Is 16x 4x on this board a bad idea?

[darnock]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130275


from a few charts I've seen only a 5% drop in the 5000 series using a 16x 4x,, i'm using this board and 2 4870's

i was not planning on crossfiring but i got the extra card for free and my power supply can take the load.. so what should i do?

thanks

 

[jyjjy]

Well if you've got the card do some benchmarks of your own and see if it is worth it for you. If it doesn't seem worth it you can always put it on ebay or get a board with a x8 slot.

 

[darnock]

thats a great idea! what % increase in score would be a good range?

 

[jyjjy]

Well, the performance increase from a single HD4870 to an HD4870x2 tends to be somewhere in the 70-80% area on average.

 

[jyjjy]

Let us know how it goes. It be interested to see how much a PCIE 2.0 x4 slot limits an HD4870.

 

[darnock]

i did the benchmark test Heaven

here is my score for 1 card

fps 35.6
score 897


on crossfire i got

fps 70
score 1764


heaven's settings i used the default

direct 3d11
1920x1080
shade high
tex high
filter tri
4x

seems like a 95% boost, not bad

 

[darnock]

rest of my system... win 7 64bit
4 gigs ram
amd 955 at 4.0ghz

again the 2cards are 4870's

 

[jyjjy]

I'd try it in a real game or two. Perhaps something with a built in benchmark like Crysis, Far Cry 2, GTA4, Just Cause 2, ect.

 

[darnock]

okay just did the just cause 2 benchmark on 1920x1080 on max settings

1 card time 128seconds, 20.43 fps

2 cards time 121seconds 48.08 fps

 

[darnock]

just hoping this info will help someone out

 

[jyjjy]

That's some impressive scaling. I guess the x4 slot isn't all that bad on PCIE 2.0 boards.