6870 X2 - Owners Opinions

To those who have owned this card, I am very interested in your opinion on its performance. I will be upgrading my video card for the fall releases, and am considering this card heavily. It seems to offer great performance, but from what I read here on Toms, it suffers from micro-stuttering.

In your experience, how widespread has this micro-stuttering been? I know it is more apparent in certain games due to driver issues, so I'd like to know how often you buy a new game only to find that it suffers from micro-stuttering.

My second choice in a video card would be an O/C'd 570, they seem to have a decent price for the performance offered.

Thanks!

I had 6870 crossfire and the microstutter was unbearable, amd does not take care of their midrange crossfire customers unfortunately. From what I read the issue is pretty much not noticeable on the nvidia side of things but personally Im done with crossfire, the 6870x2 is not going to be much better, personally Id go for a single 570 or 560ti

That's a good point actually, I will only be running this on a single 1080p (1920x1080) monitor.

You should read this before thinking about dual GPUs

http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] ,2995.html

I see why people can notice the microstutter after reading something like this. Getting a 3rd card for the 6870 config seemed to really help the microstutter though.

The 6870 tri-fire usually equaled or beat a 6950/570 dual solution. The only reason that the higher end cards might be better is that they have more memory, but that won't really make that much of a difference since these cards can't really use more than 1GB.

I read the article quoted above, which led me to posting this thread. I'll probably just go with a single 570 setup, since the 580 seems to net about 5-7 more frames a second in most games.

I've watched some video's on the effects of micro-stuttering, and it seems to render a game unplayable if it occurs. Oh well!

I just watched some youtube videos on microstutter (just to make sure I'm not cray), and my experience is never like what they show.

I'm glad too. I couldn't game like that.

Does it not affect all cards?

Sorry - I should have been clear.

I run a 5970 now. I need to update the sig.

I don't know what to make of this microstutter epidemic. Many people don't experience it at all, some people say it ruins their experience, and it DOES happen with Nvidia and AMD cards. Id like to know the REAL cause of it, as not everyone experiences it, i dont just "accept" that its there wether you see it or not. everyone running crossfire would see it if it is always there, there must be a solution. As for nvidia having better drivers, i completely disagree, ive had no problems with any ATI or AMD card/drivers i have owned, and ive owned 3 or 4, ive had no major problems with nvida drivers and had 3 or 4 of their cards too. Both companies release frequent driver updates to fix any issues.

I'll take a video of a game and post it when I have time.

have you tried recent gpus in crossfire config? Im telling you it exists and it is very much so a problem (at least at the midrange and low end), I speak from personal experience and am not on payroll with nvidia, youtube is especially not a good way to gauge performance imo

the 6870x2 is 3.4 times as expensive as a 6870. You can get 2x 6950's for less crossfire them and get more performance. Stay away from the 570, her vram is laughable.

I agree with the 6950s over the 6870x2 but the statement you make about the 570 is nonsense; show me one example of where the extra vram makes a difference at 1080p...!?

You sort of just threw a lot at me. I don't have benches but I have personal experience that 1gb isn't enough on "ultra" textures at 1080p granted it was 1920 x 1200 not 1920 x 1080. For example APB, a heavily textured game it was literally just missing textures until I lowered the settings. So why cut it so close, it's "okay" for now, but why limit yourself for future games

You are correct with the sli to crossfire and with the 560, I said "just as bad" mainly suggesting that it will still occur on this level of card, to be honest it's not always that noticeable either

I have done sli, however it was on a powerful card, so I did not experience microstutter with the games I was playing, I was easily over the 40 frame marker. the 6870x2 is really only good if you plan on a tri fire setup

I love it.. what kind of monitors did you get? Can they portrait?

The car isn't where you would see the stutter. You need fast movement to notice the framerate drops.

I've seen the youtube videos as well, I can notice the stutter just like I saw in your video.

^yeah but thats with 4 gpus and we are talking about 6870 crossfire

5970 is a dual gpu card 2x2=4

saying 5970 crossfire is slightly misleading so that's just "one" 5970?"

What do you mean, misleading?

It's still crossfire.

How did this discussion go in this direction?

It's not even on topic.

Back on topic - I can't sense any "microstutter" on the 5970, so anyone saying it's present in every crossfire situation doesn't know the whole truth.

the 560ti is the hot ticket imo it will crush a 6950 in tessellation and ocing potential

your still wrong, nvidia still has far less noticeable stutter according to the toms article in a dual gpu config as well

http://www.guru3d.com/article/rade [...] -review/11

Yea bro hot ticket, it loses in a majority of the benchmarks. You sure know your stuff

Let me Rephrase, it loses in EVERY category except 1280x1024, hey it even takes more power?

edit: Not to mention that's the 1gb card, he has the 2gb option with 6950 and better xfire scaling

in b4 "Oh I said OC potential"

http://www.guru3d.com/article/rade [...] -review/17

loses in the OC race to. You're a fanboy, back your comments up The oc 560ti doesn't even beat the NON Oc'd 6950

I run SLi'd GTX560's and I do not see this microstutter that you say I should, are you sure that you know what you are talking about?