Quick question on 5850 vs 5870 eyefinity.

C

ChristmasGT

Limp Gawd
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Oct 17, 2007
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Hey guys, I'm just about to finish my eyefinity setup. I'm going to be using 3 Samsung T240HD's (really enjoying the second one atm)

So on to my question, I've been reading the review that [H] did on eyefinity and have a question about choosing between a 5850 or a 5870. I'm pretty familiar with OCing and have been doing it for years, whatever route I chose I eventually plan to go crossfire on, but at the time I can really only go with 1 card.

After reading around it looks like 900mhz seems to be about the average OC on the 5850, which should put it fairly close to the 5870 (I know that a similarly clocked 5870 will most definitely be faster due to the increase in shaders.)

Going the 5850 route definitely saves me money, especially since I have to purchase the Display port adapter. So I guess what I'm asking is will A single OC'd 5850 be pretty good for Eyefinity until I can pick up a second 5850, or should I just go for the 5870?
 
Check reviews for games you are likely to play to see how they perform in eyefinity at the resolution(s) you intend to use.
My opinion is that a 5850 is just about ok for 3 screen eyefinity in most games now but will soon become underpowered.
You can crossfire them later to get a substantial performance boost.
Crossfire is very much improved now but some older games run on one GPU, not that it matters much as most older games arent hard on modern GPUs.
 
the 5870 is a better way to go. the 5870 is just overall a better performer and does better then the 5850 in eyefinity.
 
Make a careful guess. If you think you can get another 5850 much sooner than you can get another 5870 (given anticipated price drops on both), it's not a bad idea to get the 5850. But right now the 5870 will simply do better.
 
Where is AMD with Crossfire eyefinity support? Should make sure that's squared away before planning a rig around it. I would go with the 5870 but that probably won't fly if you plan on playing newer games at eyefinity resolutions.
 
trinibwoy said:
Where is AMD with Crossfire eyefinity support? Should make sure that's squared away before planning a rig around it. I would go with the 5870 but that probably won't fly if you plan on playing newer games at eyefinity resolutions.
Click to expand...

Eyefinity now has Crossfire support for many games.
 
I can't get Dirt2 to launch with a display group and Crossfire enabled right now, and I also can't find an Eyefinity/Crossfire "list" of games anywhere. Crysis will launch with EyeFinity/Crossfire, but GPU2 shows no activity.
 
Uninstall and reinstall the driver, use a driver cleaner in between.
Be sure to use 9.12 hotfix or if you want to see the latest, try 10.1 beta.
 
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