Ok let me say that for months I've been toying with the idea of dropping my Tri-fire setup in favor of a 5870.
Reasons:
Heat- My room is friggin hot after a few hours of gaming
Power- trifire was over 350w at idle and 600+ at load(just going by what my Battery backup is telling me, only the tower is plugged in).
Microstutter- Crossfire is noticeably "smoother" than Sli. Of course this is subjective and only pertains to the individual. However, I have had many Sli setups and microstutter was always something I gripped about.
Dx 11- hardly of merit now but it will be. I just like saying that I have a DX11 compatible card.
I ran a few benchies
2560x1600 4xAA 16 AF
Trifire
Batman - min 40 ave 92 max 128
Hawx (10.1)- ave 67 max 278
Far cry 2(dx 10) Min 52 ave 65 max 93
5870
Batman- min 40 ave 61 max 79
Hawx(10.1)- ave 67 max 208
Far Cry 2(dx10)- min 36 ave 52 max 79
Ok, so it's obvious there is a loss in performance right? What isn't obvious is that from the seat of my pants they are nearly equal.
I would "have" to use v sync on the crossfire setup or my eyes would see all the little hiccups associated with multi gpu. To be fair, it was this way with Sli too for me. Don't get me wrong, I love vsync anyhow cause it eliminates tearing (another iq degreadation) and the input lag associated with it is far less noticeable or bothersome to me as tearing and microstutter. I still plan on using vsync if performance is there but single gpu has way less tearing anyways.
My power savings are unbelieavable!!
600w+ at load to 365w. Do the math
Idle went from about 350w to 165w.
All things aside this was a side grade in the performance department with the nod to the trifre setup. From a greener(energy not nV lol) perspective this was a major upgrade.
Honestly, I'm sure i will go back to Crossfire when I need to but for now I'm good.
Ok, now for the Mumbo Jumbo that I left out of my mini- review. I thought i got a defective card. I managed to score a reference XFX 5870 on newegg the other day. I got raped on the price $420 but it was "payment" for painting a house so i didn't care what the cost was.
I was too lazy to uninstall the drivers from my 4800's. After benching I just pulled the cards and put in the new one. I figured the worst thing that would happen is a i would have to reboot a couple times.
For 2 hours I had artifacts at idle in "2d". I would get a flashing blue or green line in "3d".
My clocks speeds were all fuggged up. They were the same as the idle and load speeds as one of the Gpu's on the hd 4870x2.
I unistalled and downloaded the preview 10.4. Same problem. Reverted back to 10.3a same problem. Downloaded driver cleaner and installed whql 10.3. fixed. I"m sure it was running driver cleaner that fixed things but I'm done screwing with it for now.
I hope this helps some people =)
Reasons:
Heat- My room is friggin hot after a few hours of gaming
Power- trifire was over 350w at idle and 600+ at load(just going by what my Battery backup is telling me, only the tower is plugged in).
Microstutter- Crossfire is noticeably "smoother" than Sli. Of course this is subjective and only pertains to the individual. However, I have had many Sli setups and microstutter was always something I gripped about.
Dx 11- hardly of merit now but it will be. I just like saying that I have a DX11 compatible card.
I ran a few benchies
2560x1600 4xAA 16 AF
Trifire
Batman - min 40 ave 92 max 128
Hawx (10.1)- ave 67 max 278
Far cry 2(dx 10) Min 52 ave 65 max 93
5870
Batman- min 40 ave 61 max 79
Hawx(10.1)- ave 67 max 208
Far Cry 2(dx10)- min 36 ave 52 max 79
Ok, so it's obvious there is a loss in performance right? What isn't obvious is that from the seat of my pants they are nearly equal.
I would "have" to use v sync on the crossfire setup or my eyes would see all the little hiccups associated with multi gpu. To be fair, it was this way with Sli too for me. Don't get me wrong, I love vsync anyhow cause it eliminates tearing (another iq degreadation) and the input lag associated with it is far less noticeable or bothersome to me as tearing and microstutter. I still plan on using vsync if performance is there but single gpu has way less tearing anyways.
My power savings are unbelieavable!!
600w+ at load to 365w. Do the math
Idle went from about 350w to 165w.
All things aside this was a side grade in the performance department with the nod to the trifre setup. From a greener(energy not nV lol) perspective this was a major upgrade.
Honestly, I'm sure i will go back to Crossfire when I need to but for now I'm good.
Ok, now for the Mumbo Jumbo that I left out of my mini- review. I thought i got a defective card. I managed to score a reference XFX 5870 on newegg the other day. I got raped on the price $420 but it was "payment" for painting a house so i didn't care what the cost was.
I was too lazy to uninstall the drivers from my 4800's. After benching I just pulled the cards and put in the new one. I figured the worst thing that would happen is a i would have to reboot a couple times.
For 2 hours I had artifacts at idle in "2d". I would get a flashing blue or green line in "3d".
My clocks speeds were all fuggged up. They were the same as the idle and load speeds as one of the Gpu's on the hd 4870x2.
I unistalled and downloaded the preview 10.4. Same problem. Reverted back to 10.3a same problem. Downloaded driver cleaner and installed whql 10.3. fixed. I"m sure it was running driver cleaner that fixed things but I'm done screwing with it for now.
I hope this helps some people =)
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