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4870x2 Crossfire

Forum Graphic & Displays : Graphics Cards - 4870x2 Crossfire

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Nytmare   07-16-2008 at 11:47:12 PM

Quicky question.... From my reading here....it seems the 4870x2 coming out can be Crossfired (like the slightly older 4870) with another 4870x2 thus giving you a "Quad" GPU set up.......or am I mistaken that the Crossfire software will not support 4 GPU's?

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defy   07-16-2008 at 11:55:35 PM
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Yes, it can support (4) in that fashion. AMD/ATI has tested up to 8 (4x 4870x2's), but do not officially support that many.

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thogrom   07-16-2008 at 11:59:00 PM
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it will work... although from the previews... the rumor that the OS/Driver would see the card as one... appears false... so the scaling probably won't be too good

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dagger   07-17-2008 at 12:30:16 AM
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How big a psu would that require? I'm thinking of taking the plunge with that quad cf. :p

------------------------------ Q6600@3.6ghz, GA-EX38-DS4 motherboard, 8gb 800mhz ddr2 4-3-3-12, 8800GTS(g92)@780mhz, 1TB + 1.5TB hdds, 850watt psu
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spuddyt   07-17-2008 at 12:49:59 AM
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if you have more money than sense dagger, go ahead and show me the results afterwards, but i suspect you would need substantially upwards of 1000 watts....

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hispeed120   07-17-2008 at 12:52:45 AM
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Agreed. I believe that total system draw with one 4870X2 and a Core2 Extreme was upwards of 500W with "an Intel QX9770, 2GB Corsair RAM, 3 WD Raptor Hard Drives, a DVD/CDRom, a floppy drive, and a Koolance Exos water cooling system."

Linkage: http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/arti [...] VzaWFzdA==


Message edited by hispeed120 on 07-17-2008 at 12:57:19 AM
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royalcrown   07-17-2008 at 02:19:31 AM
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thogrom wrote :

it will work... although from the previews... the rumor that the OS/Driver would see the card as one... appears false... so the scaling probably won't be too good



The way i read it was that the driver os would see the x2 as 1 gpu and not 2 gpus, not multiple cards as one card.

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dagger   07-17-2008 at 02:28:28 AM
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royalcrown wrote :

The way i read it was that the driver os would see the x2 as 1 gpu and not 2 gpus, not multiple cards as one card.


Unforunately it didn't scale as a single gpu, which is what matters. :p

------------------------------ Q6600@3.6ghz, GA-EX38-DS4 motherboard, 8gb 800mhz ddr2 4-3-3-12, 8800GTS(g92)@780mhz, 1TB + 1.5TB hdds, 850watt psu
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royalcrown   07-17-2008 at 02:33:09 AM
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well, they never will, due to the laws of physics and engineering problems as well as rendering "granularity". I'd be psyched if they could avg 90 percent.

------------------------------ E8500,GA-EP45-UD3R, 8 GIG MUSHKIN, XFX 4890 , ASUS 22", WD 640 X 2, CM 532, CM 650TX
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gamerk316   07-21-2008 at 05:53:28 AM
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I have the feeling that just like 2x 9800GX2's, 2x 4870X2's won't give that much a preformance boost. Could be wrong though...

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ovaltineplease   07-21-2008 at 06:39:45 AM
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If hardocp's article on the 4870x2 quadfire is any indication, there is a markable AA performance increase.

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Silver Graphics badge TheGreatGrapeApe   07-21-2008 at 06:43:22 AM
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Yeah that was actually quite interesting.

Still needs more tests to see the orverall picture, but some of them are pretty good sofar regarding the AA hit.

However those that have CF issues, still have CF issues with the QuadFire.

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Scotteq   08-13-2008 at 03:37:39 PM
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Nytmare wrote :

Quicky question.... From my reading here....it seems the 4870x2 coming out can be Crossfired (like the slightly older 4870) with another 4870x2 thus giving you a "Quad" GPU set up.......or am I mistaken that the Crossfire software will not support 4 GPU's?





Be advised that such a setup would basically force you to use a 64 bit OS, since you WILL run smack into the 4GB address space limitation inherent in any 32 bit OS:

4870X2 (1GB of memory mapped I/O) times two = 2GB of address space consumed
500~750MB worth of address space required for the Bios, communications and system devices

You are now at 2.5~2.75GB of address space, and only have 1.5GB left for RAM. And it's been a year or three since 1GB was considered excellent for gaming purposes...


The theoretical limit for 64 bit OSs is something like 16 Exabytes (thousands of Gigabytes), but current 64 bit Windows OSs are capped at something like 160GB. Still... More than enough to handle a full rack of RAM and a CrossfireX/SLIx3 setup.


Message edited by Scotteq on 08-13-2008 at 03:40:59 PM
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hulabaloo37   01-27-2009 at 06:42:58 PM
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*If* in the future I wish to add a second 4870x2 card, would it have to be the same manufacturer or could I mix and match?

Also, I have a P5E3 Premium motherboard, and the top slot's positioning would make the card impossible to install without touching the memory modules. Is there any way round this?

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