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Considering a second 5850. 2 Questions.

C

cyberslag5k

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 29, 2004
Messages
277
My single 5850 is unfortunately no longer keeping up with some of the games I'm playing (on ultra high settings, that is). Starcraft 2 slows down during the big battles, and Rift averages at 20fps. I'm considering adding a second 5850 via crossfire, as newegg has them for $180 (after rebate). I'm seeing some great benchmarks as far as scaling goes (almost the full 200%), which has me leaning towards doing it.

My current rig is:

i7 920 @ 3.7GHz
6GB PC12800 RAM
XFX Radeon 5850
ASUS P6T Deluxe V2
Corsair 650W PSU?

My concerns are:

1. Is 650 watts enough for all of that?

2. The model number that Newegg has is a little different. I've got an HD-585A-ZNFC, they're selling HD-585X-ZABC and HD-585X-ZAFC. As near far as I can tell, they're the same card, but if there is a slight variation, am I going to be in trouble when it comes to Crossfire time?

Also, if the above isn't an issue, what do you guys think of adding the second card, and are there any satisfied or dissatisfied crossfire (5850 or otherwise) people reading this that would like to share their expereinces?
 
1. ATI recommends a 600W PSU minimum, so you'll probably be fine with a Corsair 650W.

2. You'll be fine.
 
20fps in Rift? Are the graphics really that good?
What resolution is this?
 
No issues with crossfire - as long as the GPU is a HD5800 or HD5900 series card (yep, even HD5830/HD5970 work). It's likely a nonref version you are seeing now. With that center fan cooler. Though the XFX nonref version can still be voltage tweaked with the sapphire twixx (or whatever the Rivatuner derivative is called).


Though "no issues with crossfire" is a bit of a stretch... I had two HD5870 in CF (i7 930/ASUS R2G/1600+CLS7 6GB DDR3/TPQ850). They were... under utilized in games @ 1080p. In SC2, I run about 40FPS in 3v3 Co-op AI compstomps with a single HD5770 - but my (now it's an i7 920.... I'm stupid like that) is OC'd to 3.8GHz. SC2 is heavily CPU dependant, IMO.
 
1920x1080, with 8x AF and no AA.

They're certainly that demanding, at least. They looked pretty amazing in this tech demo, but what I'm experiencing in the actual beta is less overwhelming (though still quite nice). I'm wondering if they bumped it down some because it's a beta, or if perhaps they bumped the tech demo up (though why they'd lower it the production is a mystery to me).
 
There's no reason why you would need 5850 xfire for SC2... and xfire / sli don't work that well for SC2 anyway. Big battles will always slow down no matter what computer you have.
 
Intel_Hydralisk said:
There's no reason why you would need 5850 xfire for SC2... and xfire / sli don't work that well for SC2 anyway. Big battles will always slow down no matter what computer you have.
Click to expand...

Well, when a lot of cloaked units appear (irony) on the screen, that really slows me down, too. SC2 is not my concern, though, as I get great performance there like 90% of the time.

I think it's going to come down to what Rift looks like at launch. If it looks as good as it does in that video that I posted, I think I'm going to have to pick up the second card, unless AMD does something to their drivers that ups my performance a lot.

Thanks, all.
 
cyberslag5k said:
Well, when a lot of cloaked units appear (irony) on the screen, that really slows me down, too. SC2 is not my concern, though, as I get great performance there like 90% of the time.

I think it's going to come down to what Rift looks like at launch. If it looks as good as it does in that video that I posted, I think I'm going to have to pick up the second card, unless AMD does something to their drivers that ups my performance a lot.

Thanks, all.
Click to expand...

Cloaked units do that even on my system. I'm pretty sure you're referring to the mothership and if there's an assload of units under her.

I would hold off upgrading for a beta game. Should definitely wait until they release it (optimizations from the dev and driver support from AMD). Also, there's almost a 0% chance of crossfire working for a beta game.
 
Intel_Hydralisk said:
Cloaked units do that even on my system. I'm pretty sure you're referring to the mothership and if there's an assload of units under her.

I would hold off upgrading for a beta game. Should definitely wait until they release it (optimizations from the dev and driver support from AMD). Also, there's almost a 0% chance of crossfire working for a beta game.
Click to expand...

Yeah. I think that's the way to go.
 
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