Moral Dilemma...Or Is It?

[Terronium 12]

Dilemma No Longer...

Before going in to the actual topic at hand remove from your mind the likes of DX11 (I don't have any DX11-compatible games yet anyway). I'll be putting together a new rig sometime later this year (probably around Christmas time) and by then Southern Islands will be on the market, so I want to upgrade my aging 4870 for, get this, two 4870 X2's for the price of one 6950 (1GB). It sounds a bit backwards I'm aware as I can't think of a way to explain it...at least not the way it's making sense to me. In any case anyone know of any places other than online auctions where I could find X2's (preferably two, but one will suffice) for around or cheaper than I've found them?

Oh, the price of the auction I'm mulling over is $225. The single X2's are around $150-180. For the single cards it makes more sense as I can't think of a single card that's faster for the price.

 

[Ivan the SoSo]

I'm not really impressed with the 6XXX series, but they do scale better than the 4XXX series..... That said if you get the 4870X2's they may or not work well with your games... resale value will be low and worse when the 7XXX's come out. Depending on your game(ie GTA4) you will not see much improvement due to CPU/hard drive bottleneck..... maybe instead a single 4870/4890/4870X2 with your existing 4870? At least till something new catches your eye

Have you considered the 5XXX series? Prices should fall soon....

 

[Terronium 12]

I was considering two 5770's but from all of the benchmarks I've seen it's no better than, or on par with a single 6950. It is cheaper and great bang for the buck though, but I'm curious, why are you disappointed with the 6000-series?

As for the games I'm playing or will be playing: Crysis, F1 2010, NFS Hot Pursuit, TDU 2, Crysis 2 (haven't picked it up yet), Lost Planet, FEAR (non issue), Dead Space 2...and a few others.

 

[Zepher]

If you run 2 4870x2 cards, you may need more than that 1K PSU you have.
Looks like those cards can consume up to 381watts each.

And from a few forums I just read, going from a 4870x2 to a 6950 made a huge difference in games. They played smoother and were much quieter.

 

[Terronium 12]

The HX can handle two X2's without breaking much of a sweat. But if I do end up with an X2 I'll just be getting one to pair off with my 4870. If I don't...I'm pretty sure I'll be going with two 5770's. I'm not really looking to spend $300, $400 on a video card with Southern Islands so close.

 

[Zepher]

It looks like 2 new 5770's are almost the same price as a 6950. I would go with the 6950 since it gives you the option to add another one in the future.

 

[Ivan the SoSo]

The 6XXX series is more efficient than the 5XXX, but uses less cores for the comparable card....that makes them some what parallel + the 6XXX doesn't seem to offer much of a bump in performance or any new features....at least any worth an upgrade for.... I hope the 7XXX will be more performance oriented.

As for the games you play I have heard that they crossfire well....

I did recently upgrade from a 4890 to a 5850...Now this is what I noticed...GTA San Andreas: The zebra stripes on distant objects disappeared....GTA 4 peak frame rates went down, but there is a less dramatic difference between the highs and lows/no slowdowns..but, I'll go out on a limb and say my CPU is the bottleneck in my system

The card cost $139 at the Egg but is now discontinued So unless you can find a deal, crossfire with your existing card will be the cheapest option/also from my experience my single 5850 is bottlenecked/ two X2's will heat the house, but probably not game much better than a single X2.....SSD and a i7/bulldozer in the future?

 

[Terronium 12]

It looks like 2 new 5770's are almost the same price as a 6950. I would go with the 6950 since it gives you the option to add another one in the future.

That's another unique problem.

I could also pick up the 2GB 6950 and flash it. A bit too many options for me.

The 6XXX series is more efficient than the 5XXX, but uses less cores for the comparable card....that makes them some what parallel + the 6XXX doesn't seem to offer much of a bump in performance or any new features....at least any worth an upgrade for.... I hope the 7XXX will be more performance oriented.

As for the games you play I have heard that they crossfire well....

I did recently upgrade from a 4890 to a 5850...Now this is what I noticed...GTA San Andreas: The zebra stripes on distant objects disappeared....GTA 4 peak frame rates went down, but there is a less dramatic difference between the highs and lows/no slowdowns..but, I'll go out on a limb and say my CPU is the bottleneck in my system

The card cost $139 at the Egg but is now discontinued So unless you can find a deal, crossfire with your existing card will be the cheapest option/also from my experience my single 5850 is bottlenecked/ two X2's will heat the house, but probably not game much better than a single X2.....SSD and a i7/bulldozer in the future?

When I jump ship I'm either going with i5 or i7. And there's one 5850 left at the 'egg, costs $184.99. Tell me you're not going to suggest that...I've already got enough on my plate as is. Lol.

 

[Ivan the SoSo]

It looks like 2 new 5770's are almost the same price as a 6950. I would go with the 6950 since it gives you the option to add another one in the future.

That's another unique problem.

I could also pick up the 2GB 6950 and flash it. A bit too many options for me.

That would work great...if the disabled core had nothing wrong with it...if it did...well

 

[Terronium 12]

If that happened I could switch to the backup BIOS.

If that weren't the case I'd kill myself. Lulz.

 

[smarteyeball]

Moral Dilemma...Or Is It?

No, it's not a moral dilemma. It's just a dilemma

Save yourself the headache of an x2 card / Crossfire setup and grab a 6950.

Driver support for the 4870x2 is poor and so is the scaling.

You'd have less grief and overall smoother gameplay from a single card than a tri/quad setup, even if it's 'outperformed' on benchmarks.

 

[Terronium 12]

Moral Dilemma...Or Is It?

No, it's not a moral dilemma. It's just a dilemma

Save yourself the headache of an x2 card / Crossfire setup and grab a 6950.

Driver support for the 4870x2 is poor and so is the scaling.

You'd have less grief and overall smoother gameplay from a single card than a tri/quad setup, even if it's 'outperformed' on benchmarks.

So you think I should forego the 5770's altogether?

 

[Ivan the SoSo]

$185/ not a bad price, but as I said the screaming deal is gone....The cheapest option would be a Ebay 4870 or 4890... I was going to get another 4890, but the wife's card died so I upgraded everybody....2 4870's would be about equal to a 5770 pair with only one card to buy....Graphics Card Hierarchy Chart : Best Graphics Cards For The Money: April 2011 Only the 6990/5970/6970 being faster.....

You can crossfire the same series/ the faster card just runs at the slower card's speed....

 

[smarteyeball]

Honestly? Yes.

Before I went to a single 580, I've had 4850, 4890 and 5970 crossfire setups and the 'raw' FPS may have been there, but overall it wasn't worth the trade off in choppy gameplay and glitches.

Games that work well with crossfire are the exception and not the rule. Crossfire scaling on the 5xxx series is also pretty poor.

Plus some of the 'crossfire fixes' that AMD implement are to simply disable GPUS, so for those games you're back to using a single card anyway.

 

[Terronium 12]

$185/ not a bad price, but as I said the screaming deal is gone....The cheapest option would be a Ebay 4870 or 4890... I was going to get another 4890, but the wife's card died so I upgraded everybody....2 4870's would be about equal to a 5770 pair with only one card to buy....Graphics Card Hierarchy Chart : Best Graphics Cards For The Money: April 2011 Only the 6990/5970/6970 being faster.....

You can crossfire the same series/ the faster card just runs at the slower card's speed....

So according to the hierachy chart, both the 6950 and X2 are proper upgrades for me at this juncture. However, the X2 is one tier higher (which I have absolutely no reason to doubt when raw power is factored) and is only bettered by the 5970 and 6990, neither of which I can actually afford without having to bring in a second party. The 6970 is the only other card on par with the X2...at least according to the chart. So, it seems the X2 would be the biggest bang for my buck.

Which brings me to this...

Honestly? Yes.

Before I went to a single 580, I've had 4850, 4890 and 5970 crossfire setups and the 'raw' FPS may have been there, but overall it wasn't worth the trade off in choppy gameplay and glitches.

Games that work well with crossfire are the exception and not the rule. Crossfire scaling on the 5xxx series is also pretty poor.

Plus some of the 'crossfire fixes' that AMD implement are to simply disable GPUS, so for those games you're back to using a single card anyway.

...It seems you're essentially telling me that even at it's ridiculously cheap price, the X2 is still an unwise purchase? I can do without DX11 until I've properly upgraded my entire rig later this year...but for the money it seems like a practical no-brainer to me. I'm not being argumentative or anything but there's the possibility that the 6950 won't flash, and if it does there's the possibility that the performanced was capped off for a reason. Whereas with the X2 it's a surefire thing.

At least it's narrowed down now. Appreciate all the help...now there's the home stretch; do I spend $130, $140-something for the X2 or do I slap on an additional $120+ for the 6950?

 

[Ivan the SoSo]

Honestly? Yes.

Before I went to a single 580, I've had 4850, 4890 and 5970 crossfire setups and the 'raw' FPS may have been there, but overall it wasn't worth the trade off in choppy gameplay and glitches.

Games that work well with crossfire are the exception and not the rule. Crossfire scaling on the 5xxx series is also pretty poor.

Plus some of the 'crossfire fixes' that AMD implement are to simply disable GPUS, so for those games you're back to using a single card anyway.

All that is true enough/ but the op stated he wanted to wait for the 7XXX/southern islands to come out, before doing a major upgrade

Also his cpu runs stock at 2.4 gig I don't think it can feed the monster....

 

[Terronium 12]

All that is true enough/ but the op stated he wanted to wait for the 7XXX/southern islands to come out, before doing a major upgrade

Also his cpu runs stock at 2.4 gig I don't think it can feed the monster....

Now what in the world gave you that idea?

It's running at 2.7 right now but I can do at least 3.3, I just need to remember what settings I used...

 

[Ivan the SoSo]

I have a X2 that would do a easy 3.8 on air stock voltage, stock cooler/ but the X4 I'm running now has a fit at 3.6( a .2 overclock) so you can't always count on overclocking....but 3.0 or better would be a big help, just keep in mind those big numbers are usually backed with a i7 at 4.0 or better

I just noticed the 5850 was a Gigabyte card/ not good /reviews stated a lot of people had to flash the card....void the warranty, or live with a dog of a card....

I guess you will have to jump on the X2 or it will be gone soon...if not keep a eye on the Egg sometimes a great deal will show up.....just not any around now

 

[smarteyeball]

...It seems you're essentially telling me that even at it's ridiculously cheap price, the X2 is still an unwise purchase?

It's not really the best tbh.

Whereas with the X2 it's a surefire thing.

But only when it works. TDU2 was one of those games where the 'fix' was to disable GPUS.

At least it's narrowed down now. Appreciate all the help...now there's the home stretch; do I spend $130, $140-something for the X2 or do I slap on an additional $120+ for the 6950?

Ultimately it's your choice - a cheap stop gap that will give you a noticeable boost here and there, yet not at all in others vs spending more for an improvement overall.

Realistically, how long will it be before you upgrade everything? - If it's only a few more months, then stick with your original idea. You can get a taste of CF for yourself. YMMV.

If it's longer than a few months, spending a bit more now will still give you considerably more performance than you do now with less annoyances overall for a longer period of time.

Crossfire is great - when it works - but from my prolonged personal experience with it, the cons outweigh the pros.



And regardless of 6950/4870 TRI-Fire, your cards will benefit from a CPU OC.

 

[Terronium 12]

Only going to be for a few months. At the absolute earliest I'll start the overhaul come September or October, at the absolute latest it'll be toward November or December. I've only messed around with CF once and that was with the 1900XTX - right after ATI released the CCC/3200 chipset that enabled software CF.

I'm going to pair it with my 4870 and I already know of a few games in my collection that will benefit from the additional headroom. Once I get this thing stable at 3.3G again I should be golden until it's time for the overhaul.