silent-circuit
[H]F Junkie
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No real reason for a pair of 480s at 1920x1080. Get a couple more monitors or a 30" first, then we'll talk.
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"Upgraded" from HD5970 to GTX570, and Absolutely Thrilled!
- Thread starter covertash
- Start date
No real reason for a pair of 480s at 1920x1080. Get a couple more monitors or a 30" first, then we'll talk.
DouglasteR
Gawd
- Joined
- Jan 6, 2006
- Messages
- 546
No real reason for a pair of 480s at 1920x1080. Get a couple more monitors or a 30" first, then we'll talk.
Thanks for the feedback
I begged to differ. I've been running 4870 512mb crossfire for 2 years now and have no room to complain. Well.....except for GPU's getting a little toasty. However, as far as game play, they have serve their purpose and upgrade season is in full effect!
Luck you, my 4870 X2 has been nothing short of a migraine. If I hadn't spent $670 on it release day I wouldve gotten rid of it a LONG time ago. Performance is great WHEN it works, which is rare. Most games have Crossfire issues or waiting forever for crossfire profiles. Then you deal with other random driver/xfire related issues like corruptions and crashing. And my card only stopped overheating when I finally gave up and had to spend another $80 on the Artic Cooling solution (tri-fan).
When it performs/works, its amazing and still keeps up with the big boys. The rest of the time its either a headache or "meh" at best.
Sadly the performance it does provide when it works well keeps me from being interested in the meager performance increase any card currently out will provide (other than going to another dual GPU solution which I will not be doing again any time soon, if ever).
You must have a bad card, my 4870x2 runs 90C all it wants with no issues (it's designed to)
If your card cant run stable on auto fan setting than it's faulty IMHO
I've never had any crashing of any kind on my card though, the only downside is that it doesn't overclock a drop but the performance is awesome
Than you apparently don't play enough games. There are many many many many people who have reported the many problems and lack of crossfire issues with the 4870 X2 (or any other Xfire setup). Not to mention the crashes noted in COUNTLESS games.
90c is also not acceptable IMO (though mine would go above that), it was causing too much heat in my case and to my CPU (being right below it). Now my card never passes 60c on the best of beatings, on average staying below 45c. Not to mention the "auto" setting caused the fan to constantly jump up to 100% randomly which is annoying as hell. The Artic cooling is 100x quiter @ 100% and cools it like it should in the first place.
I also had a pair of 4850's and everything was exactly the same problem wise (heat was better).
That's the problem with this sort of mentality. Many people, like crawlgsx, have taken this exact sort of advice that you so simply stated and replaced their cards only to have the same issues reappear, or worse - they get a card that flat out doesn't work. While there is a good chance that you may actually be right, there is also just as good of a chance that all the problems he is experiencing comes down to how the drivers are working with his particular setup.
Everybody's experiences will always be different, but to dismiss someone else's and to jump to the conclusion that he has bad hardware because you don't have any issues is just irresponsible. He already stated that, for his setup, he was able to tame the temperatures once he switched to an aftermarket cooler, but even still his performance issues persist, which means it isn't related to components failing due to overheating.
I'm not picking on you personally, it's just that I see these pieces of advice get thrown around so loosely all the time, and it just doesn't help people who actually are going through this sort of anguish.
If you want to run some of the more demanding games at 60 fps on max settings with AA, another one is pretty necessary. If you don't mind lowering the settings down or playing with 30fps, then one 480 will do it
If you want to run some of the more demanding games at 60 fps on max settings with AA, another one is pretty necessary. If you don't mind lowering the settings down or playing with 30fps, then one 480 will do it
It is if you don't mind the extra heat.
OP did you ever try messing with the clocks or even voltages on your 5970? I have a 5970 and for the most part the card has been very pleasant. The only major problem I ever ran into my card was a random driver failure I would sometimes get when I boot into Windows 7, but flashing to a different BIOS fixed that problem for good.
It's just a shame that you went to a slower card simply because you were tired of messing with your 5970. In all honesty the 5970 is a magnificent piece of hardware, and not only that, it's common knowledge to expect even a little bit of tweaking to get something bleeding-edge working the way you want it too. I know I enjoy the, I guess we can call it, challenge? If I didn't I'd probably buy a Dell or something
Any who, good luck to you!
It's just a shame that you went to a slower card simply because you were tired of messing with your 5970. In all honesty the 5970 is a magnificent piece of hardware, and not only that, it's common knowledge to expect even a little bit of tweaking to get something bleeding-edge working the way you want it too. I know I enjoy the, I guess we can call it, challenge? If I didn't I'd probably buy a Dell or something
Any who, good luck to you!
OP did you ever try messing with the clocks or even voltages on your 5970? I have a 5970 and for the most part the card has been very pleasant. The only major problem I ever ran into my card was a random driver failure I would sometimes get when I boot into Windows 7, but flashing to a different BIOS fixed that problem for good.
It's just a shame that you went to a slower card simply because you were tired of messing with your 5970. In all honesty the 5970 is a magnificent piece of hardware, and not only that, it's common knowledge to expect even a little bit of tweaking to get something bleeding-edge working the way you want it too. I know I enjoy the, I guess we can call it, challenge? If I didn't I'd probably buy a Dell or something
Any who, good luck to you!
For the most part, the card was at stock clocks for the duration of my usage. I did overclock it briefly to 5870 stock clocks but brought it back to stock a few days after due to heat and noise, as well as the fact that I didn't see a large enough performance increase to justify the power draw. I actually never had a BSOD or driver failure error message - it was just random glitches and performance issues that would go away with certain driver releases and return with others.
For what it's worth, I totally agree with you in that the 5970 is definitely a great piece of hardware, but it's just unfortunate that I was plagued with enough problems to push me over the limit. It's like I said before, I spent more time tweaking and testing than I did actually playing games.
I do admit that I am quite curious after reading a lot of reviews about the 6900 series. The performance and scaling of those cards are amazing to say the least! There has also been mention that the fixes and optimizations that helped the scaling will eventually be rolled out for the 5000 series too. So on one hand, I'm filled with joy that they FINALLY figured something out!
On the other hand, I'm peeved that it took them THIS long to fix a product that has been on the market for over a year already. This leaves me a bit conflicted as to whether if I should sell my card or not. At the moment, it's sitting in an anti-static bag on my desk almost begging to get one last chance when those magical drivers do get released. But it's also got me thinking that now that the 6900 series is finally out, this will probably mean the 5000 series will take a backseat on the AMD support priority list. Everyday I continue holding onto this card, it takes away from it's resale value...
Hey covertrash, I forgot to tell you what I did when I first got my HD 5970.
On day one when I got my HD 5970, I immediately dismanded the video card and cleaned it with 99% isopropl alcohol. I cleaned the memory the copper heat sink and the GPUs till they started squeaking Then I replaced the thermal compound with Artic cooling MX 3 thremal solution (there is a MX 4 if you're wondering). Also when I unscrewed the card I noticed not all of the screws weren't perfectly aligned 90 degrees. Some of them were alittle slanted and some of the screws weren't fully screwed in all the way maybe half way. When I reassembled it back all the screws fit in perfectly no more slight angle.
Also I recently updated my HIS Bios to the Sapphire HD 5970 OC BIOS at ( http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=185918 ) Supposingly this is the BIOS that fixes all the issues that some HD 5970 users were having. I didn't have any issues with my default HIS BIOS. But I updated it anyways just to be safe. Now remember you have to update the master and slave GPU. If you do it wrong you will brick your video card. So it's best if you read the entire thread if you plan to update your BIOS. Remember to back up your original master and slave BIOS before you do this if it doesn't resolve your issue.
On day one when I got my HD 5970, I immediately dismanded the video card and cleaned it with 99% isopropl alcohol. I cleaned the memory the copper heat sink and the GPUs till they started squeaking
Then I replaced the thermal compound with Artic cooling MX 3 thremal solution (there is a MX 4 if you're wondering). Also when I unscrewed the card I noticed not all of the screws weren't perfectly aligned 90 degrees. Some of them were alittle slanted and some of the screws weren't fully screwed in all the way maybe half way. When I reassembled it back all the screws fit in perfectly no more slight angle. Also I recently updated my HIS Bios to the Sapphire HD 5970 OC BIOS at ( http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=185918 ) Supposingly this is the BIOS that fixes all the issues that some HD 5970 users were having. I didn't have any issues with my default HIS BIOS. But I updated it anyways just to be safe. Now remember you have to update the master and slave GPU. If you do it wrong you will brick your video card. So it's best if you read the entire thread if you plan to update your BIOS. Remember to back up your original master and slave BIOS before you do this if it doesn't resolve your issue.
ITSTHINKING
[H]ard|Gawd
- Joined
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- 1,260
+1
I think a lot of people really exaggerate their problems. I have multiple machine running cards from both camps some single some multi gpu. I have had a better experience with the hd4000 series and hd5000 series cards than with 200 and 400 gtx cards. For a long time now I have been reading posts about ATI drivers sucking and also have read some posts about Nvidia driver problems and I always wonder wtf people are doing wrong?
I have had a few (very few) issues with Nvidia drivers randomly doing this thing where if the computer hibernates or sleeps either in a game or out after being in 3d mode at least once during a session. Basically when I go back into the game it just chugs. I reboot and it's fine. Usually I re-wipe and install the drivers again reboot no probs.
I believe that people get frustrated way to easy, do not want to try and fix it, and just blame it on drivers.
To be fair I have had issues with my ati cards not saving some of my settings after I shut down and reboot, but it's not that hard to just either let the app decide or take 30 seconds to set your 3d settings in CCC.
You can assume what you want about my work ethic and persistence, but I can tell you that unless if you were here right beside me for the past 3-4 weeks troubleshooting, testing, tweaking, researching and plugging away at Google with every possible alteration of queries that I could think of to describe my problems, you wouldn't understand the frustration that I have gone through. If you had read my posts, you can see that my problems come and go with each driver release. I'll say it again, yes, 10.4 and 10.5a were by far the most stable across the majority of games that I actively play, but they still had performance issues in a number of games that were remedied by newer drivers, which, if used, borked other games in one respect or another. Not exactly something a simple reboot can fix.
So tell me, aside from trying every driver release and hotfix that has been released in the last 9 months (and always doing a clean install with each revision), hacking just about every game's INI/XML/etc. files to make things work, tweaking every option possible in the CCC, and using RadeonPro to setup profiles for each game individually, what else would you have me do? Because that's exactly what I was doing! Instead of playing games to enjoy them, I was playing games to test out driver releases to see which games worked and which games didn't.
I realize that I'm in the minority that has persisting issues. If you're not having any issues then that's excellent for you as I wished I could revel in that same situation. However, if you don't notice any issues, or don't play as many games to notice them, then that is a whole different story altogether. Telling me you and others don't have any problems doesn't exactly help, and interestingly enough, throughout my research, I have come across a lot of posts like yours (some from the very people who have contributed to this thread) show up in threads asking for help. Again, not very helpful.
So while you say it's easy for me to just blame the drivers, it's also just a bit too easy for you to pass the blame onto me when you don't know the lengths I have gone through to make my hard earned money work for me. I didn't just randomly give an hour of troubleshooting time and said fuck it I'm going Nvidia. It was a tough decision that I went back and forth on for weeks before ultimately deciding that enough was enough. Your post is not the first to say that some elbow grease is needed to get this flagship card working right, but I know I've given MORE than my fair share, and, quite frankly, it really shouldn't be THIS hard to have consistency and playability. I don't think I am out of line to assume that, at the prices we paid for these cards, they should just work right out of the box!
We will never share the same experiences, this much I can tell you. But if one day you ever do ask for help, just know that I will NEVER flat out tell you you're doing something wrong and scoff at you about you "exaggerating" your problems.
Hey covertrash, I forgot to tell you what I did when I first got my HD 5970.
On day one when I got my HD 5970, I immediately dismanded the video card and cleaned it with 99% isopropl alcohol. I cleaned the memory the copper heat sink and the GPUs till they started squeaking
Also I recently updated my HIS Bios to the Sapphire HD 5970 OC BIOS at ( http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=185918 ) Supposingly this is the BIOS that fixes all the issues that some HD 5970 users were having. I didn't have any issues with my default HIS BIOS. But I updated it anyways just to be safe. Now remember you have to update the master and slave GPU. If you do it wrong you will brick your video card. So it's best if you read the entire thread if you plan to update your BIOS. Remember to back up your original master and slave BIOS before you do this if it doesn't resolve your issue.
Thanks for trying to help Mr. Mean! I really do appreciate it.
The cleaning part was already done but I have not tried a different BIOS. If the drivers, which are reported to offer 6000 series level of scaling, come out soon enough, I will consider giving this card one last go. Otherwise, I really do have to sell it as it is just sitting here on my desk with a sadface.
I play ALOT of games new and old and have never had any problems.
90C IS acceptable because the rv700 core can handle temps of 105C safely. Sure it doesn't leave much OC'n headroom but it already gives great performance plus overclocking is a bonus and shouldn't be counted on (though it's definitely nice to have)
My CPU doesn't get any hotter from my 4870x2, since the card vents all the heat outside the case...and I run open case anyway (which maybe is why I don't have any problems too lol)
I'd love the aftermarket cooler but they're like $60+ dollars and I'd rather just get two 5770s in CF for the same money then spend any money on this old whale.
Ya but think about it, if the card does not perform at all stock conditions successfully than how can one deem that hardware as fine??That's the problem with this sort of mentality. Many people, like crawlgsx, have taken this exact sort of advice that you so simply stated and replaced their cards only to have the same issues reappear, or worse - they get a card that flat out doesn't work. While there is a good chance that you may actually be right, there is also just as good of a chance that all the problems he is experiencing comes down to how the drivers are working with his particular setup.
Everybody's experiences will always be different, but to dismiss someone else's and to jump to the conclusion that he has bad hardware because you don't have any issues is just irresponsible. He already stated that, for his setup, he was able to tame the temperatures once he switched to an aftermarket cooler, but even still his performance issues persist, which means it isn't related to components failing due to overheating.
I'm not picking on you personally, it's just that I see these pieces of advice get thrown around so loosely all the time, and it just doesn't help people who actually are going through this sort of anguish.
Every setup is different and like you said it COULD be something else throwing a wrench into the mix but if all else checks out and it can't run at auto speeds than it's not a stable card.
I'm not trying to get rag on anyone just stating how I've had a flawless ownership with my x2, which I was a little worrisome over since I had a rather bad experience with a 9800GX2.
To each their own I guess, I'm just glad my card is stable.
When you uninstall a driver, reboot, driver sweeper, reboot, install newer driver, get a black screen half way through the install, it's not PEBKAC
When it takes over a year to fix 2d clocks for multiple displays when overclocking, it's not PEBKAC
etc, etc, etc...
I love AMD/ATI but the bottom line is that their drivers are utter trash. I'm happy I decided to upgrade to a GTX 570 instead of 6850 crossfire. It actually works.
I couldn't agree more. In the end, that's all that matters.
Bingo! Some people are a little too overzealous in throwing that term around.
forcedinduktion
n00b
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2010
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- 27
baddass build
Well I envy you then, because I have played about every PC game released and I can't remember too many that didn't involve playing driver shuffle or modding INI's or waiting for app profile updates or new drivers etc... I know its not hardware because a.) with enough messing around I can get most games to run great (albeit not at the same time because some games work better with driver X while another game works better with driver Y) and b.) there are countless threads that have been posted on this forum over the years with people experiencing the exact same problems.
But I completely agree with what you ended with, to each their own. I too am glad your card has worked out great for you. Mine has done the job, but it hasn't been pleasant
YeuEmMaiMai
Extremely [H]
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- Jun 11, 2004
- Messages
- 34,516
I run a 4870 in a mATX case with system specs below and never had an issue with ATi. ATi's drivers were bad back in the rage 128 /Radeon days but they have come leaps and bounds since then. never really had driver issues since the 9500pro days.....and that was a long long long time ago.
I have ZERO problems with any of my ATI cards, 9800pro, 1600 pro AGP, 4870, and my current card 6870. All works just fine.
wow a 4870 in a matx case. My old 4870 sure pumped out alot of heat, let alone the length of the card, you fit this in a matx case and you system didn't overheat? props to you man.
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Small update:
I picked up the last EVGA GTX 570 from Microcenter tonight for some SLI action! While that sounds awesome in its own right, as of this moment, I seem to have misplaced the SLI brdiges for my Gigabyte motherboard. While I was able to get both cards detected and installed, SLI is currently disabled. Total fail on my part...
Hence, the hunt for a SLI bridge will commence bright and early tomorrow morning. I have a feeling that I won't be able to find one in the local Central NJ area, so more than likely I'll have to make another trip back up to Microcenter before going to work (thankfully it's the late shift).
In any case, I'll be sure to share my experiences soon enough to make it more of a fair comparison to my HD5970.
I picked up the last EVGA GTX 570 from Microcenter tonight for some SLI action!
While that sounds awesome in its own right, as of this moment, I seem to have misplaced the SLI brdiges for my Gigabyte motherboard. While I was able to get both cards detected and installed, SLI is currently disabled. Total fail on my part... Hence, the hunt for a SLI bridge will commence bright and early tomorrow morning. I have a feeling that I won't be able to find one in the local Central NJ area, so more than likely I'll have to make another trip back up to Microcenter before going to work (thankfully it's the late shift).
In any case, I'll be sure to share my experiences soon enough to make it more of a fair comparison to my HD5970.
grilledcheese
[H]ard|Gawd
- Joined
- Nov 18, 2010
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- 1,253
Me too! Was thinking getting a second card(5870) but afraid of the problem's I hear about.
grilledcheese
[H]ard|Gawd
- Joined
- Nov 18, 2010
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- 1,253
I have a 5870 in a Lanbox light and no heat issue's.
Small update:
I picked up the last EVGA GTX 570 from Microcenter tonight for some SLI action!
Hence, the hunt for a SLI bridge will commence bright and early tomorrow morning. I have a feeling that I won't be able to find one in the local Central NJ area, so more than likely I'll have to make another trip back up to Microcenter before going to work (thankfully it's the late shift).
In any case, I'll be sure to share my experiences soon enough to make it more of a fair comparison to my HD5970.
I don't know if this has changed recently, but you used to be able to run SLI without the bridge. Would cost you about 10% performance, but it would work anyway.
That's what I thought too. From what little I could gather, though, it seems that ever since the 260 drivers were introduced, that ability has been removed. Why they would do that is beyond me, but we'll see how things go when I get a hold of a bridge tomorrow.
I will be purchasing a gtx580 soon, coming from 5870 crossfire and tired waiting for a decent diver. Was thinking very hard since both cards look nice with ek block but after solid three days trying driver after driver and a plethora of games... I give up on AMD.
Terry is still on the driver team promising HUGE things and end up delivering a new paint on the same wreck (I have tried the new ccc2 and it's the same options with just a different layout and still runs worse than Von dach's modified drivers....) That's why I give up, how can it be possible that after so many people complaining about the driver quality still an independent is able to improve the drivers versus a whole corporation? This is just plain ridiculous and shows that either Terry is blackmailing his boss or AMD is to complacent do something about it.
Anyway they were caught with their pants down when nvidia launched the gtx580...
Terry is still on the driver team promising HUGE things and end up delivering a new paint on the same wreck (I have tried the new ccc2 and it's the same options with just a different layout and still runs worse than Von dach's modified drivers....) That's why I give up, how can it be possible that after so many people complaining about the driver quality still an independent is able to improve the drivers versus a whole corporation? This is just plain ridiculous and shows that either Terry is blackmailing his boss or AMD is to complacent do something about it.
Anyway they were caught with their pants down when nvidia launched the gtx580...
LOL, no they weren't. Either Kyle or Brent(can't remember which) have already said that anyone saying this is either misinformed or ignorant and either way shouldn't be in the review business. He was talking about a review on another site at the time.
ATI, sorry AMD haven't aimed for the top spot with a single GPU in the last two generations, why do you think they would start now? Neither the 4870 or the 5870 were the fastest single GPU of the their generations, and the 6970 is the second place of this generation. Instead AMD aim for a good price/performance ratio. Look at the 580 price versus the 6970 price, 95% of the performance for way less price.
And I am very sorry about your 5870 crossfire problems. AMD let the ball drop on that card with crossfire in particular. The 5770 is great in crossfire and so are the new generation cards, both the 68xx series and the 69xx series seem to perform really well and have amazing scaling. Which leads me to believe that there was some little hardware fault or something with the 5870 and the 5850 that no drivers could fix. But then again, lots of people have had no problems with crossfire with these cards either.
To the OP, good luck with your new card. I can understand the frustration of trying to get something working. I was thinking of going for the 570 myself, so I don't think you will be disappointed. I have a 4870x2 and have had no major problems, a few little issues but nothing major. And to be honest I haven't noticed much difference between different drivers either. Maybe your issues are just the fact that the 5970 is built on two of the 58xx series gpu's and so it comes with the same crossfire problems. People have had problems but some didn't, I just wonder is it a motherboard/ram/cpu problem, that there is some small incompatibility between the 58xx series cards and certain combinations of mobo/ram/cpu. Just thinking out loud here.
The past two years ati build smaller chips and banked on price performance ratio. You are right they place the new cards below the gtx580. What made me think that they have been caught with their pants down is the following:
They had a head start into dx11 and in the end it seems that nvidia had the right design and managed to solve the heat/power issue whereas ati this time changed the design improve performance and tesselation but ended up with a bigger chip now (i believe 2.64 billion transistors vs the 3 billion of fermi) and unable to claim top spot. I cant help but feel that the cayman is not all what amd aimed for and they did not expected nvidia to be able to improve on the 480 so fast and effective. Bottomline it seems that now nvidia has the better design...
They had a head start into dx11 and in the end it seems that nvidia had the right design and managed to solve the heat/power issue whereas ati this time changed the design improve performance and tesselation but ended up with a bigger chip now (i believe 2.64 billion transistors vs the 3 billion of fermi) and unable to claim top spot. I cant help but feel that the cayman is not all what amd aimed for and they did not expected nvidia to be able to improve on the 480 so fast and effective. Bottomline it seems that now nvidia has the better design...
Again, It follows the same pattern as the last few years, AMD release two cards in the second tier spots at great prices and build a dual gpu card that generally takes top spot. Only the most ardent followers of AMD were expecting 6970 to beat the 580. For most it was hoping, rather than actually expecting that to happen. And, anyway, how can you know what AMD were aiming for? I certainly don't, all I tried to do was use logic and looking at how they operated for the last few years.
Nvidia has the better design? hmmm, maybe, they are both good designs, but I think Cayman's is slightly better. Think about it, the 6970, according to [H] review nearly beats the 580 and it costs over $100 less. And this is with drivers that aren't optimized at all for the 69xx series cards. Think back to the release of the 480 and 470, they were both lemons until Nvidia released better drivers than the launch ones for those cards.
And then look at the crossfire of both cards, in fact the crossfire of the 68xx series and the 69xx cards are way better than the 58xx series, so that's an improvement. Not only has it improved, looking at the reviews the scaling of the 69xx series of cards is pretty awesome, even beating the 580sli in some cases. And again still with unoptimized drivers. So which design is better?
I just think a lot of people can't look past the fact that the 6970 didn't beat the 580. And are calling the cards a fail, or like you saying that they were caught with their pants down. I don't know, for myself I am really delighted at the performance level and even more so at the cost of the cards. And it's good news for everyone, becuase this round it really means there is great choices for every level of gamer, no heat and noise problems from Nvidia, good crossfire performance from ATI and pretty good prices from both camps.
ITSTHINKING
[H]ard|Gawd
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2006
- Messages
- 1,260
You can assume what you want about my work ethic and persistence, but I can tell you that unless if you were here right beside me for the past 3-4 weeks troubleshooting, testing, tweaking, researching and plugging away at Google with every possible alteration of queries that I could think of to describe my problems, you wouldn't understand the frustration that I have gone through. If you had read my posts, you can see that my problems come and go with each driver release. I'll say it again, yes, 10.4 and 10.5a were by far the most stable across the majority of games that I actively play, but they still had performance issues in a number of games that were remedied by newer drivers, which, if used, borked other games in one respect or another. Not exactly something a simple reboot can fix.
So tell me, aside from trying every driver release and hotfix that has been released in the last 9 months (and always doing a clean install with each revision), hacking just about every game's INI/XML/etc. files to make things work, tweaking every option possible in the CCC, and using RadeonPro to setup profiles for each game individually, what else would you have me do? Because that's exactly what I was doing! Instead of playing games to enjoy them, I was playing games to test out driver releases to see which games worked and which games didn't.
I realize that I'm in the minority that has persisting issues. If you're not having any issues then that's excellent for you as I wished I could revel in that same situation. However, if you don't notice any issues, or don't play as many games to notice them, then that is a whole different story altogether. Telling me you and others don't have any problems doesn't exactly help, and interestingly enough, throughout my research, I have come across a lot of posts like yours (some from the very people who have contributed to this thread) show up in threads asking for help. Again, not very helpful.
So while you say it's easy for me to just blame the drivers, it's also just a bit too easy for you to pass the blame onto me when you don't know the lengths I have gone through to make my hard earned money work for me. I didn't just randomly give an hour of troubleshooting time and said fuck it I'm going Nvidia. It was a tough decision that I went back and forth on for weeks before ultimately deciding that enough was enough. Your post is not the first to say that some elbow grease is needed to get this flagship card working right, but I know I've given MORE than my fair share, and, quite frankly, it really shouldn't be THIS hard to have consistency and playability. I don't think I am out of line to assume that, at the prices we paid for these cards, they should just work right out of the box!
We will never share the same experiences, this much I can tell you. But if one day you ever do ask for help, just know that I will NEVER flat out tell you you're doing something wrong and scoff at you about you "exaggerating" your problems.
Thank you, you have given me a bit of insight on your issues with amd cards. Maybe you are right, it could very well just be the games that I choose to play and I do not have issues with them. I appreciate you level headedness and your ability to explain yourself. I am sorry I assumed things as I did.
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Reaper my thinking may be to simple but amd had quite a head start for about 6-7 month plus as said the chip has gotten bigger and is approaching the three billion transistor range and they are still not able to pull ahead. Why?
When decided to go back to ati after a gtx280 it was because of better efficiency but both are starting to level so I frankly will go for best performance. You keep talking about amd strategy straight plucked from amd marketing. But what is the difference in power, noise, complexity/no of transistors of the chip? These differences have gotten smaller so apologies I am calling amd marketing bull@@.
Additionally can you imagine a dual card with two of those chips in terms of power, noise, heat? And what's nvidia from not doing the same and there goes the dual gpu crown strategy.
When decided to go back to ati after a gtx280 it was because of better efficiency but both are starting to level so I frankly will go for best performance. You keep talking about amd strategy straight plucked from amd marketing. But what is the difference in power, noise, complexity/no of transistors of the chip? These differences have gotten smaller so apologies I am calling amd marketing bull@@.
Additionally can you imagine a dual card with two of those chips in terms of power, noise, heat? And what's nvidia from not doing the same and there goes the dual gpu crown strategy.
Anyway you have a point more choice for gamers, which brings us back to the OP experience of driver support. It seems this series looks better, whether irfan be maintained for new games and leveraged to the previous gen cards such as the hd5 series remains to be seen.
I really appreciate your sincerity and being the bigger man.
I re-read my post again and seeing it now I feel it came off as pretty harsh too, so I apologize.In the end, I'm just glad that we all can find what works for us, one way or another.
Bad ConNecTioN
Gawd
- Joined
- Oct 6, 2010
- Messages
- 572
Been running two 4870's in crossfire for years now...no issues. These have simply been the best cards I've ever owned. I've messed up bioses flashes, reinstalled windows and drivers countless time, and they have always been pretty much flawless.
The only complaint I had was the complete lack of a fan controller...however, it appears these cards had been flashed to a custom bios when I got them, so this wasn't necessarily the fault of ATI. I flashed them to the Asus top bios many moons ago, and have been enjoying nice cool cards...
Anyways, they are finally starting to show their age. I have a 6970 on the way. Plan on rocking a single card for awhile, as my system isn't fast enough for two 6970's. Its probably not even fast enough for 1. I really should upgrade, but I just love this computer.
I wish anyone having issues with multi-card setups the best of luck! Enjoy the new GTX570 OP...I really thought about getting one, but my board doesn't have SLI support.
The only complaint I had was the complete lack of a fan controller...however, it appears these cards had been flashed to a custom bios when I got them, so this wasn't necessarily the fault of ATI. I flashed them to the Asus top bios many moons ago, and have been enjoying nice cool cards...
Anyways, they are finally starting to show their age. I have a 6970 on the way. Plan on rocking a single card for awhile, as my system isn't fast enough for two 6970's. Its probably not even fast enough for 1
. I really should upgrade, but I just love this computer. I wish anyone having issues with multi-card setups the best of luck! Enjoy the new GTX570 OP...I really thought about getting one, but my board doesn't have SLI support.
I have never had any problems with 2 5870s been great cards...
Dude, my ASUS 5970 is a nightmare. Constant blue screens due to atikmdag.sys or whatever the bastard is.
I'm going to try to get my hands on a 580 whenever I can, and hopefully sell the 5970 and waterblock because there is definitely no hardware issue, just horrid drivers. Did a few fresh windows installs, multiple driver rollbacks, and I'm done with it - shouldn't have so many issues for what we paid for.
I'm going to try to get my hands on a 580 whenever I can, and hopefully sell the 5970 and waterblock because there is definitely no hardware issue, just horrid drivers. Did a few fresh windows installs, multiple driver rollbacks, and I'm done with it - shouldn't have so many issues for what we paid for.
Been running two 4870's in crossfire for years now...no issues. These have simply been the best cards I've ever owned. I've messed up bioses flashes, reinstalled windows and drivers countless time, and they have always been pretty much flawless.
The only complaint I had was the complete lack of a fan controller...however, it appears these cards had been flashed to a custom bios when I got them, so this wasn't necessarily the fault of ATI. I flashed them to the Asus top bios many moons ago, and have been enjoying nice cool cards...
Anyways, they are finally starting to show their age. I have a 6970 on the way. Plan on rocking a single card for awhile, as my system isn't fast enough for two 6970's. Its probably not even fast enough for 1
I wish anyone having issues with multi-card setups the best of luck! Enjoy the new GTX570 OP...I really thought about getting one, but my board doesn't have SLI support.
This seems to echo a lot of sentiments about how two separate cards seem to fair better over a dual-GPU single card.
Same as above.
See what I mean?
I totally feel your pain though. I hope that if you do get to migrate to a GTX 580 that you'll have better luck with that. Be sure to share your experiences when the time arises.
You're very welcome.
Again, I just want to be clear that I'm not bashing dual GPU setups of any kind from any camp. It just so happens that this particular one did not work out for me. Ironically, my previous HD4850 Crossfire setup worked beautifully with every game I threw at it. Go figure.
As I said before, I did purchase a second GTX 570 to be used in SLI because I was so pleased with my new-found experience. I hope luck is on my side with this new setup, and I will be sure to share that experience (good or bad) as soon as my SLI bridge comes in the mail during this coming week.