Still waiting for a 2Gb 5870

Frraksurred

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Eyefinity at 7680x1600 is awesome! But also extremely demanding. I want to build a Crossfire setup, but not until some 2Gb 5870's (or faster) are released.

Yes I realize the 5890 is 2Gb, but also de-clocked. I'd rather buy a factory OC'ed 5870 that remains under warranty then OC on my own. Call me what you will.

Regardless, I know Asus is working on one, any news on any others? If I can trade up my XFX on one of their updated models I'd prefer too.
 
What kind of FPS are you getting in games with 7680x1600?

Also why do you prefer a factory OC? Don't some companies allow some OC-ing (and still have the warranty intact)?
 
What kind of FPS are you getting in games with 7680x1600?

Also why do you prefer a factory OC? Don't some companies allow some OC-ing (and still have the warranty intact)?

Depends on what I'm playing. MW2 actually plays very smooth between 25-60 FPS; shocked me. Stalker: Clear Sky averages in the mid 30's. Anything based on the Source engine is 50-60 fps no problem. DX11 games like Dirt 2 or Stalker Call of Pripyat are sluggish, if not slide shows unless I run them in DX9. Crysis is the same way. If I run it in DX10 it just crashes, if I run it in DX9 at "Gamer" settings then I get high teens to low twenties. It turns into a slide show during bigger action scenes though.

These however are the reasons I want at least a couple 2Gb cards in Crossfire. I could get a couple 5970's and try to push their clocks, but I've never OC'd and that's a lot of $$$ to spend to accidentally fry something in my first foray. I'm scared, it boils down to that. If $$$ were not an issue I'd be more lax, but I'm a blue collar worker buying all this with over-time. It comes too hard for me to take chances. I'd rather buy two or three factory OC'd cards and know they are covered.

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My bad, I meant the 5970.

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For what it's worth in terms of News, Fudzilla(a very biast site and not the most accurate, imho) reported on a codename 'Trillian' that suppose to be the 6-port 2GB 5870 ATI cards you waiting for.

Hope that is the case. Thanks for the link. :)
 
Yes I realize the 5890 is 2Gb, but also de-clocked. I'd rather buy a factory OC'ed 5870 that remains under warranty then OC on my own. Call me what you will.

The 5970 only has 1GB of effective RAM. It has 2GB on the board, yes, but it is 1GB per GPU with the data duplicated.
 
Smoothly at 25-60 FPS? Anything less that 60fps definately isn't smooth...
 
From the two rumor sites, the 6 mini-DisplayPort 5870 will come with 2GB, and should launch at the very begging of March. It's still believed to be using the same frequencies though. Just in time to coincide with the believed GF100 release/unveiling.
 
Smoothly at 25-60 FPS? Anything less that 60fps definately isn't smooth...

Well actually it is. 30 fps+ is usually where the game is playable, and it seems smooth. Yes it can get better the more fps you get, but it is defently playable.

Playing DiRT2 at 40-50 fps is defently playable and smooth.

There are though people out there, who demands more because they can see the difference in all details, but usually it's just a load of bull - atleast when it comes to the details of a game. And yes some people can tell the difference between 30 fps and 60 fps and 120 fps, but most people just whine because they see their FPS numbers are low, and they play bad - then they have an excuse.

If you were to be sat infront of a computer playing DiRT, BC2, ME2 and so on, with a 5850 card, and then 30 mins later with a 5870, 30 mins later 5970, 30 mins later 5850CF and so on and so on, then I'm pretty sure you will not be able to tell the FPS difference if it's over 30 FPS.

It's like CocaCola/Pepsi lovers who go through a blindtest and end up choosing whatever brand they usually don't like :D
 
Eyefinity at 7680x1600 is awesome! But also extremely demanding. I want to build a Crossfire setup, but not until some 2Gb 5870's (or faster) are released.

Yes I realize the 5890 is 2Gb, but also de-clocked. I'd rather buy a factory OC'ed 5870 that remains under warranty then OC on my own. Call me what you will.

Regardless, I know Asus is working on one, any news on any others? If I can trade up my XFX on one of their updated models I'd prefer too.


So far, just these two coming up:

Asus_Radeon_HD_5870_Matrix_01.jpg

Asus_Radeon_HD_5870_Matrix_04.jpg


AMD_Radeon_HD_5870_2GB_6DP_02.jpg

2056d1257535207-ati-eyefinity-hd-5870-2gb-eyefinity-wild-ati_hd5870six_4.jpg
 
You've never overclocked? I'm sorry but a 3.2ghz i7 is your limiting factor there. Put it up 1ghz to 4.2, and you'll be adding frames in the double digits.
 
You've never overclocked? I'm sorry but a 3.2ghz i7 is your limiting factor there. Put it up 1ghz to 4.2, and you'll be adding frames in the double digits.

Uhh not at 7680x1600, definitely not even at 2560x1600 for that matter. It's why I have my i7 clocked at only 3.1 GHz. Raising it further does absolutely nothing at this res, I'm GPU limited in nearly all games save for five year old ones, which already run at >100 FPS anyway. Even with 4 5870s he will not be CPU limited at that res..
 
Uhh not at 7680x1600, definitely not even at 2560x1600 for that matter. It's why I have my i7 clocked at only 3.1 GHz. Raising it further does absolutely nothing at this res, I'm GPU limited in nearly all games save for five year old ones, which already run at >100 FPS anyway. Even with 4 5870s he will not be CPU limited at that res..

And... bam.

http://hardocp.com/article/2009/05/19/real_world_gameplay_cpu_scaling/4

I'm betting it will make a HUGE difference.
 
You're not going to see 2GB 5870 cards until the 2Gbit GDDR5 chips ship later this year, or until the manufacturers decide to make non-reference card designs.

The reference design has room for 8 chips, no more, and unfortunately the GDDR5 chips currently top-out at 1Gbit. A design with 16 chips would be required with 1Gbit chips, and that would require a custom PCB plus double your memory costs.
 

Did you read that article? I had a look and it does nothing to refute my claims. You are not CPU bound with a i7 over 3 GHz at 2560x1600.

I have personally clocked to 4 GHz and saw no improvement in FPS with Crysis at this res. Maybe minimum frames went up 3-4 fps, but that was it. Certainly not the substantial increase you speak of.
 
Thanks for the information gentlemen. Good information from everyone, nice change from a few of the other forums I post on.

I'll see what March brings; looks like my only course of action anyway. Thanks again.
 
Uhh not at 7680x1600, definitely not even at 2560x1600 for that matter. It's why I have my i7 clocked at only 3.1 GHz. Raising it further does absolutely nothing at this res, I'm GPU limited in nearly all games save for five year old ones, which already run at >100 FPS anyway. Even with 4 5870s he will not be CPU limited at that res..

Yes, you are cpu limited. There's a link from sixtywattman he's posted on several threads that is a review of a 5970 in crossfire mode in different games at eyefinity resolutions and it shows there's a significant frame rate improvement when you overclock your cpu even with the gpu clock is the same.

However, overclocking the same iCore i7-920 when using just one 5870 showed almost no improvement(indicating a gpu limitation with 1x5870 but when running a 5970(basically 2x5970), cpu being the limiting factor until about the 4.1ghz mark which was the point of deminishing returns).

So, at least when hardware review sites are concerned, your cpu limited. That being said, if there was a fps improvement with Fermi, I wonder if 3-4 Fermis in tri to quad-SLI will really require a six core processor overclocked to take full advantage. I'm also wondering if ATI will have its 5980/5790 or whatever they'll choose to call it. The '2GB' trillian versions of their ATI cards out sometime in March aka before Fermi's release in March to April-ish. I almost wish this thread could be appended to have a poll and see which one people think will come out first. 2GB cards from ATI or nVidia's Fermi.
 
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The 5970 only has 1GB of effective RAM. It has 2GB on the board, yes, but it is 1GB per GPU with the data duplicated.

so going xfire with 1GB 5870s wont be as good as a single 2GB 5870 for eyefinity?
 
so going xfire with 1GB 5870s wont be as good as a single 2GB 5870 for eyefinity?

That would really depend on if you are VRAM limited or not and to what degree it is VRAM limited. In other words it would depend entirely on the game. Most of the time I would expect 1GB 5870 CF to smoke a single 2GB 5870, because I suspect that when the graphics are cranked high enough for the VRAM to become a serious bottleneck, the single card won't have the muscle anyway.

Current comparisons between a single 5870 and a single 5970 haven't revealed any major VRAM bottlenecks as far as I know, so 1GB will probably be enough for a while yet.
 
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