5870 CF or single 5970?

[Assassin48]

I would go with 2x 5870 instead of 1x 5970

eh but what do i know right... lol

 

[ToTTenTranz]

I'd rather have 2*HD5850 2GB each than 2*HD5870 1GB each.

I can't pray this enough: 1GB is not enough for two Cypress GPUs.

At least get 2GB HD5870 versions.

 

[twistedneck]

I'd rather have 2*HD5850 2GB each than 2*HD5870 1GB each.

I can't pray this enough: 1GB is not enough for two Cypress GPUs.

At least get 2GB HD5870 versions.

I heard that was only if you intended on greater that 1920x1200 or if you are doing eye-finity. Over at semi there were some strong opinions that the extra gig was useless apart from that.

why do you say that 1g is not enough? just curious.. thanks.

 

[digibucc]

i like individual cards so you don't have such a large single investment. it may be less overall , but at lest with 2 cards you split it in half. if one fails you rma it while using the other.

and a pair of cards with one dead is still a great individual card. a dual gpu card with one gpu dead is ... not very good at all.

 

[ToTTenTranz]

I heard that was only if you intended on greater that 1920x1200 or if you are doing eye-finity. Over at semi there were some strong opinions that the extra gig was useless apart from that.

why do you say that 1g is not enough? just curious.. thanks.

If you want a future-proof system, future games will use more memory. Even if it's not used right now, most developers have been saying that memory requirements will go up faster than they did in the DX9 era.

Furthermore, super-sampling AA takes quite a big chunk at memory, and that's the best AA that graphics cards can do right now. After trying SSAA, you won't want to go back to multi-sampling, unless you need more performance.
There's also an emancipation of downscaling right now (i.e. rendering the scene @ 2560*1600 and then scaling to lower resolutions, providing a similar but better looking effect than anti-aliasing).


So I'd go for dual HD5850 2GB instead of dual HD5870 1GB, any time.

 

[[I.R.A]_FBi]

i think the 5870's run faster also if you have them on 16x/16x pci express lanes. the 5970 is limitted to 16x total, and that has been shown to slighly reduce overall bandwidth.

read wh1zz's review on link speed

 

[mdsx1950]

HD 5970. Cheaper than getting two cards

 

[mdsx1950]

So I'd go for dual HD5850 2GB instead of dual HD5870 1GB, any time.

I'd rather stick to my 2*5970 2GBs Its way more future proof than two 5850s lol.

 

[Lionheart]

I'd rather stick to my 2*5970 2GBs Its way more future proof than two 5850s lol.

U lucky bastard

 

[mdsx1950]

U lucky bastard

Lol thanks

 

[Lionheart]

Lol thanks

Lol No worries

 

[mdsx1950]

Lol No worries

Why dont ya get another 5870

 

[subhendu]

wait for next 6 series....

 

[Lionheart]

Why dont ya get another 5870

LMAO actually I am, been talkin about it in the crossfire clubhouse and I have decided to get another HD5870

 

[mdsx1950]

LMAO actually I am, been talkin about it in the crossfire clubhouse and I have decided to get another HD5870

Sexy You should OC them both like mad and go crazy with killer performance LoL

 

[ToTTenTranz]

I'd rather stick to my 2*5970 2GBs Its way more future proof than two 5850s lol.

Great, hope you're happy with your super-redundant system.

Just don't come around crying when you see a single HD5970 4GB or 2*HD5870/50 2GB surpassing your system by 200% in late 2010 games.


When graphics memory isn't enough, the performance drops down to 30 or 40%. The system waits for the textures to stream directly through the PCI-Express bus, which is 8GB/s (compared to the card's ~150GB/s, there's a huge bottleneck there).

 

[DTV DRAGON]

LMAO actually I am, been talkin about it in the crossfire clubhouse and I have decided to get another HD5870

I as well want to get another 5870 and cf. but $$ is holding me back at the moment, A friend of mine wantes to sell me his gigabyte hd5870, could I cf that with my sapphire 5870? sorry to cut in on the thread I kinda thought it might work in here as well,,,

 

[Blacklash]

2GB 5970 uses 1Gb per GPU and does not share. It's Crossfire on a single PCB. It doesn't have a better frame buffer than HD 5870 or 5850 Crossfire. If you want to equal 2Gb 5870 Crossfire in frame buffer you need a 4Gb 5970.

 

[Tatty_Two]

Usually two 5870's will always be faster, after all they stock higher and most probably run cooler to boot, however the single 5970 is easier to manage, should draw less power and takes less maintenance (read effort) overall.

What i would say though, is unless you are gaming at 2560 resolution, you might as well go for the 2GB HD 5870 and save yourself some cash, there is little that will tax that.. that won't tax the other alternatives TBH.

http://www.elitebastards.com/index....id=13:hardware-reviews&Itemid=27&limitstart=8

Edit: Seeing as you are gaming at such a high res I would probably go with the 2GB HD5870.

 

[Soylent Joe]

The cool thing about having 2 5870's is that if you ever get in some shit and need cash fast, you can sell off one cards while keeping the killer performance of one. Just something to think about. Other than that small perk, I'd definitely go for the 5970 for all said reasons.

 

[mdsx1950]

Great, hope you're happy with your super-redundant system.

Just don't come around crying when you see a single HD5970 4GB or 2*HD5870/50 2GB surpassing your system by 200% in late 2010 games.


When graphics memory isn't enough, the performance drops down to 30 or 40%. The system waits for the textures to stream directly through the PCI-Express bus, which is 8GB/s (compared to the card's ~150GB/s, there's a huge bottleneck there).

How can a single HD 5970 4GB beat two HD 5970s at 2GB? That one 5970 wont have the performance to beat two 5970s. My 5970s have a total of 4GB. So in that point the memory is equal as well. And how the heck will two 5850/5870s 2GBs beat two 5970 2GBs??

 

[Lionheart]

I as well want to get another 5870 and cf. but $$ is holding me back at the moment, A friend of mine wantes to sell me his gigabyte hd5870, could I cf that with my sapphire 5870? sorry to cut in on the thread I kinda thought it might work in here as well,,,

Sweet as Bru! Hell yeah man, you can crossfire any branded HD5870 with any other brand, it won't make a difference, tell ur friend to give you a good price lol. When you do get anothre HD5870, I hope you enjoy, I seriously can't wait man.

 

[Super XP]

How can a single HD 5970 4GB beat two HD 5970s at 2GB? That one 5970 wont have the performance to beat two 5970s. My 5970s have a total of 4GB. So in that point the memory is equal as well. And how the heck will two 5850/5870s 2GBs beat two 5970 2GBs??

The two HD 5970's in Crossfire will more than make up for the single 4GB card. There's no way a single HD 5970 4GB will beat out 2 x HD 5970s 2GB cards. No way,

 

[ToTTenTranz]

How can a single HD 5970 4GB beat two HD 5970s at 2GB? That one 5970 wont have the performance to beat two 5970s. My 5970s have a total of 4GB. So in that point the memory is equal as well. And how the heck will two 5850/5870s 2GBs beat two 5970 2GBs??

Dude.. you spent like $1200 in graphics cards and you don't know your graphics system only has 1 GB of available memory?

The HD5970 has 2GB, and its internal Crossfire requires that each GPU gets its own memory. So a 2GB HD5970 will only load 1 GB of graphics data. The same will happen if you have 2*HD5970, because the second card will do exactly the same.

So a single HD5850 2GB will have the ability to load twice as much graphics data (textures, shaders, geometry, etc) as your 2*HD5970 2GB setup.


And when you fill the graphics memory completely, the graphics system will have to load the data from the PCI-Express bus, which is 20x slower and has a lot more latency. Good luck trying to max out late 2010 games with 1GB of memory..


So having 2*HD5970 is.. well, it's the same processing-power/available-memory proportion as having a HD5870 with 256MB GDDR5. And that sounds really ridiculous.

 

[DrPepper]

5870 CF. If a game ever has issue's with crossfire you can simply turn it off. Also more performance but that means more power consumption.