Any Experience with 5870 Crossfire ?

M

mikeyhd

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I'm in the process of moving into the ATI 5870 CF (Crossfire), I hear some story about flickering stuff but they are not using X58 chipset

Anyone have real experience to share?
 
I am using (2) XFX 5870's in CF with water cooling. I was able to overclock them to 960/1300. I am only using one (large) monitor for now. I have no flickering or any issues with them (one of them was bad after 1-2 weeks of use and had to RMA it and the new one is fine) and the performance is stellar. In one thread someone posted their 5970 Resident Evil 5 benchmark numbers and they had ~122 FPS and with the 5870's in CF I get ~166 FPS running the same settings. I have not had any in game issues except for on Steam in Left for Dead 2 where at the start of each map you have to Alt-Tab out and then go back in so that the FPS go back to normal. This is a known issue and hopefully will be fixed by either Valve or ATI drivers. I am using the 9.11 official drivers. With the small exception of Crysis all benchmarks/games are out of this world...just go into the settings put everything to max and enjoy.

I look forward to going with Eyefinity when it supports CF mode. You will LOVE 5870's in CF. hope this helps
 
I have 5870 CrossfireX.
My system is listed in my signature.
I have the Cores at 899 and the memory at 1285 using the MSI Afterburner.

I put these in when Borderlands was released...........and I haven't played anything else.....I just finished the game a couple days ago.

I have the game maxed and my frames are pegged at 62 and never move......If I'm not mistaken, the UnReal engine caps at around 60, I do not have VSync enabled.

I ran a single 5870 fro a couple weeks and in most games, it bettered my GTX 285s in SLi by about 15%, both minimum and average FPS.

I have not had any issues with Crossfire at all......the drivers seem very good compared to my experience with the early 4870 releases.:D
 
Currently using a 5870 CF setup, and it's extremely nice. Probably somewhat overkill mind you, but at least I'm future proofed for a while. I can also say that I haven't run into any of those micro stuttering problems people talk about in regards to SLI and Crossfire setups.
 
magoo said:
I ran a single 5870 fro a couple weeks and in most games, it bettered my GTX 285s in SLi by about 15%, both minimum and average FPS.
Click to expand...

Can you elaborate on the increases one 5870 gave you versus two 285s as that seems kind of odd.

I'm on the fence on whether or not I should sell my pair of 285s for ATIs latest, so any detailed info would be great.

Thanks
 
Vegasr said:
Can you elaborate on the increases one 5870 gave you versus two 285s as that seems kind of odd.

I'm on the fence on whether or not I should sell my pair of 285s for ATIs latest, so any detailed info would be great.

Thanks
Click to expand...

I went from a single 285 to crossfire 5870's and I can say the difference is night and day. Even running a single 5870 vs my 285 is a rather noticeable improvement. In crysis my 285 wasn't playable over high, maybe one or 2 settings on very high. With a single 5870 I get similar fps on all very high as my 285 got on all high. I think 285 SLI scales a little better in some games, but with the new 9.12 beta drivers I am getting amazing scaling, even in Crysis. On the warhead benchmark tool, on all enthusiast settings with 4xAA at 1920x1200 I am averaging 52 fps. I think the crossfire scaling with these cards is just going to get better and better over time.

Edit: All that said, I think SLI 285's is still a very very powerful setup, and I would have a hard time upgrading from that.
 
Last edited:
Vegasr said:
Can you elaborate on the increases one 5870 gave you versus two 285s as that seems kind of odd.

I'm on the fence on whether or not I should sell my pair of 285s for ATIs latest, so any detailed info would be great.

Thanks
Click to expand...

Seriously unless you absolutely must have dx11 now or need a single card i would just wait, GTX285 sli is a very powerful setup and will be for a while yet.
 
TechloGoblin said:
I am using (2) XFX 5870's in CF with water cooling. I was able to overclock them to 960/1300. I am only using one (large) monitor for now. I have no flickering or any issues with them (one of them was bad after 1-2 weeks of use and had to RMA it and the new one is fine) and the performance is stellar. In one thread someone posted their 5970 Resident Evil 5 benchmark numbers and they had ~122 FPS and with the 5870's in CF I get ~166 FPS running the same settings. I have not had any in game issues except for on Steam in Left for Dead 2 where at the start of each map you have to Alt-Tab out and then go back in so that the FPS go back to normal. This is a known issue and hopefully will be fixed by either Valve or ATI drivers. I am using the 9.11 official drivers. With the small exception of Crysis all benchmarks/games are out of this world...just go into the settings put everything to max and enjoy.

I look forward to going with Eyefinity when it supports CF mode. You will LOVE 5870's in CF. hope this helps
Click to expand...

I'm also using 5870 CF with water cooling (the PowerColors with EK blocks). Surprisingly with the low temps (40c idle/52c load), I'm only able to OC them to 920/1330. This has been, well, very disappointing since I could have just bought a single 5970 on launch day and saved $200.. I'll probably be flashing to up the voltage at some point.

My experience has been just ok -- not surprising since I replaced two 4870 X2s. Performance in games is about the same or sometimes a bit smoother. My cards sporatically produce the blue/green dot issue in 2D, but this has ameliorated a bit over the past couple days (not sure why...).

The main reason I got 5870 CF was to handle Eyefinity. Unfortunately, Eyefinity only works with one card at this point, so for the time being, my investment is not paying off.
 
harmattan said:
I'm also using 5870 CF with water cooling (the PowerColors with EK blocks). Surprisingly with the low temps (40c idle/52c load), I'm only able to OC them to 920/1330. This has been, well, very disappointing since I could have just bought a single 5970 on launch day and saved $200.. I'll probably be flashing to up the voltage at some point.

My experience has been just ok -- not surprising since I replaced two 4870 X2s. Performance in games is about the same or sometimes a bit smoother. My cards sporatically produce the blue/green dot issue in 2D, but this has ameliorated a bit over the past couple days (not sure why...).

The main reason I got 5870 CF was to handle Eyefinity. Unfortunately, Eyefinity only works with one card at this point, so for the time being, my investment is not paying off.
Click to expand...

this is my original though too, but since my case would not fit the 5970 my case; I have only 11.6 inch for video card, but the 5970 is at least 12 inch, but the 5870 is 11 inch.

so I make the decision to go to crossfire with 5870
 
harmattan said:
I'm also using 5870 CF with water cooling (the PowerColors with EK blocks). Surprisingly with the low temps (40c idle/52c load), I'm only able to OC them to 920/1330. This has been, well, very disappointing since I could have just bought a single 5970 on launch day and saved $200.. I'll probably be flashing to up the voltage at some point.

My experience has been just ok -- not surprising since I replaced two 4870 X2s. Performance in games is about the same or sometimes a bit smoother. My cards sporatically produce the blue/green dot issue in 2D, but this has ameliorated a bit over the past couple days (not sure why...).

The main reason I got 5870 CF was to handle Eyefinity. Unfortunately, Eyefinity only works with one card at this point, so for the time being, my investment is not paying off.
Click to expand...

I get faster results than the 5970. for example the RE5 benchmark I posted in my original reply. I am getting ~44 FPS more than a 5970 in that area. That to me is a pretty significant boost all things considered. I can get 1000/1300 but sometimes in rare instances benchmarks will freeze...it works fine with games and everyday use but I prefer a 100% stable environment so I went with the current clocks I posted.

I have had absolutely no game issues, artifacts, blank screens, etc. with these cards. I would like to really stretch their legs in the future and I basically went with (2) now to futureproof myself...although that remains to be seen if I can prevent myself from upgrading in a year or two :eek:

I think the drivers/features/Eyefinity will only get better when using CF, but I am really really pleased all things considered with my CF setup right now.
 
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