Second 6870 or 570

Homey D. Clown

Homey D. Clown

Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 27, 2004
Messages
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I'm contemplating on either getting a second 6870 and running crossfire or selling my current card to a friend and buying a 570 now and possibly getting a second one later and running sli.Main use of computer is FPS gaming.SPecs. are in my sig.My motherboard is capable of doing crossfire or sli.
 
Well, if you want to spend the money the 570 is better (than a single 6870 anyway), but depending on what resolution you run at you could save money going with the 6870 and probably be fine for awhile.
 
Yeah, sorry should have mentioned i'm running a single 27" Samsung HD monitor 1920 x 1080.Been a long day at work.
 
berettagtkid69420 said:
570GTX would dominate the 6870 at that resolution. But like they said if your willing to spend the extra cash 570GTX>6870
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Dominate? Personally speaking, it hardly seems worth the effort of changing brands for the sake of 20% gain in performance. If he goes crossfire as well, that compares pretty favourably to GTX570 SLI, the lead drops to less than 15% in that case, and this would require considerably less expense.
 
I think you will be happy with that. At 1920x1080 even one 570 should be enough until you decide to go SLI. I just got my 570 recently and I love it.
 
MavericK96 said:
But 2 570s will dominate that. It basically comes down to how much the OP wants to spend right now.
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'dominate' is a very ambiguous term. Some people use it to refer to moderate increases, as you did, others to considerably larger differences, as Gizmotron did.

Normally I would expect something like this:
HD6870: 100%
GTX570: 120%
HD6870 Crossfire: 195%
GTX570 SLI: 225%

People have a habit of overselling cards by using exorbitant terminology when really the differences aren't that great, to the extent that they'll go almost unnoticed in game.
 
Let's not forget that a GTX 570 is 320 dollars. For the same price you can get 2 6870s. so by price/performance the 2 6870s are about 75% more performance for the same price.

GTX570: 120%
HD6870 Crossfire: 195%
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Indeed, though that's 75% extra compared to a 6870, not 75% extra compared to a GTX570 (where it would be 62%).This does of course assume high crossfire scaling, but that's fairly common these days.
 
Gizmotron said:
Let's not forget that a GTX 570 is 320 dollars. For the same price you can get 2 6870s. so by price/performance the 2 6870s are about 75% more performance for the same price.
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you can find a gtx570 for much cheaper than that. mine was $260 plus it came with new Batman game which I sold for $39. and not that it matters too much but a gtx570 is closer to 25% faster than single 6870 on average from what I have seen.

but yes from a value standpoint 6870 crossfire makes more sense if you do not mind dealing with multi gpu. lack of vram on the 6870 might also be an issue in a couple games.
 
Gotcha, I just checked the prices of the 6870s and they are back up a little bit so I suppose its prob around 50% more performance per dollar. Thx for correcting my math, I don't like to make mistakes I just didn't think about it.
 
1024MB on a Radeon vs 1280MB on a geforce, there's not a lot in it really, given AMD's memory management is slightly better than nvidia's. I wouldn't put much weight on that difference, it's the single GPU vs two GPU issue that's going to be the biggest stumbling block.
 
samuelmorris said:
1024MB on a Radeon vs 1280MB on a geforce, there's not a lot in it really, given AMD's memory management is slightly better than nvidia's. I wouldn't put much weight on that difference, it's the single GPU vs two GPU issue that's going to be the biggest stumbling block.
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yeah you are right for the most part but if you need more than 1gb then turn down the settings I guess. even at 1280x960 I am hitting close to 1gb and even over in some games. now some of those games are just using available resources and do not necessarily need that much vram. I think with games like Rage(with 8k textures) and BF 3, you are looking to run into vram issues at 1920 with only 1gb.
 
Good point. I realized you can't really compare them apples to apples because they are on such different architectures. AMD still ahead on price/performance but that makes it a little more interesting I suppose.
 
samuelmorris said:
'dominate' is a very ambiguous term. Some people use it to refer to moderate increases, as you did, others to considerably larger differences, as Gizmotron did.

Normally I would expect something like this:
HD6870: 100%
GTX570: 120%
HD6870 Crossfire: 195%
GTX570 SLI: 225%

People have a habit of overselling cards by using exorbitant terminology when really the differences aren't that great, to the extent that they'll go almost unnoticed in game.
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I guess you and I disagree on what is considered a "significant" performance increase.

I would say that 20-30% increase is pretty significant. Clearly you would not. I guess we can agree to disagree. :cool:
 
MavericK96 said:
I guess you and I disagree on what is considered a "significant" performance increase.

I would say that 20-30% increase is pretty significant. Clearly you would not. I guess we can agree to disagree. :cool:
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upgrading from one card to another for 25% is most certainly not significant. the only way that makes sense is if you get a killer deal or the faster card also offers some other advantages.
 
Well yeah, what is significant depends on the situation. If I'm considering buying a new card that's 50% faster, but there's an alternative that's 70% faster for a similar price, then i'll buy the 70% card. If I already own a card, and there's a new one out that's 20% faster, I probably couldn't be arsed with the swap out, selling the old card and all that, for that sort of a performance increase, especially with considerable up-front expenditure. Also, 225% is only 15% higher than 195% in comparative terms!
 
Second value card in crossfire/sli is the way to fly. Any of them 6850/6870/460/560 etc destroy the highest end single GPU cards for half price.
 
ZoNe said:
Second value card in crossfire/sli is the way to fly. Any of them 6850/6870/460/560 etc destroy the highest end single GPU cards for half price.
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You mean destroy the GTX580 for half price? None of the other 'highest end single GPU cards' are any more expensive than basic SLI/crossfire configs...
 
Homey D. Clown said:
I'm contemplating on either getting a second 6870 and running crossfire or selling my current card to a friend and buying a 570 now and possibly getting a second one later and running sli.Main use of computer is FPS gaming.SPecs. are in my sig.My motherboard is capable of doing crossfire or sli.
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AMD 6000 series cards scale better than Nvidia 500 series cards in multi-GPU setups. Therefore, the 6000 series are a better value with multi-GPU setups, especially considering the fact that you already have a 6870. In fact, the AMD 6000 series cards are just a better value in general. Therefore, I recommend you get another 6870 and run the two cards in Crossfire.
 
C_A_V_E_M_A_N said:
These days, microstutter is really not noticeable in either AMD or Nvidia multi-GPU setups. It's just a load of b.s.
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False. It exists, and many people notice it, just not everyone. All the proof you need is in the techreport article i posted.
 
Get a 2nd 6870 b/c frankly it's cheaper and a 40-60% gain in performance. You going to be very happy especially if you using just one monitor. I think it's what $180 to $200 for a 6870, considerably cheaper than getting a 570.
 
I did 2x6870 wasnt happy I had stutter minor annoying crap just bs ill stay single card untill they figure it out. I have unfortunalty have had this prob with other sli/crossfire setups gues im just not lucky. To the 6950 i go.
 
You probably aren't aiming for a high enough target frame rate - when using crossfire/SLI to minimise stutter you need to have a frame rate in excess of 60.
 
they almost certainly do have fps in excess of 60...its quite hard to make it drop below 60 for very long with 6870CF
 
samuelmorris said:
Much better article (and it affects SLI too):
http://techreport.com/articles.x/21516
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Thanks for the link and yes, SLI concerns me just as much. I bought a GTX 560 with the intent to SLI it with a new build in a few months, but those articles have changed my mind completely about mid-range cards in SLI (or Crossfire). I have another couple of weeks to return it to Fry's (and take the 15% restocking hit). Will probably just look for a single GTX570, GTX 580 or HD 6970 instead.
 
It is, and probably always will be a waste of time to SLI/CF two midrange cards. The only exception is crossfire HD6850s, as for architectural reasons they're a good 30% faster than an HD6970 at low resolutions. For SLI though, very little reason to do it.
 
I had GTX 280 SLI and I never noticed anything I would consider to be microstutter. Just depends on the person/system I guess.
 
If it was me I would go for a single powerful card. It's true sli and cf sometimes have micro stutter, depending on rig or optimal settings but I don't want to be bothered by that so single in my opinion. :) good luck!
 
Again though, with crossfire/SLI you see levels of performance unattainable with a single card - the GTX580 is the best that single GPUs have to offer, and costs $450. HD6870 Crossfire is reliably 30%+ faster than that, and only costs $350 even if you don't already have one.
 
I'm sensitive to microstutter and I notice it in game when it's there. Thankfully, I know to aim for 60fps+ so it doesn't bother me.
 
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