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Fermi Price/Release?

SeaFoam

SeaFoam

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Oct 13, 2004
Messages
5,066
So does anyone have any idea when and how much these things are going to be? I HATE my 5870, nothing but problems with eyefinity and I am done with it, even if I have to spend more for 2 nvidia cards it's worth it at this point.
 
Haven't heard of that before. Kyle must be pissed :)

Is ActiveDP->DVI the standard setup for Eyefinity? There's no other option right?
 
SeaFoam said:
Because of this:
I have the active DP adapter (on the verified list)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5kQK1Y2k1c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HQAHmJHBjg

So in short, fuck ATI - I don't know why I ever switched.
Click to expand...

Might not be the card or adapter (though some have fixed this via a bios update). Here's the article for this at AMD with troubleshooting options:
http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/Display.aspx

Your MB might have USB issues. Here is an MS hotfix if you use Windows 7:
You may encounter problems when you move data over USB from a Windows 7-based or Windows Server 2008 R2-based computer that has an NVIDIA USB EHCI chipset and at least 4GB of RAM.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...DA-1EBF-465E-AA67-1AF46F766ED9&displaylang=en

One thread of people having USB power issues with same MB as yours:
http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=120174

trinibwoy said:
Haven't heard of that before. Kyle must be pissed :)

Is ActiveDP->DVI the standard setup for Eyefinity? There's no other option right?
Click to expand...

Hehey, trinibwoy getting interested in Eyefinity? ;)

ActiveDP -> DVI is the most common setup as far as I know. DP -> DP is the optimal setup and there is also an option with DP -> VGA dongle.
 
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Oh I have tried multiple monitors, bios, 2 different adapters, 4 different usb sources, wiped the computer, 3 different drivers.

Too much of a headache, I just want a Fermi setup now.
 
Have you tried a native displayport monitor like Eyefinity was designed for? Not a band-aid like the "adapter"....
 
shawnoen said:
Have you tried a native displayport monitor like Eyefinity was designed for? Not a band-aid like the "adapter"....
Click to expand...

Wow thanks for the great help.

The band-aid adapter is verified by ATI.

You're right though, I should go buy another monitor.
 
Wow thanks for the great help.

The band-aid adapter is verified by ATI.

You're right though, I should go buy another monitor.
Click to expand...

Well considering in your original post you said you'd shell out all the extra cash for TWO Fermi cards...
 
SeaFoam said:
Oh I have tried multiple monitors, bios, 2 different adapters, 4 different usb sources, wiped the computer, 3 different drivers.

Too much of a headache, I just want a Fermi setup now.
Click to expand...

I can understand the frustration. :)

By default, Eyefinity work well and if you have troubleshooted your machine and cannot figure out why it doesn't work for you I can understand its tempting to find another alternative for multi-monitor setup.
 
I had terrible problems with ATI 5850 and three monitor setup.

Waiting on Nvidia now.
 
r0cky said:
I had terrible problems with ATI 5850 and three monitor setup.

Waiting on Nvidia now.
Click to expand...

Lets hope that works out for you. When Fermi comes out, then the Nvidia surround will be introduced. By that time, Eyefinity has been out for at least 6 months and much of the problems have been ironed out by drivers and video bios. It remains to be seen if Nvidia will have a better option when they release Nvidia Surround. :)

I have hopes for Nvidia surround, but I don't expect it to be bug free. The scaling option in Nvidia drivers are broken every other driver, so I expect some bugs for starters with Nvidia surround as well.
 
Stories like this is why I just can't switch over to ATI. Their hardware is great but they can't write good drivers if a gun was pointed to their heads. With Nvidia things just work.
 
I've been using the Accell adapter for a couple months now. It has worked fine for me since i plugged it in, haven't had a single problem.

Guess I'm just lucky.
 
fdiaz78 said:
Stories like this is why I just can't switch over to ATI. Their hardware is great but they can't write good drivers if a gun was pointed to their heads. With Nvidia things just work.
Click to expand...

That is not true and you live in an illusion if you believe this. I can point you to so many threads that you will have to read for weeks about people having problems with Nvidia hardware and I can do the same with ATI hardware.

I've also had systems with Nvidia and with ATI hardware that "just works". ATI drivers have been very stable in my system and the only major issue I've had in years is grey screen crash and that one I have fixed. You might say that Nvidia doesn't have grey screen crashes, but they've had a lot of purple screen crashes. Same shit, different names and symptoms.

PC's are not like consoles, where there are one type of hardware for each console. We have a big mix of different vendors and sometimes hardware doesn't play nice together and sometimes the software doesn't.

Saying "Nvidia just works" is a faith that I don't share with you and consider blind fate. Just look at threads in this very subsection and you'll see that what you say isn't true.
 
You must concede, his current Nvidia setup obviously "just works"

With all the blinking / crashing / other issues some eyefinity users are reporting, I can see why someone wouldn't want to switch to ATi. Just the fact that you might be leaving a perfectly working setup for a broken one is off-putting, regardless of weather that actually turns out to be the case.
 
Unknown-One said:
You must concede, his current Nvidia setup obviously "just works"

With all the blinking / crashing / other issues some eyefinity users are reporting, I can see why someone wouldn't want to switch to ATi. Just the fact that you might be leaving a perfectly working setup for a broken one is off-putting, regardless of weather that actually turns out to be the case.
Click to expand...

And there are people who have ATI setups that "just works". I've had a problem free setup with 4870X2 for over a year. It just works.

If I had the problems thats shown in this very subsection with Nvidia cards and generalized, I would never get a Nvidia card for the same reasons.

The thing is that "some" users are reporting issues with Eyefinity, some of those again reports that its fixed, while some don't have issues.

People have gone from Nvidia to ATI and their problems have been fixed (and visa versa).

People claiming that "Nvidia just works" or "ATI just works" as a general truth either:

a) Are only speaking of their own experience without any knowledge of others experiences (and don't read forums).

b) Have a very selective memory.

c) Only say it for some viral marketing reasons in forums, though they know it isn't true.

Here, a few threads beneath this:
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1493889

I doubt he would agree that his cards have "just worked" and he's on his second Nvidia card trying to get it to work.

You don't have to switch to second page in this subforum to disagree with "Nvidia cards just work". People stating that are either ignorant or full of FUD misleading other users.
 
fdiaz78 said:
Stories like this is why I just can't switch over to ATI. Their hardware is great but they can't write good drivers if a gun was pointed to their heads. With Nvidia things just work.
Click to expand...

Do you by anychance game on a Mac :D? "Apple just works" seems to be a prevelant marketing theme at least over the last year. In reality, apple's crash too, get viruses also, etc....

It's also odd how a lot of ATI's 'driver issues' can be cleared up by updating way out of date bioses in some cases. A good example of this was the giant-mouse cursor scenario that many forum members fixed by updating their bios. Really, this is no fault of ATI's drivers more than likely if a motherboard bios update fixes the problem but rather more akin to a motherboard chipset issue fixed by the motherboard manufacturer.
 
Tamlin_WSGF: Wow, way to miss the point entirely...

His current Nvidia setup works. If he leaves his setup alone, it will continue to work.

If he switches over to an ATi setup, it might not work. There's a certain degree of uncertainty there, and some people aren't comfortable with that.

I'm in the same boat as him, I want a confirmed fix for the "blinking monitor" issue some people are having with DisplayPort-to-DVI adapters before I'll even consider an ATi card. I don't care that I might be one of the lucky ones that doesn't have problems, I don't want to risk spending $400 to be one of the unlucky ones. My current setup works, I'm already gaming triplehead, I can quite comfortably sit and wait for ATi to get their drivers straightened out.
 
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Am I the only one thinking that the OP has a HD5870 already from his post?
 
lixuelai said:
Am I the only one thinking that the OP has a HD5870 already from his post?
Click to expand...

No, you'd be correct. He's just venting in a way I think. He's upset his active adaptor is cutting out which is understandable. The active adaptor does seem to work for other people as someone chimed in its working fine for them. I think it's actually a hardware issue on the OP's motherboard part.

Tamil has given some great suggestions though pointing him to a fairly length 137 post thread about people having their usb devices cut out with his exact motherboard. One poster mentions having replaced his eVGA motherboard 4 times via RMAing and still has flaky usb hubs/issues.

Common issues include "I was watching a movie and all a suddnely the keyboard/mouse stopped working. Had to RD into the pc and restart it to get it working again". "I plug one my power hungry droid to charge it and the whole usb hub goes out. Nothing else works but the droid which continues to charge. To get the keyboard/mouse/anything working, I have to power off using the psu and restart." Tamil also provided a link to a Windows Update that might be viable from that thread but a lot of ppl are finding it only helps with certain scenarios.

It kind of looks like its related to his USB hub/chipset on his motherboard more than anything else. It may be its not giving enough power to power the powered adaptor. Someone also suggested the idea that a DP monitor would be much cheaper than 2 Fermis and the OP snapped at that poster. I'd assume that's more venting his frustration. If his motherboard is defunct by design, there's not a whole lot he can really do about it.
 
WBurchnall said:
No, you'd be correct. He's just venting in a way I think. He's upset his active adaptor is cutting out which is understandable. The active adaptor does seem to work for other people as someone chimed in its working fine for them. I think it's actually a hardware issue on the OP's motherboard part.

Tamil has given some great suggestions though pointing him to a fairly length 137 post thread about people having their usb devices cut out with his exact motherboard. One poster mentions having replaced his eVGA motherboard 4 times via RMAing and still has flaky usb hubs/issues.

Common issues include "I was watching a movie and all a suddnely the keyboard/mouse stopped working. Had to RD into the pc and restart it to get it working again". "I plug one my power hungry droid to charge it and the whole usb hub goes out. Nothing else works but the droid which continues to charge. To get the keyboard/mouse/anything working, I have to power off using the psu and restart." Tamil also provided a link to a Windows Update that might be viable from that thread but a lot of ppl are finding it only helps with certain scenarios.

It kind of looks like its related to his USB hub/chipset on his motherboard more than anything else. It may be its not giving enough power to power the powered adaptor. Someone also suggested the idea that a DP monitor would be much cheaper than 2 Fermis and the OP snapped at that poster. I'd assume that's more venting his frustration. If his motherboard is defunct by design, there's not a whole lot he can really do about it.
Click to expand...

It's not a USB issue - I have tried 4 different USB power sources (2 powered adapters, powered hub, mb) to make sure. Trust me, I am not just venting for no reason. I bought this third monitor that matches the other two I have, they are IPS panels, there's not a chance in hell I will use a TN with them (which is all I have seen for DP).

I have never had cut out issues on my USB (thankfully)

The reason I want to switch is simple, I have tried multiple things to get it working and no matter what it doesn't. I got rid of a perfectly good 285 and got shafted!

Actually - this is what I have tried:
5 bioses
2 DP adapters
4 different driver sets
3 different monitors
4 usb power sources
fresh install of win 7

So I'm sure you can all understand my frustration.
 
Is the flickering screen always the one that's hooked to the adapter?
What happens if you hook the adapter to the screen on the left?
Have you only tried one active adapter, and have you tried a passive adapter?
Is it always the screen on the right side?
What resolutions are you running for 2d and 3d?
Which updated bios did you flash your XFX 5870 to?

edit - You have either a bad xfx5870, a conflict with 64bit win7, a corrupt driver install, or a bad DVI/DP adapter.
 
Unknown-One said:
Tamlin_WSGF: Wow, way to miss the point entirely...

His current Nvidia setup works. If he leaves his setup alone, it will continue to work.
Click to expand...

Thats not true at all. His post was nothing but FUD or ignorance. Let me quote it again and break it down for you:

fdiaz78 said:
Stories like this is why I just can't switch over to ATI. Their hardware is great but they can't write good drivers if a gun was pointed to their heads. With Nvidia things just work.
Click to expand...

"Stories like this" refers to the OP, not his personal experience. "With Nvidia things just work" is a general statement in this context and pure bullshit for anyone that reads forums.

Make a search on nvlddmkm, nvdisp.sys, atikmdag etc. and you'll see a horde of people banging their heads like the op trying to fix their issues. If you read up more, lots of the people who got these issues fixed used methods not even related to the GFX card.

I can understand the fustration, but making claims that either ATI or Nvidia has a no problems warranty and "just works" is pure FUD with no roots in real life. There is a large soup of hardware out amongst people and not everything work as well together. And, that comes in the addition of all the software issues out there.

SeaFoam said:
So I'm sure you can all understand my frustration.
Click to expand...

I think most people can understand your fustration. :)

Going from one vendor to another might not solve your problems, unless you figure out what differs from your setup from other setups that works. I have hopes that Nvidia comes out with a good solution for multi-monitor, but I don't know if it will be good before its tested. Considering how often the scaling is broken in drivers and the current issues people have with SLI/Crossfire in addition to the risk of Nvidia having some of the issues that softTH currently have, makes me skeptical though hopeful.

It remains to be seen if a multi-monitor system thats has its output synced over two cards is better then one that is synced over a single card. Also, Eyefinity has been out for 6 months at that time, which means that its been field tested for 6 months and improved.

I would try out the card and setup on another MB if you can though. Another thing to try out is to reduce the amount of memory to 4MB and see if its stable then.
 
I think the big thing that is drawing me back to nvidia is the fact that my 285 was flawless and the ati card I had before that sucked (can't remember which model). Add in the fact that you won't need (hopefully) a DP adapter for the Fermi cards to run triple monitor and the choice is pretty clear.
 
Add in the fact that you won't need (hopefully) a DP adapter for the Fermi cards to run triple monitor and the choice is pretty clear.
Click to expand...

You won't, as Fermi won't even have displayport outputs. However you will need to buy TWO cards...
 
SeaFoam said:
I think the big thing that is drawing me back to nvidia is the fact that my 285 was flawless and the ati card I had before that sucked (can't remember which model). Add in the fact that you won't need (hopefully) a DP adapter for the Fermi cards to run triple monitor and the choice is pretty clear.
Click to expand...

I can understand that. I had a perfectly stable system with a 4870X2 and got grey screen errors with the 5870. That was the same vendor.

I had a problem setup with a 8600GT on a P5B motherboard which ran nice on ATi cards. Turns out that it was the onboard sound that had problems, though they didn't show up on ATI cards.

Thats how it is. Often its a hit and miss when it comes to switching hardware and often in between the same vendor even. GTX280's had some issues at start due to bios, which made them incompatible with certain MB's. If you would have that issue and switched to ATI and issue would be gone, it would be easy to draw the conclusion Nvidia bad, ATI good. But things are not that simple.

You might get a problem free setup by just switching motherboard for all we know.

I would check the setup on another mb if possible and also try it out on your MB with 4GB of memory instead of 12. Find out whats wrong, so you don't get bound to a single vendor. :)
 
Why does ATI have to rely on the displayport? That's the weakest link in all of this stuff.

You buy the card for Eyefinity but you have to spend another $100 on an adapter that may or may not work. That's not in the marketing now is it?

Is there hope for future eyefinity without displayport? Add more clocks so it can drive a 3rd HDMI?

Choice of videocard should not limit your choice of monitor! When they come out with 6 monitor Eyefinity, are you going to need to buy 6 DP monitors or $600 worth of adapters?!!
 
Why does ATI have to rely on the displayport? That's the weakest link in all of this stuff.
Click to expand...
You buy the card for Eyefinity but you have to spend another $100 on an adapter that may or may not work. That's not in the marketing now is it?
Click to expand...

Because it's significantly cheaper to implement hardware-wise and saves a lot of PCB space compared with enabling more DVI ports. The number of eyefinity users to normal single or dual monitor users is quite small. It doesn't make sense to increase the cards' pricings for everyone. That would be poor marketing... Eyefinity is a "want" and as such you'll need to pay more for it.
 
Yea from what it looks like, most people wont have a chance to buy a Fermi based card until the second half of the year... Possibly as late as September or October 2010 according to Kyle.
 
I think part of it is those with problems with eyefinity and the new 58xx cards are much more vocal than those who are having no problems. There is a poll in the ati forum with about 73% of people reporting no problems at all. While I agree that number should be over 90% at least, a great majority of ati users are thrilled with their new cards.

This is the 2nd ati card (4850, and now the 5850) I've owned and they both have been great. I was loyal nvidia for over 4 years and bought 6800gt, 7800gt, 7900gt, 8800gt but then it a major snag where I could not install video card drivers with vista 64bit when it first came out.

Bought a 4850 several years ago and have never looked back. I'd be willing to give nvidia another chance, but when it was time to upgrade ati had the best value for my gaming needs. I hope Fermi turns out to be a great product, everyone benefits from an Ati & Nvidia at the top of their game.
 
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