5870 Trifire vs 5970 Quadfire Performance vs Noise

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Mpyra

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I have a very simple problem, i would like the most maximally performing graphics cards that produces as little noise as possible, so i have decided on the ATI 5000 series, but i do not know which of these two configurations would perform the best, what games i play are only crysis right now, and later this year crysis 2, but that is all for me, i just need the graphics cards to be as much performing as possible, but not being very loud.

So which of these would be of the best? and i do not wish to watercool, or overclock if it does make too much more noise, if it is happening that by overclocking the 5870's they are beating the 5970's on stock clocks, but are quieter then this would be good, but there cards are closely matched.

There is also to consider which cards do have the most attuned driver support for playing crysis and crysis warhead, i have never found any benchmarks for crysis with 5970 quadfire where the thrid and fourth gpus would be active, if anyone does have such benchmarks at the resolution of 1920x1080, i would be much pleased to utilise them.

now here i concluded with a chart whcih may be of some use in determining the noise levels of the cards that it is we are questioning, here:

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Let me get this straight...you honestly think you need FOUR Cypress GPU's to play Crysis at 1920x1080?!?

I have 3 1920x1080 monitors in Eyefinity on a single 5870, stock clocked. I can play pretty much anything short of Crysis at maximum settings at the full 3x1920x1080 resolution. Crysis runs pretty well with some of the volumetric and shadow effects lowered. However, on a single monitor a single 5870 can put out full settings at 2x AA. A single 5970 would most likely handle 8x AA on a single monitor.

I'd go with a 5970 if you want to play Crysis, but just a single 5970. If you need more performance down the road (should you get 2 more monitors or games get a lot more graphically intense) you can buy another one then as the price will have dropped significantly. In fact, I'd just go with a 5870, while the 5970 has two GPU's, both are underclocked and you have to mod it to get stock 5870 performance out of each GPU. One overclocked 5870 may perform similarly to a stock 5970 if you do it right.

I run my fan around 50%, at that speed it can get noticeable but not "loud". With the fan at 50% it rarely exceeds 60C, usually hovering around 58C under 90-100% load (Folding@Home). If you don't mind running hotter than that you can slow down the fan. Mine is slightly overclocked but only by 20-25MHz.
 
lol, and at higher resolutions, you dont need any AA, and whats more, AA is horible coded on crysis and doesnt do anything fisually, except handicap your system.
 
I just tested Crysis (Pre-release demo as I don't own the game) on one 1920x1080 monitor, HD5870 with freshly installed 10.6 drivers, all settings on Very High, stock clock settings, both on 8x AA and 2x AA. At 8x AA it was easily playable but noticeably laggy in some spots but at 2x AA it was noticeably better. That's without overclocking, with overclocking you could do better. Certainly no need for 4 GPU's.
 
10.6 has been out for a few weeks now...

I reinstalled it because my card wasn't folding correctly, but it still isn't folding correctly so I think it's a Folding@Home server issue. Can't wait for 10.7 which hopefully will be out in another week or so.
 
Let me get this straight...you honestly think you need FOUR Cypress GPU's to play Crysis at 1920x1080?!?

I have 3 1920x1080 monitors in Eyefinity on a single 5870, stock clocked. I can play pretty much anything short of Crysis at maximum settings at the full 3x1920x1080 resolution. Crysis runs pretty well with some of the volumetric and shadow effects lowered. However, on a single monitor a single 5870 can put out full settings at 2x AA. A single 5970 would most likely handle 8x AA on a single monitor.

I'd go with a 5970 if you want to play Crysis, but just a single 5970. If you need more performance down the road (should you get 2 more monitors or games get a lot more graphically intense) you can buy another one then as the price will have dropped significantly. In fact, I'd just go with a 5870, while the 5970 has two GPU's, both are underclocked and you have to mod it to get stock 5870 performance out of each GPU. One overclocked 5870 may perform similarly to a stock 5970 if you do it right.

I run my fan around 50%, at that speed it can get noticeable but not "loud". With the fan at 50% it rarely exceeds 60C, usually hovering around 58C under 90-100% load (Folding@Home). If you don't mind running hotter than that you can slow down the fan. Mine is slightly overclocked but only by 20-25MHz.

Yes, it is because of online gaming, i am somewhat competitive and there is a very noticeable difference between my performance with settings on enthusiast and low with my 4870x2 and thee is great noticeableness that it is much smoother gameplay online.

That is very impressive cooling performance you have i will purchase, is this with reference 5870?

I will purchase 1 reference cards of both 5970 and 5870 to get some better idea, maybe i will trifire them and be happy with that.

I thank you.

lol, and at higher resolutions, you dont need any AA, and whats more, AA is horible coded on crysis and doesnt do anything fisually, except handicap your system.

This is something that i agree with, i do never use AA with the crysis games.

Oh, another post is awaiting approval, but the last one posted fine, how strange, okay, i thank you.
 
Yeah, mine is the reference design, I paid $30 more over the cheapest 5870 but it was worth it for the reference cooler. Not only does it look like the Batmobile, it cools very well and has a large turbine style fan.
 
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