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upgrade from 4870x2?

P

phpessotti

n00b
Joined
Oct 25, 2008
Messages
17
I have a 4870x2 right now and i'm wondering if there is any big performance boast if I get a 5970? If anyone has upgraded from a 4870x2 please share your opinions.

Also, can you cross fire these two cards?

Thanks!
 
you shouldn't crossfire two 4870x2, that is just way too much power consumption. you could get the 5970 but I would wait for the price to go down. I am pretty sure the 4870x2 doesn't lag in any game.
 
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I say if all you feel is just an upgrade itch, wait for the fermi or whatever nvidia comes up with so atleast your money is not a waste if it turns out fermi was better for cheaper price...
 
Yeah, I think i'll wait and see whats around the corner. Any idea as to when nvidia will release there new cards?
 
phpessotti said:
I have a 4870x2 right now and i'm wondering if there is any big performance boast if I get a 5970? If anyone has upgraded from a 4870x2 please share your opinions.

Also, can you cross fire these two cards?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

The 4870x2 is already about the same as a 5870 performance wise so it should be plenty for just about anything you will play.

When you say "can you cross fire these two cards?" what do you mean? Are you talking about crossfire with two 4870x2's, crossfire with two 5970's, or crossfire with a 4870x2 and a 5970? The first two options would work, the third would not.

Is the motherboard you currently have capable of crossfire?

The main reason you might consider getting another 4870x2 is because they are able to be found very cheap used lately. You will regularly find them on places like eBay for as low as $200 which is really a bargain considering that is half the price of the 5870 and performance is nearly identical. Two 4870x2's will have the same amount of stream processors as a 5970 and a similar amount of raw power, limited only by scaling. Fortunately CrossfireX scaling is pretty good these days and works great with most games. And when it scales, it really does scale...

http://gotnorice.dnsdojo.com/q96502x4870x2QUAD.jpg Compare that 27k GPU score to a typical 5970 GPU score of ~21k and you get a glimpse of the raw power that is available when something scales properly.

Power consumption isn't too bad really, even with my overclocked quad I'm only pulling 360watts at idle and have only seen it pull over 1k a handful of times.
 
yeah, i was thinking about using a 4870x2 with either a 5870 or a 5970, but it's not possible. I don't want to get another 4870x2 because the one i have now idles at 85c! It's a very hot card. I also only have a Thermaltake tough power 750 PSU. I don't think it could hand two 4870x2 in crossfire.

I don't know then. I guess i'll stay with the 4870x2 a little longer.
 
i would stay with it.. it's a new year and lots of new and exciting things to come, not to mention money drives our decisions we make..
 
Just wait until at most the end of the year for a new purchase, it would be the smarter thing to do and could save you in the end.
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Just wait for fermy, it will drop prices with ati regardless if it's better or worse. Also is there anything really you want to play that you can't now with that card? And lastly if it's very hot get an accelero cooler for it. My hd4870x2 idles at 35,37c and has a load of 50c on both cores with the sound of the stock cooler at 30%!
 
I have the accelero cooler, but for some reason it crashes when gaming after about 15-20min :(. The temps were nice, and it made a lot less sound, but in the end I had to switch back to my stock cooler.

I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling this cooler 3 times and it still doesn't work. Everything is installed correctly, but it still crashes... oh well
 
phpessotti said:
yeah, i was thinking about using a 4870x2 with either a 5870 or a 5970, but it's not possible. I don't want to get another 4870x2 because the one i have now idles at 85c! It's a very hot card. I also only have a Thermaltake tough power 750 PSU. I don't think it could hand two 4870x2 in crossfire.

I don't know then. I guess i'll stay with the 4870x2 a little longer.
Click to expand...
i wouldn't say, 'not possible'; certainly it is not supported.

You might consider a cheap 4870/1GB for TriFire. It will give a nice boost over a 4870-X2 as Tri-fire scales much better than quad-Fire. You can run that easily on a decent 750W PSU.
 
apoppin said:
i wouldn't say, 'not possible'; certainly it is not supported.

You might consider a cheap 4870/1GB for TriFire. It will give a nice boost over a 4870-X2 as Tri-fire scales much better than quad-Fire. You can run that easily on a decent 750W PSU.
Click to expand...


From someone who has tried this, don't do it. Waste of money. Most games don't scale with 3 gpu's and if they do, you may see a 10% increase in fps which isn't much at all. You may be able to kick up the AA a notch or two higher but that's about it. The other GPU eats up more power and adds more heat but doesn't do much in performance so it's not worth it.

I don't own a 5970, but was wondering the same thing as you because my 4870X2 struggles in games like Borderlands, Dragonage, Batman AA, and a few other newer games that I play at 2560X1600. For me I'm picky because if I'm not pegged at 60fps then I'm not happy. I play with Vsync on because I get terrible tearing on my Dell 30" monitor and with Vsync on if it drops below 60fps, I get stuttering.
 
dslrjunky said:
I say if all you feel is just an upgrade itch, wait for the fermi or whatever nvidia comes up with so atleast your money is not a waste if it turns out fermi was better for cheaper price...
Click to expand...

I agree on the waiting part since his 4870x2 is more then capable, but there is no way Fermi is going to be better for cheaper, just not going to happen. nVidia isn't going to sell us a card that costs them more to make then their competition, for less, especially if it's better. What it MIGHT do however is drop the prices of current cards depending on how it performs and where it's priced.
 
hdgamer said:
From someone who has tried this, don't do it. Waste of money. Most games don't scale with 3 gpu's and if they do, you may see a 10% increase in fps which isn't much at all. You may be able to kick up the AA a notch or two higher but that's about it. The other GPU eats up more power and adds more heat but doesn't do much in performance so it's not worth it.
Click to expand...

When was this that you supposedly tried it? My experience with CrossfireX has been very good and I've found that the vast majority of games actually scale very well now. Keep in mind that Crossfire with more than 2 GPU's wasn't even possible until early 2008 when they released the drivers so you could do it with the 38xx series. It was only a few months later that the 4870x2 came out so the entire concept was still pretty new and there were more scaling issues back then. Unfortunately the vast majority of online reviews of the 4870x2 and 4870x2 in crossfire are from that time using those early drivers.

Thankfully it's 2010 now and the drivers have come a long way since then. When I was on the fence about getting a 2nd 4870x2 I stuck one of my old 4850's in there for ghetto 3-way crossfire with my original 4870x2 just to test how it reacted to the games I play. Every game I tried was able to scale across the 3 cards and even with the 4850 gimping the 4870x2 it was still faster in nearly every situation than the 4870x2 itself.

Anyone interested in how multi-GPU Crossfire actually scales and not just going on hearsay from people who probably used old drivers should check out reviews of 5970's in crossfire or people who have done 3 or 4-way with 5770's. Obviously all of those reviews are going to be using new drivers, and I've yet to see a non-CPU limited situation where they have not scaled very well.
 
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phpessotti said:
yeah, i was thinking about using a 4870x2 with either a 5870 or a 5970, but it's not possible. I don't want to get another 4870x2 because the one i have now idles at 85c! It's a very hot card. I also only have a Thermaltake tough power 750 PSU. I don't think it could hand two 4870x2 in crossfire.

I don't know then. I guess i'll stay with the 4870x2 a little longer.
Click to expand...

I would keep the 4870x2, as I intend to do with mine. But idles at 85c? Mine idles at 55c and only hits 85c under heavy load. Something wrong there. And like others said, 750 watts would not handle 2 of them.
 
Personally I'm sticking with my 4870x2. It's still a very fast card and I won't be upgrading until I can find something that can at least double its performance at high resolutions. Fermi may be able to do it, we'll find out soon enough I guess.
 
If you are just buying something to buy something, consider using the money to help out Haiti, instead. Although cutting power consumption is a worthwhile cause, as well.
 
phpessotti said:
I have the accelero cooler, but for some reason it crashes when gaming after about 15-20min :(. The temps were nice, and it made a lot less sound, but in the end I had to switch back to my stock cooler.

I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling this cooler 3 times and it still doesn't work. Everything is installed correctly, but it still crashes... oh well
Click to expand...

Core temps might be nice but this sounds like something else might have been overheating.. VRMs perhaps.
 
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