Where's the 5870 Crossfire discussions?

moshpit · Oct 21, 2009, 06:25 PM

Long post alert!!!

Come on guys! Here we have the newest bad boy GPU on the block, and I don't see any discussion threads about people's impressions of this amazing chip when you pair 2 of them together. My pair arrived yesterday, and the first thing I did was throw them in side by side and pray Crossfire is forgiving enough to let me get away with that. Well, it is that forgiving, plus some.

I had some initial issues that most may not encounter, but they were easily fixed once I figured out what was up. Initial install went perfectly, everything booted up fine, Windows loaded up (I had already uninstalled the Nvidia drivers from the GTX295 that had been in there), and proceeded to load the drivers that AMD had listed for 5870. Those loaded just fine and first time into Control Panel showed CrossfireX already enabled! Wow! That was easy!

Then came the problem. I started up 3Dmark03 as the warm up test. As soon as the benchmark went to the first loading screen, there was an odd flickering moving up and down the screen in bands of lighter and darker areas that kept going right into the benchmark itself. My heart sank and I aborted the benchmark to think about it. So I then bucked up and decided that the install had been too painless for there to be a hardware problem and then tried 3Dmark05. Same flickering. X3 Terran Conflict rolling demo? Same flicker.

My problem had to be that this was actually the third video card set to rotate through on this new load of Windows. The first set was a single card Diamond Radeon 5870 that failed after 3 days of use. The second set was a single card, dual GPU GTX295. The third set being the new HIS branded 5870's. I remembered that with the first card though, I had gone in and changed the desktop color settings to lower the brightness. This gave me a clue that maybe those settings were still hidding in the registry and went back to control panel and found that my old settings were indeed there! I zero'ed them out to what would normally be defaults and then tested. Flickering gone in everything.

YAY! SO, they work. Jumped back into 3Dmark03 to see what it scored and seeing a 94K score convinced me that Crossfire was indeed enabled and working. The GTX295 only scored around 75K on the same rig. A single 5870 scored around 64K. A near 50% improvement in score shows killer scaling I thought. Sadly though, 3Dmark 05 and 06 don't scale as well at all. In 3Dmark 05, I gain 1000 points over the GTX295, and in 06, only 100 points! That was a tad dissapointing, but it's 3Dmark, so not too much of a solid indicator to begin with, so I moved on.

Next up, Farcry 2. Now this one screamed through the benchmark the first time, averaging 152fps with the highest settings. That seemed too good to be true. And it was. This is Farcry. AA is a must. No AA means not valid run. I enabled 4xAA. 150fps. Wow. 2 fps drop and indeed, 4xAA was visibly working in the benchmark run. So I bumped it up a bit. 4xAA Narrow Tent (12 samples). This put a more understandable hurt on it. 114 fps. Keep in mind this is all at 1920x1080. Color me flabberghasted!

Crysis came next, thanks to the helpful suggestion of one of this forums users on how to benchmark it. I ran the GPU test the first time without AA. At 1920x1080, it averaged 64FPS, low of 34. VERY nice. Never dropped below the 30 barrier. Almost all settings at very high except post-processing which irritates me at higher settings. Adding 4xAA dropped it down to a 59 average and 30 flat minimum. Any changes to the AA mode resulted in minimums below 30.

World in Conflict. WOW. I use that word alot in describing these cards together. I know. But it's a reoccurring theme for me when working with them. Just WOW. Now this one is less forgiving of AA at my native resolution, but still though, to see frame rates exceed 100 fps in many of the scenes was exciting to see, and even the very worst of the nuke scene only reduced the frame rate to 30 as long as no AA was part of the equation.

Now here's one that I'm still trying to get my head around though. Dawn of War 2. I've seen everywhere online that Radeon's in Crossfire get nothing for this game. And maybe in the canned benchmark it comes with, they don't. But in regular gameplay, just from a user perspective point of view, it just feels smoother with Crossfire 5870's then either the GTX295 or the single 5870. This is with everything and the kitchen sink thrown at it for AA and AF.

Everything else I've thrown at this setup, Call of Juarez demo, X3 Terran Conflict rolling demo, Tropics 1.1, all of them run like greased lightning. The last thing I have to check and haven't yet is Wolfenstein. I haven't even looked at that game yet even though it's been in my Steam list for a week now almost.

So, in closing, I love my Crossfire'd 5870's. I know the drivers are still VERY immature and great things are yet to come, but just the initial kick in the seat these give to gaming is welcomed indeed!

Chaos · Oct 21, 2009, 06:53 PM

just finding 2 in the same place right now can be a bitch. I grabbed the 5850 and may grab a second one as well if i sell my 4870X2. I love the reduced power consumption, especially at idle. The 4870X2 can easily heat a small room by itself.

Zardon · Oct 21, 2009, 07:19 PM

great post, really pleased to see someone genuinely excited about their setup.

moshpit · Oct 21, 2009, 07:35 PM

Oh I'm definately genuinely excited about this setup. I can honestly say it's the best all-around build I've ever put together. I've put together better overclockers, my last 3 were 50% over stock on air, but this one packs so much punch at stock I'm having problems convincing myself to spend any time on overclocking anything. I've briefly tested my CPU at 4019mhz, just to see if 4Ghz was easily possible, and it is. But running that way is totally unnecessary for my performance needs. It's great!

Zardon · Oct 21, 2009, 07:40 PM

You certainly selected the components well, its a wicked setup. Health to enjoy it.

moshpit · Oct 21, 2009, 07:43 PM

Thank you

DJ BIG T · Oct 21, 2009, 09:00 PM

congrats on the new set up man..

Judas · Oct 21, 2009, 09:51 PM

I'd have a bitchen 5870's in crossfire... but.. i can't afford it..

and i've the DH/AMD supplied Asus triple fan HD4870x2 2gb yet chewing through things like butter yet @ 2048x1152

SeraphicSorcerer · Oct 21, 2009, 10:10 PM

Congrats on your setup I am persoinally waiting for the 5890, or the 5870x2

moshpit · Oct 21, 2009, 10:47 PM

I agree that the 5870x2/5900 cards will have to rock. Just going by what 2 cards do, 2 chips on the same card should really fly!

SeraphicSorcerer · Oct 21, 2009, 11:49 PM

So will I need to upgrade my PSU to crossfire, or use a 5870x2?

Currently on a 600 Watt... Only has 2 PCIE 6 pin connectors... (can get the adapters though)

I'm currently running a single 4870.

moshpit · Oct 21, 2009, 11:58 PM

The lack of native PCIe connectors made me too skittish to try Crossfire or SLI for years. That's why I went with the PSU I picked for this upgrade, to give me that option finally. A 600 watt, on it's own, should cut it okay. Even in my highly modded Dawn of War 2 game, on Farcry 2 with tons of AA/AF thrown on, my wall meter only shows a peak of 400 watts total system power in use.

**kris23** · Oct 22, 2009, 12:13 AM

im tempted to buy a pair of 5850s or 5870s now.......

someone slap me and tell me to wait for the X2s...... PLEASE

SeraphicSorcerer · Oct 22, 2009, 12:17 AM

*slaps you, Buy 2 5870x2s And call it a day.
Just a month or two more man!!! :P

**kris23** · Oct 22, 2009, 12:19 AM

thank you.....

isaak · Oct 22, 2009, 07:41 AM

very nice setups and good to hear your thoughts...pretty ultimate setups you have

what happend to the "old" GTX295

SeraphicSorcerer · Oct 22, 2009, 05:32 PM

isaak, if I didn't know better I'd say you were practically asking for it, hahaha.

DJ BIG T · Oct 22, 2009, 05:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kris23

im tempted to buy a pair of 5850s or 5870s now.......

someone slap me and tell me to wait for the X2s...... PLEASE

just hang in their kris for the x2..

moshpit · Oct 22, 2009, 09:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by isaak

very nice setups and good to hear your thoughts...pretty ultimate setups you have

what happend to the "old" GTX295

It went back to Fry's today. Another Patriot Torqx came home with me instead

BigBodZod · Oct 25, 2009, 10:51 PM

I try to stay away from candy stores like Fry's as much as I can, otherwise I would be in debt up to my eyeballs if I didn't do this

I'm playing the waiting game for either the 5870x2 or hopefully they will have a 5890 available

moshpit · Oct 26, 2009, 06:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigBodZod

I try to stay away from candy stores like Fry's as much as I can, otherwise I would be in debt up to my eyeballs if I didn't do this

I'm playing the waiting game for either the 5870x2 or hopefully they will have a 5890 available

The thing I'm really waiting for is the P55 boards with the Lucid Hydra on it for better scaling then CrossfireX. Cannot wait to see what it can do with my pair o' cards.

Oct 21, 2009, 06:25 PM	#1
moshpit DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Pit, pit, pit, in the pit! Posts: 71 Rep Power: 41 System Specs	Where's the 5870 Crossfire discussions? Long post alert!!! Come on guys! Here we have the newest bad boy GPU on the block, and I don't see any discussion threads about people's impressions of this amazing chip when you pair 2 of them together. My pair arrived yesterday, and the first thing I did was throw them in side by side and pray Crossfire is forgiving enough to let me get away with that. Well, it is that forgiving, plus some. I had some initial issues that most may not encounter, but they were easily fixed once I figured out what was up. Initial install went perfectly, everything booted up fine, Windows loaded up (I had already uninstalled the Nvidia drivers from the GTX295 that had been in there), and proceeded to load the drivers that AMD had listed for 5870. Those loaded just fine and first time into Control Panel showed CrossfireX already enabled! Wow! That was easy! Then came the problem. I started up 3Dmark03 as the warm up test. As soon as the benchmark went to the first loading screen, there was an odd flickering moving up and down the screen in bands of lighter and darker areas that kept going right into the benchmark itself. My heart sank and I aborted the benchmark to think about it. So I then bucked up and decided that the install had been too painless for there to be a hardware problem and then tried 3Dmark05. Same flickering. X3 Terran Conflict rolling demo? Same flicker. My problem had to be that this was actually the third video card set to rotate through on this new load of Windows. The first set was a single card Diamond Radeon 5870 that failed after 3 days of use. The second set was a single card, dual GPU GTX295. The third set being the new HIS branded 5870's. I remembered that with the first card though, I had gone in and changed the desktop color settings to lower the brightness. This gave me a clue that maybe those settings were still hidding in the registry and went back to control panel and found that my old settings were indeed there! I zero'ed them out to what would normally be defaults and then tested. Flickering gone in everything. YAY! SO, they work. Jumped back into 3Dmark03 to see what it scored and seeing a 94K score convinced me that Crossfire was indeed enabled and working. The GTX295 only scored around 75K on the same rig. A single 5870 scored around 64K. A near 50% improvement in score shows killer scaling I thought. Sadly though, 3Dmark 05 and 06 don't scale as well at all. In 3Dmark 05, I gain 1000 points over the GTX295, and in 06, only 100 points! That was a tad dissapointing, but it's 3Dmark, so not too much of a solid indicator to begin with, so I moved on. Next up, Farcry 2. Now this one screamed through the benchmark the first time, averaging 152fps with the highest settings. That seemed too good to be true. And it was. This is Farcry. AA is a must. No AA means not valid run. I enabled 4xAA. 150fps. Wow. 2 fps drop and indeed, 4xAA was visibly working in the benchmark run. So I bumped it up a bit. 4xAA Narrow Tent (12 samples). This put a more understandable hurt on it. 114 fps. Keep in mind this is all at 1920x1080. Color me flabberghasted! Crysis came next, thanks to the helpful suggestion of one of this forums users on how to benchmark it. I ran the GPU test the first time without AA. At 1920x1080, it averaged 64FPS, low of 34. VERY nice. Never dropped below the 30 barrier. Almost all settings at very high except post-processing which irritates me at higher settings. Adding 4xAA dropped it down to a 59 average and 30 flat minimum. Any changes to the AA mode resulted in minimums below 30. World in Conflict. WOW. I use that word alot in describing these cards together. I know. But it's a reoccurring theme for me when working with them. Just WOW. Now this one is less forgiving of AA at my native resolution, but still though, to see frame rates exceed 100 fps in many of the scenes was exciting to see, and even the very worst of the nuke scene only reduced the frame rate to 30 as long as no AA was part of the equation. Now here's one that I'm still trying to get my head around though. Dawn of War 2. I've seen everywhere online that Radeon's in Crossfire get nothing for this game. And maybe in the canned benchmark it comes with, they don't. But in regular gameplay, just from a user perspective point of view, it just feels smoother with Crossfire 5870's then either the GTX295 or the single 5870. This is with everything and the kitchen sink thrown at it for AA and AF. Everything else I've thrown at this setup, Call of Juarez demo, X3 Terran Conflict rolling demo, Tropics 1.1, all of them run like greased lightning. The last thing I have to check and haven't yet is Wolfenstein. I haven't even looked at that game yet even though it's been in my Steam list for a week now almost. So, in closing, I love my Crossfire'd 5870's. I know the drivers are still VERY immature and great things are yet to come, but just the initial kick in the seat these give to gaming is welcomed indeed! __________________ Ci7 860/8Gb Patriot Viper/EVGA P55 SLI/2x HIS Radeon 5870 CrossfireX/2x Patriot Torqx 128G/750Gb ES.2 Ci7 920@3.6Ghz/6Gb Corsair DDR3 1600/GA-EX58-UD3R/ATI Radeon HD 4870/4x 750Gb Seagate ES.2 (Media Center) C2Q Q6600/4Gb G.Skill Pi Black DDR2 800/IP35 Pro/EVGA 8800GTS 640/2x 200Gb SATA Caviar (wife's rig)

Oct 21, 2009, 06:53 PM	#2
Chaos Number Nine Join Date: May 2002 Location: Nova Scotia Posts: 5,082 Rep Power: 131 System Specs	Re: Where's the 5870 Crossfire discussions? just finding 2 in the same place right now can be a bitch. I grabbed the 5850 and may grab a second one as well if i sell my 4870X2. I love the reduced power consumption, especially at idle. The 4870X2 can easily heat a small room by itself. __________________

Oct 21, 2009, 07:19 PM	#3
Zardon DriverHeaven Founder Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 32,481 Rep Power: 162	Re: Where's the 5870 Crossfire discussions? great post, really pleased to see someone genuinely excited about their setup.

Oct 21, 2009, 07:35 PM	#4
moshpit DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Pit, pit, pit, in the pit! Posts: 71 Rep Power: 41 System Specs	Re: Where's the 5870 Crossfire discussions? Oh I'm definately genuinely excited about this setup. I can honestly say it's the best all-around build I've ever put together. I've put together better overclockers, my last 3 were 50% over stock on air, but this one packs so much punch at stock I'm having problems convincing myself to spend any time on overclocking anything. I've briefly tested my CPU at 4019mhz, just to see if 4Ghz was easily possible, and it is. But running that way is totally unnecessary for my performance needs. It's great! __________________ Ci7 860/8Gb Patriot Viper/EVGA P55 SLI/2x HIS Radeon 5870 CrossfireX/2x Patriot Torqx 128G/750Gb ES.2 Ci7 920@3.6Ghz/6Gb Corsair DDR3 1600/GA-EX58-UD3R/ATI Radeon HD 4870/4x 750Gb Seagate ES.2 (Media Center) C2Q Q6600/4Gb G.Skill Pi Black DDR2 800/IP35 Pro/EVGA 8800GTS 640/2x 200Gb SATA Caviar (wife's rig)

Oct 21, 2009, 07:40 PM	#5
Zardon DriverHeaven Founder Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 32,481 Rep Power: 162	Re: Where's the 5870 Crossfire discussions? You certainly selected the components well, its a wicked setup. Health to enjoy it.

Oct 21, 2009, 07:43 PM	#6
moshpit DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Pit, pit, pit, in the pit! Posts: 71 Rep Power: 41 System Specs	Re: Where's the 5870 Crossfire discussions? Thank you __________________ Ci7 860/8Gb Patriot Viper/EVGA P55 SLI/2x HIS Radeon 5870 CrossfireX/2x Patriot Torqx 128G/750Gb ES.2 Ci7 920@3.6Ghz/6Gb Corsair DDR3 1600/GA-EX58-UD3R/ATI Radeon HD 4870/4x 750Gb Seagate ES.2 (Media Center) C2Q Q6600/4Gb G.Skill Pi Black DDR2 800/IP35 Pro/EVGA 8800GTS 640/2x 200Gb SATA Caviar (wife's rig)

Oct 21, 2009, 09:00 PM	#7
DJ BIG T DH FaN BoY Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: ORLANDO,FL Posts: 908 Rep Power: 56 System Specs	Re: Where's the 5870 Crossfire discussions? congrats on the new set up man.. __________________

Oct 21, 2009, 10:10 PM	#9
SeraphicSorcerer HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Florida Posts: 2,224 Rep Power: 135 System Specs	Re: Where's the 5870 Crossfire discussions? Congrats on your setup I am persoinally waiting for the 5890, or the 5870x2 __________________

Oct 21, 2009, 10:47 PM	#10
moshpit DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Pit, pit, pit, in the pit! Posts: 71 Rep Power: 41 System Specs	Re: Where's the 5870 Crossfire discussions? I agree that the 5870x2/5900 cards will have to rock. Just going by what 2 cards do, 2 chips on the same card should really fly! __________________ Ci7 860/8Gb Patriot Viper/EVGA P55 SLI/2x HIS Radeon 5870 CrossfireX/2x Patriot Torqx 128G/750Gb ES.2 Ci7 920@3.6Ghz/6Gb Corsair DDR3 1600/GA-EX58-UD3R/ATI Radeon HD 4870/4x 750Gb Seagate ES.2 (Media Center) C2Q Q6600/4Gb G.Skill Pi Black DDR2 800/IP35 Pro/EVGA 8800GTS 640/2x 200Gb SATA Caviar (wife's rig)

Oct 21, 2009, 11:49 PM	#11
SeraphicSorcerer HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Florida Posts: 2,224 Rep Power: 135 System Specs	Re: Where's the 5870 Crossfire discussions? So will I need to upgrade my PSU to crossfire, or use a 5870x2? Currently on a 600 Watt... Only has 2 PCIE 6 pin connectors... (can get the adapters though) I'm currently running a single 4870. __________________

Oct 21, 2009, 11:58 PM	#12
moshpit DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Pit, pit, pit, in the pit! Posts: 71 Rep Power: 41 System Specs	Re: Where's the 5870 Crossfire discussions? The lack of native PCIe connectors made me too skittish to try Crossfire or SLI for years. That's why I went with the PSU I picked for this upgrade, to give me that option finally. A 600 watt, on it's own, should cut it okay. Even in my highly modded Dawn of War 2 game, on Farcry 2 with tons of AA/AF thrown on, my wall meter only shows a peak of 400 watts total system power in use. __________________ Ci7 860/8Gb Patriot Viper/EVGA P55 SLI/2x HIS Radeon 5870 CrossfireX/2x Patriot Torqx 128G/750Gb ES.2 Ci7 920@3.6Ghz/6Gb Corsair DDR3 1600/GA-EX58-UD3R/ATI Radeon HD 4870/4x 750Gb Seagate ES.2 (Media Center) C2Q Q6600/4Gb G.Skill Pi Black DDR2 800/IP35 Pro/EVGA 8800GTS 640/2x 200Gb SATA Caviar (wife's rig)

Oct 22, 2009, 12:13 AM	#13
kris23 Going Insane..... Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Los Angeles Posts: 5,386 Rep Power: 76 System Specs	Re: Where's the 5870 Crossfire discussions? im tempted to buy a pair of 5850s or 5870s now....... someone slap me and tell me to wait for the X2s...... PLEASE __________________ Driverheaven Super-Moderator Building a new computer system and not sure where to start? Click Here! last updated (9/4/09) New i5 systems with more to come! Building a PC: Step by Step Guide Written by Kristopher Pedemonte and Nathan Marks-Forder Edited by Allan Campbell Questions or Comments? feel free to post them in the forums!

Oct 22, 2009, 12:17 AM	#14
SeraphicSorcerer HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Florida Posts: 2,224 Rep Power: 135 System Specs	Re: Where's the 5870 Crossfire discussions? *slaps you, Buy 2 5870x2s And call it a day. Just a month or two more man!!! :P __________________

Oct 22, 2009, 12:19 AM	#15
kris23 Going Insane..... Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Los Angeles Posts: 5,386 Rep Power: 76 System Specs	Re: Where's the 5870 Crossfire discussions? thank you..... __________________ Driverheaven Super-Moderator Building a new computer system and not sure where to start? Click Here! last updated (9/4/09) New i5 systems with more to come! Building a PC: Step by Step Guide Written by Kristopher Pedemonte and Nathan Marks-Forder Edited by Allan Campbell Questions or Comments? feel free to post them in the forums!

Oct 22, 2009, 07:41 AM	#16
isaak HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2008 Posts: 1,442 Rep Power: 42 System Specs	Re: Where's the 5870 Crossfire discussions? very nice setups and good to hear your thoughts...pretty ultimate setups you have what happend to the "old" GTX295 __________________ Q9450 @ 3.2GHz ~ P5K Pro ~ 6GB @ 961MHz ~ 4870 512MB ~ 60GB Vertex SSD + 1.32TB ~ Antec 650W ~ CoolerMaster HAF932 Intel Atom 330 @ 1.6Hz ~ Zotac IONITX-G-E ~ 2GB @ 800MHz ~ nVidia Ion ~ 1TB ~ Generic 300W ~ Custom Lego

Oct 22, 2009, 05:32 PM	#17
SeraphicSorcerer HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Florida Posts: 2,224 Rep Power: 135 System Specs	Re: Where's the 5870 Crossfire discussions? isaak, if I didn't know better I'd say you were practically asking for it, hahaha. __________________

Oct 25, 2009, 10:51 PM	#20
BigBodZod HardwareHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 43 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	Re: Where's the 5870 Crossfire discussions? I try to stay away from candy stores like Fry's as much as I can, otherwise I would be in debt up to my eyeballs if I didn't do this I'm playing the waiting game for either the 5870x2 or hopefully they will have a 5890 available