of the GTX295 release and 4870X2, may put some things into perspective (unforunately its Crysis: Warhead benches): http://www.hardocp.com/article/2009/01/08/bfgtech_geforce_gtx_295/4

I just don't know what you're expecting I guess? I haven't touched Crysis in awhile, but at the time the gameplay seemed smooth enough for the FPS I was getting. To me it seems like it performs very close to most of the Dual GPU solutions at the time and currently in most things. I think we're just seeing the combination of architectural and engine limitations.

As far as 5870/5870X2, I am considering picking up a 5870 and then getting a 5870X2 when it comes out to do Tri-Crossfire. That way I get a relatively good resell value for my current card. I guess we'll see what happens at the supposed Nvidia press conference that is happening at 1PM PST today before I pull the trigger.
 
Wrong. NVIDIA doesn't make anything. They are a fabless design company. They design GPUs and design a reference card to use their GPUs. They contract out the manufacturing of all this hardware to companies like Flextronics or Foxconn who then ship the cards to NVIDIA. Then NVIDIA turns around and resells them to BFG and other companies. Some of these companies like BFG and EVGA then take the reference cards and further bin them to sell as factory overclocked parts and or modify them with thier own cooling designs that they either design and have built for them under contract, or that they build themselves.

Some companies design their own PCB's and use components of their choosing aside from the GPUs themselves. ASUS is one such company that has done this in the past but more recently they usually only design and build variant cards like the ASUS Mars Edition.
My Bad, you're right. I wanted to re-edit what I wrote. I meant that NVIDIA should be saving the most between them and their manufacturers because they have the ultimate say in how much they want to charge for the kits to disperse to the vendors.
 
I can already point to one thing that's full of it about that article. AMD can probably sell that card at $499.99 and make a profit on it. The fact is that's what the retailers might (conjecturaly) sell the card for. I'd bet their cost is much lower than that. High end video cards usually have about a 30% markup on them from dealer to retail. I doubt that has changed with the 58xx series parts.

unless you shop at expensive places, I am yet to see that myself. Usually there is around 5-15% in it.
 
I have had my 4870X2 since the first month it was released and went through some of the intial driver bugginess. So I'm trying not to come off like an ass/jerk... even though I know I probably will. I will say I've been much happier with this card than my previous dual 3870X2s.

I've found Crysis performance increases mentioned in several driver releases (these were the quickest/easiest to find):

http://www2.ati.com/relnotes/Catalyst_97_release_notes.pdf
http://www2.ati.com/relnotes/Catalyst_96_release_notes.pdf
http://www2.ati.com/relnotes/Catalyst_92_release_notes.pdf
http://www2.ati.com/relnotes/Catalyst_812_release_notes.pdf

Not too long after all the complaints came out about Crysis performance and Crysis Warhead/Farcry 2 were announced, Crytek themselves said they would no longer be patching the game. This was even after admitting they could make some changes to improve performance. I know Nvidia was heavily working with Crytek during the Crysis development and AMD maybe could have done better, but that is why you're seeing CryEngine 3 demos on AMD hardware now.

Just comparing the benchmarks at the time of the GTX295 release and 4870X2, may put some things into perspective (unforunately its Crysis: Warhead benches): http://www.hardocp.com/article/2009/01/08/bfgtech_geforce_gtx_295/4

I just don't know what you're expecting I guess? I haven't touched Crysis in awhile, but at the time the gameplay seemed smooth enough for the FPS I was getting. To me it seems like it performs very close to most of the Dual GPU solutions at the time and currently in most things. I think we're just seeing the combination of architectural and engine limitations.

As far as 5870/5870X2, I am considering picking up a 5870 and then getting a 5870X2 when it comes out to do Tri-Crossfire. That way I get a relatively good resell value for my current card. I guess we'll see what happens at the supposed Nvidia press conference that is happening at 1PM PST today before I pull the trigger.

I had a pair of 4870 right when it came out, I never have a scaling problem with Crysis.

the only CF issue I have is 4870X2 CF, which it doesn't really scale that well...or doesn't even scale I should say..

I really don't know why those people keeps complaining about the scaling issue.
 
unless you shop at expensive places, I am yet to see that myself. Usually there is around 5-15% in it.

I can only speak to what Best Buy and Comp USA (before System Max purchased them.) I'd see cards selling for MSRP on the retail shelves and there would be a 30% or larger markup on the higher end cards. I would get 25%-35% off the retail price of these cards routinely.
 
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