ATI wins Again

ATI should work on getting crossfire scaling better, but its good to see triple is working better then before.

also 1kw of power draw for triple SLI o_O
 
Sikkyu said:
ATI should work on getting crossfire scaling better, but its good to see triple is working better then before.

also 1kw of power draw for triple SLI o_O
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The 'Crossfire doesn't scale well' argument always confuses me. Are we talking scaling as in # of cards = near linear increase in performance? Because Crossfire seems to do that well.. just look what happens when you CFX 2 or 3 5770's. Or are we talking scaling as in handles higher and higher resolutions? Because that seems to be a limitation of VRAM not CFX itself..
 
Define win?

The 3x GTX 480 was the fastest setup in every test....

If you can afford 3x 480s or 3x 5870s... you're not really worrying about your electric bill.
 
Sikkyu said:
ATI should work on getting crossfire scaling better, but its good to see triple is working better then before.

also 1kw of power draw for triple SLI o_O
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At least according to this comparo, xfire scaling > sli..
 
This is funny because the only glimmer of hope that [H] could scrape together for 470/480 review was that SLI 480 got a silver award, they reckon it leave crossfire with a black eye, yet I've read several reports now of Tri Crossfire beating Tri SLI.

~1KW of power draw is immense also, a lot of that is going straight into your case as thermal energy...wow.
 
noquarter said:
The 'Crossfire doesn't scale well' argument always confuses me. Are we talking scaling as in # of cards = near linear increase in performance? Because Crossfire seems to do that well.. just look what happens when you CFX 2 or 3 5770's. Or are we talking scaling as in handles higher and higher resolutions? Because that seems to be a limitation of VRAM not CFX itself..
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crossfire scales well, it just generally doesnt scale as well as sli. if you take the speed out of it and look at a % increase over a single card, SLI will win most of the time. however it looks like crossfile scales much better with 3+ cards. good starting point. I think ATI has the tech to increase the scaleing percent a few more points to make it beat SLI
 
I loved reading the article. Thanks OP.

Heatlesssun should be happy that he will have the fastest possible system with a 980 and Tri 480.

But man, 1000+ Watts!!!.

The article makes me feel like a Greenpeace activist with my single HD5870+9800GT setup.
 
PrincessFrosty said:
This is funny because the only glimmer of hope that [H] could scrape together for 470/480 review was that SLI 480 got a silver award, they reckon it leave crossfire with a black eye, yet I've read several reports now of Tri Crossfire beating Tri SLI.

~1KW of power draw is immense also, a lot of that is going straight into your case as thermal energy...wow.
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yep.. because SLI scales better then crossfire all the benchmarks show this.. but tri-sli scales worse then tri-crossfire.. and quad crossfire and quad SLI both suck ass.. pay attention next time :p


demingo said:
Define win?

The 3x GTX 480 was the fastest setup in every test....

If you can afford 3x 480s or 3x 5870s... you're not really worrying about your electric bill.
Click to expand...

btw next time you should read who is posting the thread.. it would define why the title is the way it is.. (cough look at his thread history cough)
 
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demingo said:
Define win?

The 3x GTX 480 was the fastest setup in every test....

If you can afford 3x 480s or 3x 5870s... you're not really worrying about your electric bill.
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No, not at all. You need to go reread those charts.
PrincessFrosty said:
~1KW of power draw is immense also, a lot of that is going straight into your case as thermal energy...wow.
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Yeah, if you think of it running a 1KW space heater, it's kind of insane. I imagine at that range, the extra 300W over a 5870 Tri-Fire setup is probably really noticeable. What's really interesting is how the 5970 CrossfireX just sips power (under 600W for 4 GPUs). If AMD can fix its scaling even better (150% at 3x isn't shabby at all anyway), they'll have a really nice setup to offer the high-end market. I almost wonder if it's architecturally limited, and we'll see major gains in scaling (especially in consistency) with Southern Islands. For what it's worth, AMD's current architecture is almost three years old.
 
demingo said:
Define win?

The 3x GTX 480 was the fastest setup in every test....

If you can afford 3x 480s or 3x 5870s... you're not really worrying about your electric bill.
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Correct. AMD wins in the price performance ratio only.
If you want the FASTEST 3d card on the market buy the Nvidia. That is if you can afford, and can stand because of limited availability. ;)
 
Read the conslusion of this article, through Bing translator:

On average, saw you with three GeForce GTX 480 cards the fastest system for gaming. Note: you need a fast processor. The 6-core Core i7 980X was not a bottleneck in our benchmarks, while that for a quad-core such as the i7 965 do. Who is more than 1500 to video cards, I would like to donate, think it is also not very to 1000 euro to a processor, we thought ...
However, there is another side of the coin: three GeForce GTX 480 almost 1000 Watt cards questions of power at full load. That is simply swallow: four hours per day, you can play at the end of the year, some 300 euro cost. In addition, there is the acquisition of the cards: Although the SRP EUR 480, the GeForce GTX 480 for an average of 550 euros. Times three would 1650 euro, and that expensive processor has yet. We face three Radeon HD 5870 programs around 1140 euro in total cost and maximum consumption of around 640 Watts. Although ATI in absolute scores the performance of nVidia cannot emulate, CrossFire, three cards to scale better than SLI. With ATI cards provide two additional EUR 151.8% extra performance, nVidia 128,2%. On the other hand, SLI on two cards better scale. Four GPUs combined, in the form of two Radeon HD 5970 programs, based on our tests an unholy plan. Three 5870 count is almost always faster.
The question is: When did you need SLI or CrossFire? For DirectX 10 games (. 1) in any case not: a single GeForce GTX 480 or Radeon HD 5870 is, in principle, fast enough for an acceptable framerate on your screen. If you look at DirectX 11 games, some need more computing power, and certainly with the highest settings is a second GPU welcome. A third GPU did you actually needed only when you want to boast against your (virtual) friends ...
In any case, the question of how your high framerates from your system helps answered: save your savings pig, locate three GTX 480 sheets and gaming!

You call this an ATI win? Not saying that AMD didn't do well, yes its cooler running and less power but it LOSES in overall performance. Don't argue with me, argue with these guys.
 
ATI wins in the ATI benchmarks (Hawx, Dirt 2), NV wins in the NV benchmarks (Metro 2033, FC2)

Absolutely noone cares about non-games.

What we have learned from this is.... absolutely effing nothing.
 
It has been my experience that when only two GPUs are in the mix Crossfire and SLI both scale pretty well. I still think SLI scales better than Crossfire, but Crossfire scaling is still very good. Once you move up to 3 GPUs then things take a down turn for both Crossfire and SLI. However 3-Way SLI fares quite a bit better than CrosffireX does. Both still scale in a way that makes them useful, though that third card is still at the point of diminishing returns. Once you add a fourth GPU into the mix scaling for both Quad-SLI and CrossfireX goes into the toilet. In some cases that fourth GPU hurts your scaling to the point where the overhead of all the GPUs leaves you with worse performance than three GPUs would have given you.

Now, I do NOT think this is always or necessarily inherent to SLI or Crossfire technology. I believe this has more to do with the actual game engines and to a lesser extent, the card drivers. If you look at the Call of Duty games for example you see 100% (or more) scaling regardless of the amount of GPUs used. Call of Duty proves that the scaling of these solutions doesn't have to suck. Unfortunately the Call of Duty games are about the only "perfect" or ideal scenario I can think of. No other games seem to scale so well.
 
demingo said:
If you can afford 3x 480s or 3x 5870s... you're not really worrying about your electric bill.
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No, you're worrying about Al Gore showing up at your house to bash you upside the head with a recycled aluminum bat, then harvesting your blood for organic fertilizer (hey, we all have to do our part).
 
demingo said:
Define win?

The 3x GTX 480 was the fastest setup in every test....

If you can afford 3x 480s or 3x 5870s... you're not really worrying about your electric bill.
Click to expand...
True, but why would you? It's not like 480 is as fast compared to 5870 as the 5870 is compared to a class lower like the 5850. It's a marginal performance increase for a huge step up in price.

The problem with losing at price performance at every stage is that your marginal absolute performance superiority only comes into it when it's impossible to go any further with the other company's set-up, and the number of people who will make some crazy 3x 480 computer is even smaller than the importance of the performance difference at that point.

Always with computer hardware there's a point of diminishing returns, in the 5850-5870 performance bracket. Anything above that, you are paying a huge premium to get what will be mainstream in a year or so anyway, and almost nothing today even needs.
 
dook43 said:
ATI wins in the ATI benchmarks (Hawx, Dirt 2), NV wins in the NV benchmarks (Metro 2033, FC2)

Absolutely noone cares about non-games.

What we have learned from this is.... absolutely effing nothing.
Click to expand...


I care about 2 of those games, So we learned something.
 
DDigital said:
No, you're worrying about Al Gore showing up at your house to bash you upside the head with a recycled aluminum bat, then harvesting your blood for organic fertilizer (hey, we all have to do our part).
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ill worry about Al Gore when his monthly electricity bill is less then my electricity bill is over an entire year.. until then he can shove his global warming where the sun dont shine..
 
We learned one thing(if you keep up with the recent articles)

AMD has accomplished what it set out to, smaller, easy to produce chips, that compete well with price/performance, and don't eat up alot of power(remember AMD promised no more high wattage single gpus after R600), and they compete in the high end with the dual gpu card.

NV has accomplished what it set out to do(fastest gpu chip).

unfortunately, NV was a bit late, but now they are here, there are drawbacks to the GTX480, but most likely the people that will end up buying it don't care for the extra heat / power.

so in the end everyone is happy. If you want Physx, and Cuda without doing hacked drivers, then the GTX is the way to go. if you don't care about physx, or want eyefinity, AMD is the way to go.

in the uber high end, Both setups seem to do well, with trade offs in certain games, AMD obviously has the power advantage, as well as heat, NV has the Physx / Cuda advantage, as well as multi-monitor support without the dongles(even though you pay extra for the card) and eventually 3D,(which ATI will eventually have to)

so what do we learn? buy whatever suits your needs! I'd like to have Physx for some games, but I don't want to buy a GTX480 for heat / power problems and I don't mind hacked drivers! so i'll stick with my 5970 for now
 
Isn't 5970 CFX like 4x5870 at 5850 speeds? Anyone find it odd it loses to 5870 Trifire?
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
ill worry about Al Gore when his monthly electricity bill is less then my electricity bill is over an entire year.. until then he can shove his global warming where the sun dont shine..
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Well, even if you don't buy into all the global warming stuff, smog is still a very real concern, at least in cities. It literally makes people ill. :/

My crossfire 5770's have great scaling. Not sure why people think ATI is so bad.
 
1815 said:
True, but why would you? It's not like 480 is as fast compared to 5870 as the 5870 is compared to a class lower like the 5850. It's a marginal performance increase for a huge step up in price.
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You forget where you are my friend. This is [H]ardforum.

The the faster, the bigger, the more fossil fuels it uses the better :p

I might not be able to afford Triple CrossFire, but that is why I come here, to chat with those that have it.

Coming here is like going to a drag strip. Dont go there and tell people your Prius gets more mpg.
 
Bleh, stop jerking off to bar graph reports and try competing products in actual gaming.

I did. My overclocked GTX 470 is much smoother than my 5870(s) @ 1920x1200 with AA active. Who cares about +15 FPS to averages if you're dealing with hard hitching often. Well, I don't.
 
1KW of draw for the tri-sli? I feel like a serious underachiever for running a 430 watt psu...
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
ill worry about Al Gore when his monthly electricity bill is less then my electricity bill is over an entire year.. until then he can shove his global warming where the sun dont shine..
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His house is solar powered. How is your house powered? Solar energy or Nuclear energy which would be just as clean? or energy from coal power plants? Yes, he uses a lot of energy but 75% of his energy consumption is from solar panels around his house and his house is a mansion. Believe it or not, the larger the property, the more energy usually is needed to heat that property or provide it with electricity. Compared to any house in his neighbourhood, he's using way less energy. Compared to a rural house in the country side or a small snack in a suburb, probably not. I'd challenge you to make your house as energy efficent compared to your neighbours as his house is compared to his neighbours. As opposed to having a smaller house using less energy.

That's akin to saying someone with a monster-truck using 3% more gas then you can shove driving efficent vehicles up his 'where the sun don't shine' b/c your firefly uses 3% less gas. If you stop and think about how much work it would take to get a monster truck to use only 3% more gas than a firefly, you probably would realize he's more serious about energy efficiency than you are. Jealous much he lives in a 17,000 Sq ft home and you live in a ?

I do still think the fact that Al Gore from time to time uses a Private Jet is a bit ....of a wasteful expenditure? I wonder what a private jet with say 4-5 people on it uses in fuel per person compared to say a much larger heavier 747 with 300 people on it? Probably more for the private jet but I wonder how much more.
 
WBurchnall said:
His house is solar powered. How is your house powered? Solar energy or Nuclear energy which would be just as clean? or energy from coal power plants? Yes, he uses a lot of energy but 75% of his energy consumption is from solar panels around his house and his house is a mansion. Believe it or not, the larger the property, the more energy usually is needed to heat that property or provide it with electricity. Compared to any house in his neighbourhood, he's using way less energy. Compared to a rural house in the country side or a small snack in a suburb, probably not. I'd challenge you to make your house as energy efficent compared to your neighbours as his house is compared to his neighbours. As opposed to having a smaller house using less energy.

That's akin to saying someone with a monster-truck using 3% more gas then you can shove driving efficent vehicles up his 'where the sun don't shine' b/c your firefly uses 3% less gas. If you stop and think about how much work it would take to get a monster truck to use only 3% more gas than a firefly, you probably would realize he's more serious about energy efficiency than you are. Jealous much he lives in a 17,000 Sq ft home and you live in a ?

I do still think the fact that Al Gore from time to time uses a Private Jet is a bit ....of a wasteful expenditure? I wonder what a private jet with say 4-5 people on it uses in fuel per person compared to say a much larger heavier 747 with 300 people on it? Probably more for the private jet but I wonder how much more.
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That's true that his house is making use of solar power, but that has only been true for about 2 years now. Before that, his house was powered just like any other house in the area and was heated by natural gas. The natural gas bill was also, in comparison to others in the area, higher than the average. Not saying much for a house located in Tennessee. However, in 2009, the house was retrofitted with 33 solar panels and now takes advantage of a geothermal heating/cooling system.

Just as an aside the Bush ranch in Texas, home of now former president George W. Bush, was more energy efficient and included every "green" feature available in modern home construction. Just to prove that you don't have to be a tree hugger to do your part in conservation.

But anyway, my point is that for all these years that Mr. Gore has been preaching the green movement and proclaiming "the planet has a fever" he really hasn't been doing his part to make it better the whole time.
 
Sorry, if you are preaching conservation, you loose your credibility if you have a large carbon foot print of a private jet and 17,000sq ft home.
 
Its weird how every ATI/NVI thread gets murdered. Doesn't even have to be over videocards. WTH YO?
 
Dan_D said:
It loses due to lower clocks and poor scaling with 4 GPUs. Not odd at all.
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Lately I've been seeing 5970 lose to 5850 crossfire by 10+ FPS despite having 320 additional shaders. Also, nobody seems to be able to benchmark a 5970 at 850/1200. What's the culprit here?
 
Mr Gore does his part and pays well for his indulgences, err, carbon offsets (same diff).
 
dook43 said:
ATI wins in the ATI benchmarks (Hawx, Dirt 2), NV wins in the NV benchmarks (Metro 2033, FC2)

Absolutely noone cares about non-games.

What we have learned from this is.... absolutely effing nothing.
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wrong, as of now, nvidia is faster in all of them. Check the reviews please. It used to be that way. but then again who cares they are both fast enough.
 
dook43 said:
Lately I've been seeing 5970 lose to 5850 crossfire by 10+ FPS despite having 320 additional shaders. Also, nobody seems to be able to benchmark a 5970 at 850/1200. What's the culprit here?
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Well I couldn't get my 5970 to clock that high. Then again I haven't messed with the voltages as I haven't had time. If I can get mine to run at those speeds, I will. As for the 5970 losing to 5870 Crossfire, I'm again not surprised. The clocks are higher on the 5870. It is as simple as that. Parallelism is just one part of the performance equation. All the streaming processors in the world may not be enough if the application doesn't leverage them. However all things being equal, clock speed always rules for adding performance.
 
Dan_D said:
Well I couldn't get my 5970 to clock that high. Then again I haven't messed with the voltages as I haven't had time. If I can get mine to run at those speeds, I will. As for the 5970 losing to 5870 Crossfire, I'm again not surprised. The clocks are higher on the 5870. It is as simple as that. Parallelism is just one part of the performance equation. All the streaming processors in the world may not be enough if the application doesn't leverage them. However all things being equal, clock speed always rules for adding performance.
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I said 5850 crossfire. Not 5870 crossfire.
 
Blacklash said:
Bleh, stop jerking off to bar graph reports and try competing products in actual gaming.

I did. My overclocked GTX 470 is much smoother than my 5870(s) @ 1920x1200 with AA active. Who cares about +15 FPS to averages if you're dealing with hard hitching often. Well, I don't.
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most likely you hit the wall on that one, 5870CF/X as its nature will limit your VRAM, even on 1680*1050 isn't enough for 4xAA in most newer / demanding game..

and since you are running on 1920*1200 with AA active, you are pretty much blowing the limit there... 5870 2GB will change that fact..

its not GTX 470 is smoother, its your buffer been limited to cause the hitching.
Not quite sure why you even buy a 470 while you have money for GTX 480 since you have 5870s already...

even a single 5870 OC would outperform 470 OC without heat / noise / power issue..

now, if you say 5870 still hitching on single GPU, then that mean is something is wrong with your setup. because it shouldn't and never happen unless you somehow even get to blow 1GB limit in single GPU setup..
 
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