5970 crossfire or wait for 6870

[Jacky60]

I have a 5970 and 5870 in tri-fire and I'm considering getting a new 5970 and ebaying 5870. I know the fourth gpu won't scale that well but in Arma 2 (as demanding as crysis is) I'd love to stick at 60fps rather than the current 45-60fps. Should I wait until after xmas and sell what I have upgrade then or would i be better going with 2 5970's until middle of next year? The new 5970 will cost me £250 (approx $320) after I get £200 for 5870. BUT 2 new 6870 x 2's will probs cost £1000.
Arma 2 is only game that need this power that I play.

 

[Grooveriding]

Sell 5970 now, use your 5870 on its own for a while and then buy 2x 6870s in a couple months.

Your 5970 will still fetch a good price right now, so I would unload that ASAP.

5970 quad-fire is not really worth it, especially as you'll still pay an unreasonable price for that second one right now.

 

[toyota]

two 5970s in crossfire for 1920? what on earth needs that much gpu power? heck not to mention it probably wont scale for crap on four gpus at that res. that's almost like having EIGHT 4870s when most people would be happy with two or in some cases even one for 1920.

 

[Jacky60]

two 5970s in crossfire for 1920? what on earth needs that much gpu power? heck not to mention it probably wont scale for crap on four gpus at that res. that's almost like having EIGHT 4870s when most people would be happy with two or in some cases even one for 1920.

Its only for one game -Arma2- which being a military derived sim sucks in limitless resources. No matter how much I upgrade nothing is enough-no PC can run it and probably every will but it sure looks and plays good. I've view distance 2800 metres and it goes to 10000 and while many things are maxed out others are not close. Playing with 60 players multiplayer in built up areas (and its badly coded) means it chokes down to 25-30fps. Any suggestions on keeping the monster happy?

Also its two of 6870 x 2 whatever its called I'm considering which probably wont be out before february or at least available until then if TSMC is still churning out ALL Nvidia and AMD Gpu's on 40nm process and i will spend the money before then.

 

[toyota]

if it is that bad on 5970+5870 then I don't think replacing the 5870 with a 5970 is going to help at all. that forth gpu is just not going to scale well and if you are at 25-30fps then you likely will still be sub 30 in the same spots you hit 25 in.

sorry I have only played around with the demo a bit so I cant give you any helpful advice.

 

[Grooveriding]

http://www.techradar.com/news/comput...s&attr=newsall

AMD's single gpu flagship will be out this year. Mid-range is next month and high end will be November or December.

ARMA is pretty CPU dependent as well. I can't run it at a steady 60 maxed out myself. I don't even think 2x6870s will change that, although it will likely improve on it.

 

[nitromullet]

Playing with 60 players multiplayer in built up areas (and its badly coded) means it chokes down to 25-30fps. Any suggestions on keeping the monster happy?

The game has a single player mode, does it choke in single player as well? If not then the issue is not gpu related.

 

[Zap]

Its only for one game -Arma2- which being a military derived sim sucks in limitless resources. No matter how much I upgrade nothing is enough-no PC can run it and probably every will but it sure looks and plays good. I've view distance 2800 metres and it goes to 10000 and while many things are maxed out others are not close. Playing with 60 players multiplayer in built up areas (and its badly coded) means it chokes down to 25-30fps. Any suggestions on keeping the monster happy?

That's sounding more CPU limited because other games that chokes in multiplayer with a lot of units (WoW, SupCom) are CPU limited.

 

[RussianSensation]

This is an older November 2009 review, but it shows that Arma2 is GPU limited. Unfortunately it is also CPU limited.

Looks like the game is the worst coded DX9 game ever made. Runs horribly on AMD cpus too.

Going from 4850 to 4890 (generally a 60% performance increase) only nets you 23% performance increase. 5870 can't even break 40 fps at 1280x1024.

Fast forward to March 2010. You'd think that drivers would improve the situation. Not at all. 5850 2GB Toxic can't even break 35 fps at 1280x1024. So we know the game doesn't benefit from 2GB of ram that much either.

Another review shows Core i7 860 @ 4.0ghz + GTX480 getting 27.2 avg / 19 min @ 1920x1200. 5870 gets 23.7 fps avg / 14 min.

5970 and GTX480 SLI scaling is almost non-existent due to a CPU bottleneck with a Core i7 975.

Considering you already have a 5970+5870, I honestly don't think another 5970 is going to solve anything. My guess at this point is that a Core i7 980X may improve the situation overclocked to 4.4ghz+, resolving some of the CPU bottleneck.

I think you may want to consider upgrading to 1155 Sandy Bridge. The CPUs are about 15-20% faster per clock than current i7s. At 4.9-5.0ghz overclock, you'd be looking at a healty performance boost of about 50%.

I'd also probably consider selling the 5970 and the 5870 while both still have value. I am guessing 6870 * 2 will be faster and not cost much more than the 250 you intend to spend upgrading to a 2nd 5970. Scaling with 4 GPUs is notoriously poor to begin with.

 

[tweakboy]

Wait it out, you dont need 2 5970's and a 1200 dollar price tag.

Wait for dual gpu of 6xxx and Xfire that.

 

[rgallant]

-check how much vram your using ,my 285,s hit 950mb ish on med.ish @ 1920x 1200 in the single player ,I use msi-ab , but not sure if it is correct reading of the vram.

-check on BI forums to what vram has peaked to on the higher than 1 gig cards.
-try turning off HT if it,s on to test .
-some mb sub voltages might need to be moved up, eg. nb ,and a few others could be a bottle neck .check your mb forum. I know on my E760 upping them prove to be needed for say heavy video -[vantage]& sli but the names and values do not relate to your board.

 

[Bman123]

I would wait if I were you. Youve got alot of money sunk into gpu's for that one game. If it is coded badly then your just wasting cash on gpu's. I would find a different game to play personally.

 

[Dark Shroud]

Unload the HD 5970 now while it's still worth something and use that money towards the HD 6000 series.

 

[rgallant]

I would wait if I were you. Youve got alot of money sunk into gpu's for that one game. If it is coded badly then your just wasting cash on gpu's. I would find a different game to play personally.

- have you ever played with this game
some games the more vid power the less you get killed

-play some bfbc2 ,then watch this arma2 in game ,keep a eye on the cross hairs


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaAnCP9GeMQ&feature=related

 

[Lavans]

Getting a second HD5970 at this point would be a waste. The HD6870 is likely to perform on a similar level with the HD5970 within a reasonable margin, let alone the fact that it's probably going to consume far less power. Honestly, the best solution at this point would be to overclock those cards of yours. Considering you're using 1.125v on the core, you can probably hit 900-925MHz easily.

 

[mfenn]

I would wait if I were you. Youve got alot of money sunk into gpu's for that one game. If it is coded badly then your just wasting cash on gpu's. I would find a different game to play personally.

One thing about ARMA players that you should know: Never insult ARMA in front of them, it is God's gift to gaming. :whiste:

 

[Jacky60]

One thing about ARMA players that you should know: Never insult ARMA in front of them, it is God's gift to gaming. :whiste:

I'm not an 'Arma player'. As I said myself its badly coded and rather too difficult for a seriously casual gamer like me. However it is sublime, beautiful and full of the best moments by far I've ever experienced gaming.

Its a real active free roaming universe that looks utterly amazing at 1920 1200 with 4xaa 16xaf.

Only bought my first Arma game (Arma 2) a year ago but despite it's flaws it is really outstanding. A E8400 at 4ghz/ 4890xfire will not cut it so unless you have a really good high-end system its frustrating, hence my original post.

 

[Jacky60]

- have you ever played with this game
some games the more vid power the less you get killed

-play some bfbc2 ,then watch this arma2 in game ,keep a eye on the cross hairs


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaAnCP9GeMQ&feature=related

Thanks for an honest appraisal of what we're up against and enjoying,

 

[Sho'Nuff]

I have a 5970 and 5870 in tri-fire and I'm considering getting a new 5970 and ebaying 5870. I know the fourth gpu won't scale that well but in Arma 2 (as demanding as crysis is) I'd love to stick at 60fps rather than the current 45-60fps. Should I wait until after xmas and sell what I have upgrade then or would i be better going with 2 5970's until middle of next year? The new 5970 will cost me £250 (approx $320) after I get £200 for 5870. BUT 2 new 6870 x 2's will probs cost £1000.
Arma 2 is only game that need this power that I play.

If you want a second 5970, let me know. I'll sell you mine. Not because it isn't a beast. But because I have no time to really use it.

 

[happy medium]

Arma 2 must be poorly coded here is some benchmarks with a 6 core i7 980 and other cpu's at 800x600 res. I don't think more graphics power will help you. I would say don't waste your money.

quote:
"New to our test protocol, Arma 2 is configured with all settings at a max including max visibility (10 km), which brings the configurations to their knees. Resolution stays at 800x600 to avoid the graphics card impacting on performance. To gauge performance we measure the framerate during a well-defined movement after loading a saved game."

Thats just a poorly coded game. I don't know much about ARma 2 but it seems something else is holding back you fps. There must be a setting that kills your fps, view distance mabe?
How much video ram does your video settings use? Mabe more then 1 gb?