5970?

[silkstone]

Hi, i'm thinking of "upgrading" to a 5970 from my current card as it would only cost about $100 extra. But i am weary about going for older tech. i would love to just get another 6850 and put it in CF with my current card, but that would mean upgrading my whole system and would cost me about $600 minus the money i could get for selling my current cpu/ram/mobo.

I want to upgrade primarily to do folding like stuff, what do you think, is it worth it or will i regret it in a year or so?

 

[Mussels]

Hi, i'm thinking of "upgrading" to a 5970 from my current card as it would only cost about $100 extra. But i am weary about going for older tech. i would love to just get another 6850 and put it in CF with my current card, but that would mean upgrading my whole system and would cost me about $600 minus the money i could get for selling my current cpu/ram/mobo.

I want to upgrade primarily to do folding like stuff, what do you think, is it worth it or will i regret it in a year or so?

folding doesnt work well on x2 cards, so its a bad idea there.

 

[silkstone]

folding doesnt work well on x2 cards, so its a bad idea there.

I said folding like "stuff" not folding but openCL calculations according to speadsheets, it shopuld give me about 2.5x more performance than my current card.. the only worry is that by moving back a generation the 5xxx series aren't as "future-proof"

 

[meran]

i see what you mean the 6850 has 960 shadder the 5970 has 3200 you will get 3.3 the perfomance in open cl programs at the same clock speed i e 775 if u push it to 900 you wil get 3.8 times faster than a 6850!!!!!!!!!!!!!

your power supply wont cut it you need a 100$ powersupply

 

[silkstone]

ya, i am really tempted to get one. I'm just worried that future games will favour the 6xxx series over the 5xxx series and wouldn't want to shoot myself in the foot for gaming. i might wait a couple of days and see how it goes.

 

[cheesy999]

ya, i am really tempted to get one. I'm just worried that future games will favour the 6xxx series over the 5xxx series and wouldn't want to shoot myself in the foot for gaming. i might wait a couple of days and see how it goes.

no, if anything older ones tend to be better supported, there aren't any major architectural changes so it shouldn't matter

 

[meran]

68xx is the same as 58xx with fewer shadders 69xx have better tesselators and 2gb if u want really big difference the 78xx with 28nm will be

 

[silkstone]

your power supply wont cut it you need a 100$ powersupply

oh, i forgot to reply to this, according to reviews the 5870 uses about 300w on full load, leaving me with plenty of spare power for my cpu and stuff. i don't think i'll need a new PSU, but i'll get one if i buy the card and my psu isn;t powerful enough.

 

[Funtoss]

are you gonna be gaming ?

if yes then crossfire them..

but folding :\ ... i think it doesnt support?

 

[Law-II]

Hi

I own a HD5970 they are great cards & the drivers have matured

Good for maxing out games but need a powerfull CPU & PSU to get the best from them; if you have a good depth of knowlage this is a super card and you will reap the rewards.

nb: AMD are still a little slow getting crossfire profiles out of the door and you will find that some games are not optimized and take even longer

saying this a Single GTX 580 on H2o & NV oc'ed shaders will punch through games

nb: Nvidia, drivers are super for the most part as long as you stear clear of SLi

they both have their own pro's and cons

atb

Law-II

 

[Law-II]

ya, i am really tempted to get one. I'm just worried that future games will favour the 6xxx series over the 5xxx series and wouldn't want to shoot myself in the foot for gaming. i might wait a couple of days and see how it goes.

Hi

Don't worry about future games, they are all being ported for the PC.

atb

Law-II

 

[meran]

Hi

Don't worry about future games, they are all being ported for the PC.

atb

Law-II

well except battlefield 3

 

[silkstone]

I'm actually planning on using it for mining but i want to have super performance in games too and i'd like it to hold it's resale value as well as a 68xx series card.
I don't know, i am also considering upgrading to an i5 2500k, but the system + a second 6850 would cost me about $600 and i think i could sell my current cpu/mob/ram for around $200 making it a very pricey upgrade... if i got a 5970 for $250 and sold my 6850 for $150 it'd cost much less, but i want it to also be a worthwhile upgrade for gaming (i will get a bigger screen in future) rather than just gambling that bit coins won't fail within a week.

 

[Law-II]

well except battlefield 3

Hi

Unless it is badly coded the HD5970 should eat it for breakfast, if it's being coded for Nvidia then we are all screwed.

nb: didn't EA said that about Crysis-2

atb

Law-II

 

[Law-II]

I'm actually planning on using it for mining but i want to have super performance in games too and i'd like it to hold it's resale value as well as a 68xx series card.
I don't know, i am also considering upgrading to an i5 2500k, but the system + a second 6850 would cost me about $600 and i think i could sell my current cpu/mob/ram for around $200 making it a very pricey upgrade... if i got a 5970 for $250 and sold my 6850 for $150 it'd cost much less, but i want it to also be a worthwhile upgrade for gaming (i will get a bigger screen in future) rather than just gambling that bit coins won't fail within a week.

Hi

Looking at your system spec's, you will need a new PSU to run the 5970, that said you would if you where to crossfire two 6850's

nb: looking at you location will heat be an issue? as the HD5970 run v-hot 90c on full load unless on H2o heat could be a problem, power consumption is also high

atb

Law-II

 

[silkstone]

Hi

Looking at you system spec's, you will need a new PSU to run the 5970, that said you would if you where to crossfire two 6850's

nb: looking at you location will heat be an issue? as the HD5970 run v-hot 90c on full load unless on H2o heat could be a problem, power consumption is also high

atb

Law-II

Heats not been too much of a problem as you might think. My 6850 runs at 70C rull load overcloked (975) and overvolted. My cpu runs at about 50C.

Looking at the power requirements, 300w full load, i don;t think i'd need another PSU, i certainly wouldn't with another 6850 as they use around 130W max ea.

 

[Law-II]

Heats not been too much of a problem as you might think. My 6850 runs at 70C rull load overcloked (975) and overvolted. My cpu runs at about 50C.

Looking at the power requirements, 300w full load, i don;t think i'd need another PSU, i certainly wouldn't with another 6850 as they use around 130W max ea.

Hi

with the PSU, it's not the watt's that you need to start and feed a HD5970 they require a lot of AMP's on the 12v rail

http://sites.amd.com/us/game/products/certified/Pages/certified-power-supplies.aspx?g=ATI Radeon™ HD 5970&p=All (long load time; be patient)

looking at the above 550w is the bare minimum most are 750w PSU's

Title: SX 550
Manufacturer: Cougar
Power Connectors 2x3:1
Power Connectors 2x4:3
Wattage:550

Hope this helps

atb

Law-II

 

[meran]

why wouldnt u need a new power supply ?, what is the brand of yours? its 470watt come on my old 400 watt couldnt handle 8800gt+q6600 overclocked ,5970 is something else you need a 700watt branded(oem) power supply to run it ,
unless you want your pc to be a fireworks party ,i wouldn't recommend that

 

[phill]

I owned two 5970's and loved them both but they wherent so great in Crossfire X as the drivers wherent matured enough and somethings just wherent as good as they could be. Saying that Dirt 2 was great on a single screen, but once I tried using the three screens I have, it just slowed down. Not ideal...

If your gaming at 1920 x 1200 or higher then a 5970 is a great card, its just a shame that there's only 1Gb per core..

I'm not sure the folding performance of the 5970 as I never used it for that I'm afraid.

 

[silkstone]

why wouldnt u need a new power supply ?, what is the brand of yours? its 470watt come on my old 400 watt couldnt handle 8800gt+q6600 overclocked ,5970 is something else you need a 700watt branded(oem) power supply to run it ,
unless you want your pc to be a fireworks party ,i wouldn't recommend that

It's actually a decent brand and is OEM, but they don't sell to the USA only asia pacific. looking back there are 2x 12v rails, each able to output 216w of power for a combiined total of 312w. probabily not quite enough when i am running 3x HDDs on the same rail + a bunch of fans.

 

[meran]

see this card needs 300watt 12 volt alone +100 watt for the cpu+motherboard that is 400 watt 12 volt you need at least cooler master gx 750 its not very high end but it has single rail 12v 60 ampere

 

[phill]

As long as you have a decent PSU, you'll be fine. Thats one piece of hardware you dont want to really skimp out on when buying.

 

[silkstone]

see this card needs 300watt 12 volt alone +100 watt for the cpu+motherboard that is 400 watt 12 volt you need at least cooler master gx 750 its not very high end but it has single rail 12v 60 ampere

i was under the assumption the the cpu and mobo mainly used power drawn from the 5v rail, but i do understand that 312w on the 12v rail probably wouldn't be enough for everything. i might have to re-think my whole plan as the best named 750w psu is around $90 (no point in going for 600w) in the end i might see if i can get a second hand sli mobo and buy a second 6850.

 

[lnd2288]

honestly yes u should get the 5970 i still have that card and it run every game flawlessly. tessellation not many games out there right now have that option but anyways i easy score 3dmark vantage 34500 point @ 920/1200. its a very good card and future proof to at least the amd 7 series

 

[phill]

honestly yes u should get the 5970 i still have that card and it run every game flawlessly. tessellation not many games out there right now have that option but anyways i easy score 3dmark vantage 34500 point @ 920/1200. its a very good card and future proof to at least the amd 7 series

Do you have a Hex or Sandy Bridge CPU at all?