[Solved] 5970 CrossfireX or 580 GTX SLI

Hello folks,

I just splurged on a Dell U3011 monitor which has a 2560x1600 native resolution, and my current 512MB 4870's in CrossfireX just isn't cutting it for me anymore. I was wondering if you had a choice between a pair of Nvidia 580 GTXs in SLI or a pair of Radeon 5970s (2Gb model) in CrossfireX mode, which one you would choose and why?

i suggest go with the 580 sli cause it will be cheaper and will be more than enough to run any game even with a 2560x1600 res. although the 5970 xfire will be faster u wont see the extra performance as u most probably will have a cpu bottleneck

lol im from canada the prices are higher for everything here... the cheapest 5970 is $635

I'm currently using an i7 930 OC'd to ~3.67Ghz.

Im from Canada to our dollar is 1:1 with the USD yet... we have to pay hundreds more.. it really does suck that we get gouged like that... makes me sad almost daily

p.s. at that price you TOTALLY need to do the 5970's... everyone is saying it's overkill.. but... it's obviously more future-proof and even if the change is only 70 fps to 80 fps which is literally unnoticeable.. which would you prefer ?

edit: 6990

Performance wise, both configurations will give stupendous frame rates. I have heard a lot about microstuttering with the 5970 in Crossfire. In fact, some of the recent reviews were unable to include 5970 Crossfire numbers due to stuttering.

What you want is stability, there is no question that Nvidia cards in SLI are more stable than AMD in Crossfire. I wouldn't even wait for the delayed 6900 series....

"So over the years Multi-GPU support has improved quite a bit, AMD still isn't up-to snuff at the level of NVIDIA though, multi-GPU supports still literally and directly remains the Achilles heel of ATI's Catalyst drivers. For years now we have been requesting user-based multi-GPU profiles. See when a new game comes out, multi-GPU support will not be supported by the Catalyst driver. ATI will always need to update this through drivers or downloadable profiles. What ATI needs to do is to allow the end user to make custom profiles per game. A small tip, renaming your game-executable towards a game title that is supported can, not always but often, help out.
http://www.guru3d.com/article/rade [...] -review/15

On the other hand, for the GTX580 in SLI:
"We have not seen any driver issues, we did not run into any weird stuff and neither did we had to configure anything. Everything worked straight out of the box with near perfect scaling. As such if you are interested in marvelous game performance and are gaming with an unlimited budget, then this might be your route to follow."
"Performance wise, not a lot of negatives can be said about the GeForce GTX 580 setup in SLI. In previous articles we have shown you guys already that the performance scaling of two GPUs is something the GTX 400 and thus now 500 series as well, is really good at."
http://www.guru3d.com/article/gefo [...] -review/17

I do believe for that resolution, you'd want 5970 4GB, not 2GB. When they denote 2GB, it's actually 1GB per GPU on the card. At 2560x1600, 1GB per GPU is not enough much of the time.

You'll want the 4GB version.

Also, the 5970 is best used as a stand alone card. If you want to use 2, you start having bad scaling issues, as quad-fire is not great.

I'd definately go with 2 580's over 2 5970's. It'll scale better, much better.

Try living in the UK,the 5970 is £550 which works out to roughly $896 "Canadian",now thats a rip off lol.

whatever.. 6990 will rip off 580

Yeah , whatever. A video card that does not exist, you have a expert opinion on ? NOT

im not sure why people are saying that the gtx 580 sli will be cheaper, the cheapest gtx 580 on newegg is $559.99 whereas the cheapest HD5970 is $499.99.

You are missing the discount code that brings the cost down by $50.

To the op, how do you like the u3011? I'm thinking bout getting 2 to go along with my 3008wfp which I love

Best answer selected by tpitcher.