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5970 crossfire with???...

A

AlvinMaker

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 8, 2009
Messages
288
OK, so I got my first 5970. The second one is of course taking a while to come in, so in the meantime, it's got me thinking...

A second 5970, or mabye a 5870x2. Both are "quad-fire" setups, I suppose? Now I am doing Eyefinity on 3xDell 2209wa, so this was why I set out to have the monstrous GPU setup.

I guess the MAIN reason this is coming up is 5870s are available NOW...just wonder what kind of performance difference between 2 5970s vs. 1 5970 and 2 5870s. Marginal?? Maby I am over thinking this whole thing. Damn hardware addiction! :cool: ( I do realize either of these setups have major heat dissipation going on. I have a Thermatake Armor+ case with pretty good air flow throughout.just FYI...)

comments, suggestions, experiences??

For those interested I am a FPShooter enthusiast. (Crysis, of course, Arma 2, COD, etc...).
 
Play the games you're considering with the current card before dropping another $600+ on what's likely to amount to a useless bump in FPS and a huge bump in power draw and heat output. Quad-Fire would make far more sense if you were running a 3 x 1920x1200 setup.
 
What is the rest of your computer setup?

What is your monitor(s)?

Instead of putting 600 dollars more for graphics cards you may want to consider getting a SSD or watercool.

If you are performing this in crysis you probably don't need anymore gpu power, unless your total resolution is greater than 1920x1200
1258499856BbWqNvEaGR_5_4.gif
 
ooops...sorry for vagueness on setup. :eek:

Thermaltake Armor +, Silvertone 1200 PSU, Radeon 5970, i7 920 on V8 cooler, MSI Eclipse Plus mobo, 6GB 1600mhz, SSD boot, 1TB data, 3xDell 2209WA 22" displays.

With Eyefinity, my total max resolution is 5040x3150. (1680x1050x3)
 
Roland00 said:
What is the rest of your computer setup?

What is your monitor(s)?

Instead of putting 600 dollars more for graphics cards you may want to consider getting a SSD or watercool.

If you are performing this in crysis you probably don't need anymore gpu power, unless your total resolution is greater than 1920x1200
1258499856BbWqNvEaGR_5_4.gif
Click to expand...

That's not even playable frame rates...
 
If you can get the 5970 @ 5870 clocks then i shouldn't think you'd need any more for eyefinity. You could spend the $600 on better sound maybe?
 
Yeah at first I thought you had 3 24 or 30 inch monitors. If your dead set on more gpu power, go tri-fire instead of quad. Tri seems to be the sweet spot, in a lot of cases quad performs worse. So the ideal I guess would be to toss a 5870 in with it.
 
Thanks for the input guys.

Yeah 3 screens, I goofed on the resolution. ;)

I do agree, from my research so far, Trifire seems to be the "sweet spot". Not sure if this is driver related, mabye? I recall someone saying on one of the forums that AMD said they hadn't worked on quad-fire support yet.

I realize this may seem like a bit "overkill" on the GPU side, but it made sense to me, that in order to be "future proof" with the mega-resolutions Eyefinity provides, I would need the most muscle I could get.

I will most likely at SOME point end up with 3 30"ers. I started this build as basic, and then the "tweak happy power monger" in me took over! :D

Thanks again. I'll report what I decide, and get some numbers up after the weekend!
 
3 screens is nice to have, but still on one nice monitor or TV 3 way or quad setups even at 1080 help out performance on games like Crysis warhead in maximizing everything and obtaining 60 fps with aa etc.
 
I play at 5760x1200 and I've been looking to buy another 5970 as well but from the looks of it, you just might have to wait. Most of all the optimizations are extremely dependent on the driver as anything past 3 GPUs seem to result into much less performance. Also, don't trifire a 5970 with a 5870, you're better off with 3 5870s. In your case, just wait for AMD to work on Quadfire and buy another 5970 if you really need to.
 
Yeah, from all my research and comments from other people experimenting with the same thing, it seems right NOW , the best option would be a 5850. Once quad is working, a second 5970 would make more sense. (performance wise, not economically speaking...;) )
 
3*30"??

it is not good..
as 5970 only have 1gb useable memory,
at that high res, you will need to drop setting

1680*1050 * 3 is a really good setting,

if i were you i will just get a 5870 instead of doing quad xfire
and use the rest of memory for ssd
 
It's looking like- from the benches I have seen, and from advice from fellow "extremists"- a 5850 is the sweet spot for pairing with a 5970. If I DIDN'T have the 5970 already, 3x5870s seems like the BLEEDING edge of the ultimate setup right now. But since I already have the 1, I'll probably go for a 5850.

On a side note, I was very aggravated yesterday that Amazon had Sapphire 5850s at 285.00, then I went back an hour later and they were up to 330 or so?! Weird. I guess the vendor with the good price ran out, and now they are up again at the higher prices.

NOW all I have to decide is which one. May go for XFX since I can transfer the warranty if/when I upgrade/sell it.

Thanks for the unput, BTW! :D
 
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