Ordered 3 ASUS VE276Q 27" monitors this morning. I'm guessing I'll run into the need for more GPU power at some point. I think I can pick up a second 5870 for a bit under $300, but should I wait for something else to be released in the sub-$500 range?
![[H]ard|Forum](/styles/hardforum/xenforo/logo_dark.png){kind=logo}
Where to go from 5870?
- Thread starter bustaplz
- Start date
Buy two GTX 580s.....really.
I had dual 5870 2 GB Eyefinity6 models from ASUS and enjoyed Eyefinity throughly, but I was disappointed with the scaling of those two cards.
Since I jumped over to nvidia, all things being equal i have had a much better experience.
and with nvidia you skirt all the issues with display port connectors, etc.
I had dual 5870 2 GB Eyefinity6 models from ASUS and enjoyed Eyefinity throughly, but I was disappointed with the scaling of those two cards.
Since I jumped over to nvidia, all things being equal i have had a much better experience.
and with nvidia you skirt all the issues with display port connectors, etc.
Wait till the 6970 comes around. Could be a great card for Eyefinity. It should really have the power this time to push that 2GB framebuffer unlike the 5870.
@magoo: Sadly, that's true. The 58xx had poor CF scaling and it's even worse under EF. I hope CF 69xx doesn't have these problems.
@magoo: Sadly, that's true. The 58xx had poor CF scaling and it's even worse under EF. I hope CF 69xx doesn't have these problems.
This is really only an option for someone who has zero intentions of buying ATI regardless of performance and price. That is to say, very few people, hopefully.
At the very least you can hope for a price cut on the 580's.
The 6000 series has significantly better CrossFire scaling.
Hopefully we can assume that would mean more stable drivers, but I don't think it's fair to claim that SLi has better driver support than CrossFire. That would probably depend on each individual's personal experiences.
If you can find a good deal on another 5870...many will be soon selling, just wait for everyone with dual 5870 to u/g to dual next gen...then you get performance better than a 580 for far less cash. Of course you have to deal with cf issues...I run dual 5870's now and am very happy...I would only go to a 580 or wait for the 69xx cards in order to go dual card setup again...if dual cards are in your budget then wait for the new AMD cards and compare 580 to 69xx scaling...this is what I am doing...if budget is limited, get another 5870. IMHO.
GotNoRice
[H]F Junkie
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2001
- Messages
- 12,022
Pick up a 5970 after 69xx is released and prices come down so you can go Tri-Fire.
Here is my opinion:
Wait till the new 69xx series comes out, maybe a price drop on 5870s (although there seems to be one now), and then buy a 2nd 5870 for under $250.
Why wait till 69xx series release? Because most likely this means new drivers with new optimizations for CF. 5870 CF will benefit from this and fix hopefully some of the scaling problems that are still currently experienced. From what review's i've read, 2x 5870 EF is a pretty good experience and with the potential for some improvement, for a fairly cheap price i'd say you're good to go.
Or you can go spend $1000 on a 580GTX SLi setup. Maybe you have cash to burn, if so, go for that (and then prepare for potential disappointment when 69xx comes out and performs better than 580 for less $$$ anyway).
Wait till the new 69xx series comes out, maybe a price drop on 5870s (although there seems to be one now), and then buy a 2nd 5870 for under $250.
Why wait till 69xx series release? Because most likely this means new drivers with new optimizations for CF. 5870 CF will benefit from this and fix hopefully some of the scaling problems that are still currently experienced. From what review's i've read, 2x 5870 EF is a pretty good experience and with the potential for some improvement, for a fairly cheap price i'd say you're good to go.
Or you can go spend $1000 on a 580GTX SLi setup. Maybe you have cash to burn, if so, go for that (and then prepare for potential disappointment when 69xx comes out and performs better than 580 for less $$$ anyway).
Yakk
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2010
- Messages
- 5,810
That is something I'm thinking of doing myself. I've not really any issues running my 5870 on 3x 1920x1080, but should the need arise I'll probably go for a good deal on a 5970 for the little bit of additional eyecandy I sometimes scale down right now.
Y.
I think you can safely say there is better multi-gpu support from nvidia.
Look, I've had both 1 GB and 2 GB 5870s and the Crossfire performance was just not there and many times only one GPU was utilized. Yes, lately there have been some improvements for AvP and BC2, but honestly way too little too late.
I hope the 6000 series has better support, but that doesn't necessarily translate downward.
4000 series CF support has all but disappeared.
I mean look at NV, they support multimonitor gaming still in the GTX 200 series.
I am NOT trying to start anything. This is purely my own experience and my own 2 cents over the past two years.......I've had nearly every combination of GPUs you can imagine. They all worked fine, I just had more headaches from AMD than nvidia, that's all.
I'd just think long and hard before jumping into another 5000 series AMD card.
Arthur Hucksake
Limp Gawd
- Joined
- Oct 27, 2010
- Messages
- 373
My 6870s scale VERY well..... when they work. lol
you can actually pickup a seconded one for 212 AR right now. but while they have greatly improved the crossfire scaling on the 5800 the scaling and easy of 6800 shows it was never what it was meant to be. a 5870 will drive three of those monitors fine, just not at the highest settings. with the 6900 series coming out in a couple of weeks you should at least have another set of options to look into.
yes and no. there has been form the get go a bug of some kind in the 5800 series. its been largely patched but its still there. the 5700 work every bit as good as Nvidia. the 6800 series the same. but the blanketed statement that nvidia does better isn't true. now if your talking about support for up and coming games then yes, here Nvidia is clearly ahead. both companies have their strong and weak point. but the truth is that a pair of 6800 or 460GTX scale remarkably well. it seems that multi gpu is really coming of age here.
having said that I again think the op should wait a couple of weeks. the higher framebuffer of the 6900 or the 500GTX series would help out here. or in the OP case maybe the unreasonable high cost of the 2gb 6 display port card 5870 will drop like a stone.
To be clear: I do NOT have money to burn at the moment. Two of those monitors and a Silverstone OP850 were bought with AMEX rewards points courtesy of my parents in trade for my 37" Regza. The third monitor was pretty much the LAST thing I get to buy until I have a job again.
I'm not at all interested in the GTX 580. It seems to have very solid performance at a huge price point. I've owned only nVidia cards since my VooDoo2 until I upgraded my 8800GTS 640MB to a Sapphire 4870, after the great job that card did for me, I decided to pick up the 5870 when it was new(and $400+). Before the 5870 I really haven't ever put down the money to go current-gen high end.
My idea to grab another 5870 was pretty close to what some have suggested(ie waiting for next gen release and upgrading people) but if the 69xx offers a single card solution for a comparable price to getting another 5870 and out-performs it, obviously I'd want to go that route.
I picked up the Silverstone OP850 because my rig is currently displaying some signs of a flaky PSU and I calculated that I would need an 850w supply to run 5870 in the future anyway.
I'm curious about what GotNoRice posted, picking up a 5970. If my memory serves, the 5970 is two 5870 cards on one PCB more or less? Would this make for a good CrossFire setup? Seems like it would provide quite a bit of Vmemory to help with eyefinity res gaming. Anyone have any benchmarks of someone running a 5970+5870? And could anyone educate me on proposed 69xx price points?
Thanks for all of your input, guys.
I'm not at all interested in the GTX 580. It seems to have very solid performance at a huge price point. I've owned only nVidia cards since my VooDoo2 until I upgraded my 8800GTS 640MB to a Sapphire 4870, after the great job that card did for me, I decided to pick up the 5870 when it was new(and $400+). Before the 5870 I really haven't ever put down the money to go current-gen high end.
My idea to grab another 5870 was pretty close to what some have suggested(ie waiting for next gen release and upgrading people) but if the 69xx offers a single card solution for a comparable price to getting another 5870 and out-performs it, obviously I'd want to go that route.
I picked up the Silverstone OP850 because my rig is currently displaying some signs of a flaky PSU and I calculated that I would need an 850w supply to run 5870 in the future anyway.
I'm curious about what GotNoRice posted, picking up a 5970. If my memory serves, the 5970 is two 5870 cards on one PCB more or less? Would this make for a good CrossFire setup? Seems like it would provide quite a bit of Vmemory to help with eyefinity res gaming. Anyone have any benchmarks of someone running a 5970+5870? And could anyone educate me on proposed 69xx price points?
Thanks for all of your input, guys.
I think in Crossfire / SLI the memory is mirrored in all the cards and it wouldn't help with higher resolution. Especially after reading the GTX 580 v. 5970 review HardOCP did.
I would guess 1.5 - 2.0 x the 6870. (shrug)
Also, does Eyefinity affect CrossFire scaling? I've only had a couple days on the 3 20" monitors to introduce myself to Eyefinity and while I'm only running 4320x900 and my center monitor is VGA ONLY(AHHH!), I think you can guess by my sudden decision to drop ~$950 on 3 matching 27's that Eyefinity has made an impression on me. I feel pretty certain that the near-future of displays will most certainly be multi-display configurations so I am looking to set up my rig to handle it well.
I don't understand what you mean by the memory being mirrored, could you provide some educational material?
1.5-2x the 6870 doesn't seem too terrible if the performance jump over the 5870 is there to back it up. That would put the 6970 in GTX 580 territory, though I was under the impression it was meant to outperform the 580.
From the GTX 580 vs. 5970 comparison:
It looks like I'm wrong about it being mirrored and mis-interpreting what is going on. But the way I understand it, adding GPUs working in parallel doesn't make for more working V-RAM - each GPU only gets its own VRAM to work with.
Hopefully, someone more knowledgeable will chime in.
in crossfire or sli the cards keep in sync with each each other by copying the frame buffer (this is the simplified version) in short while trifire has 3gb of actual memory its still only a gb of usable frame buffer. actually its worse then that as your eat into your memories bandwidth keeping the frame buffers in sync. on a pair of gpu its not that big of a deal, get to four and the overhead can actually make 4gpu run slower then 3.
the 6970 is very well meant to beat the 580GTX and it may. we just don't know yet. there was an issue in getting one of the chips for the boards so it was delayed a few weeks. it should well either match or be very competitive against the 580GTX though.
also this would be an excellent card for you setup as you have display port monitors. you will be able to buy a DP hub and use it if you wish. but it may be outside your price range. if monies are tight wait til others finish upgrading their systems and pick up a cheap used 5870.
Thank you for explanations and input, sir! And thanks for pointing out DisplayPort hubs, didn't know that was possible!