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5870 vs 5850 x2 in crossfire

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as the title says, i'm thinking of getting a 5870, or 2 5850 in crossfire mode.

2x5850 will cost me an additional S$159 dollars, and i'm probably ok with spending that little extra I think.


i'll be using it for games, photoshop/lightroom mainly. I have a 23" samsung LCD, running in 1900x1020

2nd question, will I need a full tower for 5850 in crossfire? i've read that mid tower will suffice, while some others say it will get hot and crammed inside.

thanks

More about : 5870 5850 crossfire

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if you want extra power i prefer to get 1 strong card than 2 weaker ones wait for the 5870x2
the 5850 is only 9" 2 in a mid tower will be cramped but it all depends on your cooler fans etc (another reason why 1 strong card is better)
i dont have much case cooling problems cause i dont even use my cover on my pc anymore its much cooler and doesnt get any more dust on it than if i had it on :) 

I dont think the 5870x2 will come out in the next 2 weeks, which is the time frame I've set for my new system. Any idea when it will be released?

what you said made total sense. thanks. I might scrap my lian li and go with an Antec 1200. :) 


Graphics card Master

You should be fine with a single 5870... The card performs a tad better than a GTX 295 and with better drivers it should get a 15-20% performance increase as time goes by.... Dual 5850's sound sweet but you will need a case with superior airflow to keep them cool.....

5870x2 is overkill in my opinion unless you are trying to break a record.....
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Graphics card Expert

The 5850 is a very cool card actually. Mine is at 38C idle right now, at my friends house earlier (testing it) it was 33C idle.

I haven't had it go above 61C load yet.

The fan is at 21% only most of the time too. Two of these won't heat up a case as much as you might think.
Graphics card Master

pluke the 2 said:
Meh... my 5870 idles @ 33Cish, load 69c 50% fan speed, not to much of a graphic increase from two SLI 8800gtx's.


How is that?

Your dual 8800GTX's are more or less the same as a GTX 280, so your 5870 should be like a night n day difference ......

So it would seem, my speculations are from playing L4D, perhaps a game that utilizes the SLI cards > ati. Benchmarking in furmark's is a night and day difference... but, $450.00 worth the difference, I think not. Just my two cents.
Graphics card Master

L4D maxes out with a midrange GPU..... I get 150 frames with everything maxed out including xAA. You cannot test a 5870 with a game like L4D.....

Try Warhead or Stalker.....

450.00$??? Where do you live?

@ Ovrclkr, California. Fry's Electronics had it for 399.99 and then including tax was about $445.00. On my system, L4d got around 170FPS w the new 5870 ATI. My 2 GTX's in SLI got 120FPS.... No difference my eyes can see, however, the chunk of cash out of my pocket made me feel like it had to be better. I'm playing ARMAII now, and it DEF does not run smoothly with all HIGH settings btw. Sorry guys, but a little Off topic here.

Bluescreendeath said:
^ ARMA2 isn't optimized yet and they have to improve the 5870 drivers as well.

But damn, $445? You should've bought it off Newegg or even Amazon and saved yourself $60.



I guess none of you are from Cali... state sales tax is 9.75% in some places. He might have saved $20 by buying online (380 vs 399) but tax is fubar.

Also, I agree that l4d is a terrible benchmark to use for this comparison. If you actually take five seconds to look at the graphs from any of the recent GPU roundups you will see how cpu-bound l4d is....

pluke the 2 said:
@ Ovrclkr, California. Fry's Electronics had it for 399.99 and then including tax was about $445.00. On my system, L4d got around 170FPS w the new 5870 ATI. My 2 GTX's in SLI got 120FPS.... No difference my eyes can see, however, the chunk of cash out of my pocket made me feel like it had to be better. I'm playing ARMAII now, and it DEF does not run smoothly with all HIGH settings btw. Sorry guys, but a little Off topic here.


I do not see what kind of difference ur expecting to see in L4D esp since your monitor probably only runs at 60 Hz aka 60fps. Anything above that your not going to see any improvements whether its 70 fps or 1700 fps. So when you did NOT see a difference that was to be expected... you shouldn't.

The fact that you were expecting or hoping to see increase in performance from L4D when your already running it at 120 fps is just insane.

pluke the 2 said:
@ Ovrclkr, California. Fry's Electronics had it for 399.99 and then including tax was about $445.00. On my system, L4d got around 170FPS w the new 5870 ATI. My 2 GTX's in SLI got 120FPS.... No difference my eyes can see, however, the chunk of cash out of my pocket made me feel like it had to be better. I'm playing ARMAII now, and it DEF does not run smoothly with all HIGH settings btw. Sorry guys, but a little Off topic here.


so you went from two cards to one card and still got a 50fames increase and are not happy? its probably buyers remorse (450 ouch)...... also most are happy with 60 plus in games...like the others say try a more gpu demanding game like crysis.


**Also on a side-note is it me or do these Nvidia guys switch over to ATI then just complain about every little thing?**

OP do what I will do. Just pick up two 5850s. For not much more I'm sure you won't regret it. This set up will last a while. Just make sure what ever case you get has good vetilation.
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