5870x3 bottlenecked by 940@3.2

I've got a PII 940@3.2GHZ, Using my Vigor Monsoon III, I can get to around 3.5 stable (maybe a bit higher)
My question is that I am currently running a 4870x2+4870 trifire, I would like to do the same thing with the 5 series, and
just switch out the cards. How bad will I be bottlenecked?

I don't plan on upgrading cpu anytime soon. In the spring I will do a new build with a 6 core Gulftown (maybe skulltrail) so
this GPU upgrade will be my last upgrade on this current build

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Reply to Milos-stancene

A Pentium II is definitely going to be a bottleneck !! :kaola:

Anywhoo... on a serious note, yes almost any CPU will bottleneck three HD5870s, but the Phenom is probably already bottlenecking your current Tri-Fire set-up althought it may be more pronounced on the HD5Ks as you get into tougher games. However overall it'd likely be the same bottlenecking between the two where the only thing that the HD5Ks would improve would be your performance at extreme resolutions and extreme AA levels.

Of benefit the setup and improve back end should help make Xfire a little more efficient on CPUs, and no one (outside of NDA) knows what the Xfire on chip compositer will do to help further.
There may be some improvement, but I would suspect you will still see some limiting, and it may affect your min fps the most in areas where the CPU just can't keep up, so if at any time during high but not extreme settings you're finding choke points or slow-downs (which if you raise or lower visuals doesn't change), that likely can be attributed to the CPU and likely those areas won't change.

Reply to TheGreatGrapeApe

I just upgraded from my 386 25 MHZ 2 years ago, and now I have to upgrade my pentium II also??! WTF!!

I usually put everything up to the highest settings available, I run at 2560*1600, the only thing that I get hit on is Crysis obviously, Far Cry 2 when I hit 8XAA, and now NFS shift. I play Grid a lot, and even at 2560, I get over 100fps with everything to the highest settings.

I like to be able to set everything up to 2560, and the highest settings, and leave it at that. I guess the question is should I still be able to see an improvement over my current setup? Obviously I really don't want to put $1000 down just to have the same performance I have now. I don't really care about getting huge fps jumps, just smooth play in the few games that aren't smooth now when I throw in 8xAA.

Have you ever done anything with a Skulltrail setup Ape? My thought process is now I'm going to get the trifire 5870s, then in the springs when they release the Gulftown 6 cores, get one of those, possibly 2 for a skulltrail setup, and if I NVIDIAS new cards don't blow the 5xxx series away, I'll take the x2 card out, and get another for quadfire. I really hope they release some super thin bezels soon to run a 6 monitor setup by then.

Reply to microterf

Three 5870's? Jesus Christ! Just get one 5870 and donate the rest of the money to a charity to satisfy your money squandering fetish...

------------------------------ CPU: Intel Core i7 920 @3.2Ghz, MOBO: Asus P6T SE, RAM: 3x 2gb OCZ Platinum OCZ3P1600LV6GK, GPU: Sapphire HD 5870, PSU: Corsair HX520W, HDD: Seagate ST31000528AS 1Tb 32mb, COOLER: Scythe Mugen (S775 version), CASE: Coolermaster CM690
Reply to Gulli

His money...

------------------------------ I'm a git, deal with it.

Antec 1200,PC Power & Cooling 750,Gigabyte DS4-x48,Intel Q9550@3.4 W/Xigmatek S1283,8GB OCZ DDR2 800,ATI 4870X2,X-FI>CA 640C amp>Tannoy R300/Senn 595's
Reply to Strangestranger

Well, I will also admit that I am planning on doing tri-fire ( with a single 2GB 5870, and a 5870x2 4GB when they come out) I did tri-fire for the 4*** series and I loved the extra boost it gave me. With that being said, how do we all think that my i7 920 @ 4.0 Ghz will do in terms of bottlenecking ? Keeping in mind that I run at 1920x1200 with 4X AA and 16 AF minimum on all games. I'm thinking it will be there, but not too pronounced.

------------------------------ Core i7 920 @ 4.0Ghz - Gigabyte UD5 - 12GB Corsair XMS 3 - 2X ATI 58701GB Crossfire- Zalman 850W - X-FI Fatality Gamer Pro - Xigmatek Thor's Hammer - Raptor X 150 - WD Black 1TB OCZ Vertex Turbo 120 GB SSD - Cosmos S Case w/side window + 8X 120mm fans
Reply to annisman

No one can say now much it will bottleneck without data. You guys will all have to wait and see. I would not expect the single card configs to bottleneck anything particularly much.. while the multi card configurations will probably be a bit much unless you ahve an x58 system...but who knows.

Reply to daedalus685

Bottlenecking will definitely be there and more so than on micro's 2560 setup, but considering you both want to play at the higher end of the settings, then they/you should still both benefit from the increase, and like I said, if you guys are lucky, the improvements in the Xfire might reduce CPU overhead which would be a good thing for your min fps at current settings, but likely do only a little for the avg.

Message edited by TheGreatGrapeApe on 09-21-2009 at 02:34:00 AM

Reply to TheGreatGrapeApe

Thanks. Average doesn't mean as much to me as minimum though. I also hope that their new AA engine helps out a lot, as it seems going from 4x to 8x AA is where I take the biggest hit.

I plan on getting the X2 card first. I will probably order them from the egg at the end of OCT or Early NOV. I'll def post performance changes compared to the 4 series.

Reply to microterf

Yea, as soon as I get two 5870 2GB in CF I will post up some results, hopefully they launch with the 1GB versions.

Message quoted 1 times

------------------------------ Core i7 920 @ 4.0Ghz - Gigabyte UD5 - 12GB Corsair XMS 3 - 2X ATI 58701GB Crossfire- Zalman 850W - X-FI Fatality Gamer Pro - Xigmatek Thor's Hammer - Raptor X 150 - WD Black 1TB OCZ Vertex Turbo 120 GB SSD - Cosmos S Case w/side window + 8X 120mm fans
Reply to annisman

annisman wrote :

Yea, as soon as I get two 5870 2GB in CF I will post up some results, hopefully they launch with the 1GB versions.

no it wont,2 gigs and x2 coming later

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to Milos-stancene

Milos-stancene wrote :

no it wont,2 gigs and x2 coming later

Your unsubstantiated sourceless information is good enough for me... :pfff:

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to daedalus685

Yeah, I thought the original 4000 series cards started with low ram amounts just because GDDR5 was new and not abundant. By now there should be plenty, so the delay could conceivably be minimal or none between the versions. We'll know very soon though, so no since in worrying.

Message edited by EXT64 on 09-21-2009 at 04:05:20 AM

------------------------------ New Build (Under Contruction): Intel Core i5 750 > Gigabyte GA-P55-UD4P > 2x2GB GSkill 1600MHz CL7 1.65V > Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB > Antec 300 Illusion > Asus 4850 512MB w/AM Cooler > Corsair 650HX > Hyper 212 Plus > See other Builds in Member Config
Reply to EXT64

Yea, I honestly want that extra VRam for GTA 4, and maybe one or two other titles that could use it, also, it will come VERY in handy if/when I get two more 1920x1200 panels for mad eyefinity action.

------------------------------ Core i7 920 @ 4.0Ghz - Gigabyte UD5 - 12GB Corsair XMS 3 - 2X ATI 58701GB Crossfire- Zalman 850W - X-FI Fatality Gamer Pro - Xigmatek Thor's Hammer - Raptor X 150 - WD Black 1TB OCZ Vertex Turbo 120 GB SSD - Cosmos S Case w/side window + 8X 120mm fans
Reply to annisman

daedalus685 wrote :

Your unsubstantiated sourceless information is good enough for me... :pfff:

.....those cards coming later...

Message quoted 2 times

Reply to Milos-stancene

Milos-stancene wrote :

.....those cards coming later...

post something to backup your claims is what he is saying.

------------------------------ Core i7 920 @ 4.0Ghz - Gigabyte UD5 - 12GB Corsair XMS 3 - 2X ATI 58701GB Crossfire- Zalman 850W - X-FI Fatality Gamer Pro - Xigmatek Thor's Hammer - Raptor X 150 - WD Black 1TB OCZ Vertex Turbo 120 GB SSD - Cosmos S Case w/side window + 8X 120mm fans
Reply to annisman

Milos-stancene wrote :

.....those cards coming later...

I'm sorry you don't understand basic English, so far as reading it and creating it goes..

You know.. you are not fooling anyone.. We all realize that you are pretending to be a moron in order to try to illicit responses from people.. it is called trolling and it is as old as the internet. Frankly you are to even very good at it and I'm sure one of the mods will grant your desire to be banned for it sooner or later.

I feel sorry for you that the only fantasy escape you can find for yourself is to try and pretend to be a raving imbecile. Perhaps you don't have to try very hard... What a wretched existence your life must be that this is what your entertainment outlet becomes.

Back on topic. I was also under that impression EXT64. I would expect 2gb cards very early in this generation.. though perhaps at a bit more of a markup than we are used to.

Message quoted 1 times
Message edited by daedalus685 on 09-21-2009 at 04:23:31 AM

Reply to daedalus685

daedalus685 wrote :

I'm sorry you don't understand basic English, so far as reading it and creating it goes..

You know.. you are not fooling anyone.. We all realize that you are pretending to be a moron in order to try to illicit responses from people.. it is called trolling and it is as old as the internet. Frankly you are to even very good at it and I'm sure one of the mods will grant your desire to be banned for it sooner or later.

I feel sorry for you that the only fantasy escape you can find for yourself is to try and pretend to be a raving imbecile. Perhaps you don't have to try very hard... What a wretched existence your life must be that this is what your entertainment outlet becomes.

Back on topic. I was also under that impression EXT64. I would expect 2gb cards very early in this generation.. though perhaps at a bit more of a markup than we are used to.

Thank you very much
english is my 3 language
but your words explained everything... ABOUT YOU

Message quoted 1 times
Message edited by Milos-stancene on 09-21-2009 at 04:31:06 AM

Reply to Milos-stancene

Milos-stancene wrote :

Thank you very much
english is my 3 language
but your words explained everything... ABOUT YOU

:sarcastic: here we go again..

Perhaps you are not a troll on purpose.. but intelligence transcends language.. For your sake I hope you are pretending..

Message edited by daedalus685 on 09-21-2009 at 04:37:07 AM

Reply to daedalus685

He showed up for the 4xxx series launch as well, seen him on xs, is really quiet over there, seems he has more respect for them than the people here.
Milos, chill dude, wait for the cards to come out.
If nVidia loses, so what?
The G300 will come out eventually, then itll be your turn

------------------------------ I went drifting, thru the capitols of tin, where men cant walk and cant freely talk, and sons turn their fathers in
Reply to jaydeejohn

Focus On

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