Asus Ares 5970x2 or GTX 480x2?

[mgon154]

I had my idea to go with dual 480's because the last time I did Quad SLI with dual 295's(4 gpus) it scaled worse than a single 295. Iwas gonna get two asus ares but I feel those four gpu's would drop performance. This question is for those who know. Opinions are opinions. Do 4 GPUs scale worse for you? Will dual 480's be a much smoother run? I know they sent released but you get my idea.

 

[Apocalypse23]

I would get the GTX480s and SLI. Better scaling since they are single GPUs, and have more dedicated memory. The 5970s do not scale well in some games when running in Crossfire. It will be best to wait for some benchmarks.

 

[Pantlegz]

Typically the diminishing returns are too great to run quad gpu's. Up untill fairly recently dual gpu's were the same. The costerformance ratio just isn't there with a quad gpu setup at the moment. That said, it's not very clean how the GTX480 will perform, how much it will cost and the availability, which is still an issue with the 5970.

Also, there are few games that require more than a 5970 to run maxed out. I don't know that unless you absolutely must run metro 2033 or crysis maxed out why you would need more. These setups are normally used for OC'ing and synthetic benchmarking/epeen contests.

 

[Dorkenstein]

I would hate to think of what kind of PSU these setups will require.

 

[Udgnim]

I would get the GTX480s and SLI. Better scaling since they are single GPUs, and have more dedicated memory. The 5970s do not scale well in some games when running in Crossfire. It will be best to wait for some benchmarks.

asus ares will actually have more video RAM. 2 GB for each GPU. no idea why you think the GTX 480s will have inherently better dual GPU scaling because they are single GPU unless you're talking about OC potential, then there might be a case. the same can be said about some games not scaling well with SLI.

you are correct about waiting for benchmarks though.

 

[Apocalypse23]

asus ares will actually have more video RAM. 2 GB for each GPU. no idea why you think the GTX 480s will have inherently better dual GPU scaling because they are single GPU unless you're talking about OC potential, then there might be a case. the same can be said about some games not scaling well with SLI.

you are correct about waiting for benchmarks though.

Looking at the most popular Nvidia-side games like Crysis,COD4/5,Metro2033, the GTX480 will probably be the card to get. Nvidia will have it's cards performing better than ATi's. But I don't know about the rest of the games, 3dMark even favors ATI historically. Despite having more memory, I don't know if the card's will still max out everything since they are still Dual GPUs...Perhaps we will have a case with a 2GB 5870 editions in CrossfireX....vs the 1.5GB GTX480s in SLI.

The most hyped up games usually go to Nvidia I think....

 

[cbn]

the last time I did Quad SLI with dual 295's(4 gpus) it scaled worse than a single 295.

What do you mean by this?

 

[cbn]

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3520&p=7

In this graph 295's in SLI are getting significiantly better FPS than one 295.

Because of CPU involvement in rendering FPS we can't really expect doubling of FPS by the addition of another video card.

 

[cbn]

The 5970s do not scale well in some games when running in Crossfire.

According to what tests? What games?

In the Anandtech multi-GPU reviews games like Fallout 3 were saturated by far less than the what was the maximum set-up back in 2008.

AFAIK, no game has surpassed Crysis (although I haven't seen a graphics only comparison to Metro 2033)

 

[Apocalypse23]

According to what tests? What games?

In the Anandtech multi-GPU reviews games like Fallout 3 were saturated by far less than the what was the maximum set-up back in 2008.

AFAIK, no game has surpassed Crysis (although I haven't seen a graphics only comparison to Metro 2033)

You are right, the only games that 5970 CrossfireX's show little to no difference in are Crysis, COD4/5, Stalker Shawdow of Chernobyl and UT3. Far Cry 2 and Battleforge show a massive performance boost with CrossfireX. All in all, this 5970Crossfire setup is only recommended for 2560x1600 resoultion fanatics.

Crysis-Little to no gain

Battleforge--HUGE gain

So overall, yes it does scale well...but it is insignificant when you could have two 5870s for less and get more than enough performance.

The following shots can be found at guru3d's crossfire reviews.
Hawx 5970 CrossfireX

Hawx 5870 CrossfireX

FarCry2 5970 CrossfireX

FarCry2 5870 CrossfireX

Now if someone was to play Crysis, then a single 5970 would suffice:

Crysis Warhead 5970 single

Crysis Warhead 5870 CrossfireX

Overall, users are better off buying two 5870s than two 5970s since the FPS difference is insignificant while gaming, as seen above...anything over 120 fps is a breeze to play..there's no need for 2 5970s I think...The GTX 480s might have some advantage in SLI performance in Crysis....I expect SLI scores to be around 85 fps for Crysis for the GTX 480 at 1920x1080.

 

[Apocalypse23]

But if you look at the newer titles such as BC2, a problem emerges:

1920x1200 – High

2560x1600 – High

We need to see how the 5970s would scale in this game in CrossfireX, we also need to see how the GTX480/470s would scale in SLI in this game....then we will have a better understanding of exactly how powerful each card is. Metro can be excluded as it simply seems like a badly coded game...

 

[cbn]

So overall, yes it does scale well...but it is insignificant when you could have two 5870s for less and get more than enough performance.

I think this is why ATI developed Eyefinity. A single 2010 PC Video card is more than enough to play what are mostly "console ports" based on 2005 technology.

I wonder what is going to happen to the video card industry when the next Gen Consoles roll out? The GPUs in those consoles will probably be set for 1080p 100% of the time.

 

[Headfoot]

SLI or Crossfire past 2 is extremely costly for progressively smaller (or non existent) performance gains. The power requirements become absurd and past 2 GPUS (and sometimes even with 2 gpus) the CPU begins to slow down the additional cards and not feed them fast enough.

I'd go with 2xGTX 480, or 1x 5970 ARES or 2x 5870 2gb. The performance differences between them is hard to predict now, wait until there are benchies for them.

 

[Maximilian]

I had my idea to go with dual 480's because the last time I did Quad SLI with dual 295's(4 gpus) it scaled worse than a single 295. Iwas gonna get two asus ares but I feel those four gpu's would drop performance. This question is for those who know. Opinions are opinions. Do 4 GPUs scale worse for you? Will dual 480's be a much smoother run? I know they sent released but you get my idea.

Just get a single 5970.

 

[Lonyo]

Overall, users are better off buying two 5870s than two 5970s since the FPS difference is insignificant while gaming, as seen above...anything over 120 fps is a breeze to play..there's no need for 2 5970s I think...The GTX 480s might have some advantage in SLI performance in Crysis....I expect SLI scores to be around 85 fps for Crysis for the GTX 480 at 1920x1080.

The question is, are some of those titles becoming CPU limited, are the problems driver issues etc.
It could be that higher end scaling problems have been somewhat resolved by driver updates, or it could be that the problem is the CPU, but without something of roughly equal performance to compare to, it's difficult to draw conclusions.

Also you didn't link your source for those graphs, which makes it difficult to look at what they were testing with.

Certainly when NV come out with a higher performing product it might be easier to see if we are hitting CPU limits in some games or whether it's still a GPU/scaling issue.

 

[Apocalypse23]

The question is, are some of those titles becoming CPU limited, are the problems driver issues etc.
It could be that higher end scaling problems have been somewhat resolved by driver updates, or it could be that the problem is the CPU, but without something of roughly equal performance to compare to, it's difficult to draw conclusions.

Also you didn't link your source for those graphs, which makes it difficult to look at what they were testing with.

Certainly when NV come out with a higher performing product it might be easier to see if we are hitting CPU limits in some games or whether it's still a GPU/scaling issue.

Links:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_5970_CrossFire/7.html
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_5970_CrossFire/3.html

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-5970-review-test/23
http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-5970-review-test/24

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-5870-crossfirex-test-review/

 

[Lonyo]

Links:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_5970_CrossFire/7.html
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_5970_CrossFire/3.html

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-5970-review-test/23
http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-5970-review-test/24

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-5870-crossfirex-test-review/

Interesting, Crysis looks like it's definitely CPU limited at those resolutions.
Since it manages ~100fps average at 1024x768 and 1280x1024, it looks like that is a CPU limit, and the difference at 1680x1050 and 1920x1200 is mainly likely due to it being less CPU limited sometimes (meaning the min FPS is probably lower) but the upper bound is limited by the CPU so the overall average drops.

Who would have thought it, CPU limited in Crysis at 1920x1200 with a 3.8GHz quad core CPU.
FPS graphs for that setup would certainly be interesting, as would minimum FPS.
Also very odd that there are no Crossfire numbers for 2560x1600... that would be where the difference might be expect to appear.

Either that or Crossfire scaling is absolutely broken in Crysis, but that's where the 2560x1600 numbers would have answered the question, as would minimum FPS and FPS graphics ([H] style).
And given the lack of a score at 2560, it is possible there is a Crossfire/scaling issue, although it already scales with two GPUs on the same card, so...

 

[mgon154]

Thanks guys. I hope I understand everything alright.

 

[canDarian]

For future reference

Summary and Conclusion Assuming you are running a contemporary benchmark or PC game at 2560 X 1600 (in my opinion, the resolution these high end cards are made for and are way overkill for anything less than that) and reasonable levels of antialiasing:

- A stock I7 920 is no better than a highly overclocked one if you are using a single card solution.

- A 5970 is roughly 30% faster than a GTX 480.

For a multi GPU GTX 480 or Radeon 5970 set up running with an I7 920, CPU frequencies will have no affect beyond 3.9 GHZ. At 3.9 GHZ or higher CPU frequencies:

- Dual SLI is 80% faster than single card.

- Tri SLI is 33% faster than dual SLI.

- Crossfire is 52% faster than single card.

- 5970 Crossfire is 7% faster than GTX 480 SLI.

- GTX 480 Tri SLI is 22% faster than 5970 Crossfire.

Overclocking an I7 920 from Stock 2.67 GHZ to about 3.9 GHZ will result in:

- A 7% improvement in Dual SLI.

- A 13% improvement in Quadfire.

- A 13% improvement in Tri SLI.

The above mentioned points are solely based on raw numbers. When it comes to a practical benchmarking experience, I would say that I have enjoyed working with nvidia cards a lot more than with ATI. In my opinion and according to my experience, nvidia drivers are much more mature, polished, and user friendly than ATI's. Both nvidia and ATI have game related bugs but nvidia is again superior in this regard. An example would be how several game menus lag ridiculously when AA is applied with 5970. Dirt 2 is an example, and so is Tom Clancy's HAWX (not included in this article). This is not the issue with nvidia cards. Similarly, microstuttering (Far Cry 2, HAWX) is a much more pronounced phenomenon with the 5970s than with 480s. As a matter of fact, I have never seen Far Cry 2 (2560 X 1600, 8XAA) so silky smooth and totally micorstutter free as I have with the GTX 480s and the new nvidia drivers. I hope that one day these issues will be sorted.

This is it for now. Thanks for reading this article!

Compliments of http://benchmarkextreme.com

 

[happy medium]

900$ gtx 480 in sli is best bang for the buck.

 

[bryanW1995]

I agree, it's not much more than a single 5970 and will give you some great performance.

Interesting note on what canDarian said: I used to have some pretty serious menu lag on titan quest with my 4850. the day I installed my gtx 260 it completely went away. I just assumed at the time that it was the card and not the drivers that made the difference.

 

[Skurge]

The OP's last post was almost 5months ago. I think he already picked something.

 

[lsv]

900$ gtx 480 in sli is best bang for the buck.

shazam

 

[james1701]

One thing to keep in mind, Ares is two 5870's on one card. They perform better than a 5970. From a lot of tests, it looks like the best bang for the buck on ATI cards would be 1 Ares, and another 5870 for Tri Fire. I would not spend all that money on two Ares cards, unless I just wanted the bling factor.

 

[canDarian]

The second the Ares is released i'll have it AMD drivers have always been a little wonky,my computers green to so hurry up Nvidia and Asus :sneaky:

Theres a few pics D: