Crossfire

marco_polo

Whenever the 5870 comes back into stock after christmas I am hoping to see some price drop in the HD4870 so I can Crossfire it with my existing one.

I have no idea the internals of crossfire work so I was was just wondering that should the HD4890 drop to a tempting price, would there be any benefit in pairing the 4870 with one of those instead or is a case that the chain is only as strong as the weakest link?

Leman_Russ

marco_polo wrote: »

Whenever the 5870 comes back into stock after christmas I am hoping to see some price drop in the HD4870 so I can Crossfire it with my existing one.

I have no idea the internals of crossfire work so I was was just wondering that should the HD4890 drop to a tempting price, would there be any benefit in pairing the 4870 with one of those instead or is a case that the chain is only as strong as the weakest link?

http://ati.amd.com/technology/crossfire/charts.html :pac:

TBH, I would expect it to be as strong as the weakest link. Would be better to get a 4870x2 (assuming you have a 4870 now) for Tri Crossfire, no?

Blazher

Leman_Russ wrote: »

http://ati.amd.com/technology/crossfire/charts.html :pac:

TBH, I would expect it to be as strong as the weakest link. Would be better to get a 4870x2 (assuming you have a 4870 now) for Tri Crossfire, no?

A 4870x2 and a single 4870 wouldn't work in Tri Crossfire. Even tho the 4870x2 is crossfire on one board. It will still only run at Crossfire 4870 speeds meaning your 4870x2 will run at single speeds!

marco_polo

Blazher wrote: »

A 4870x2 and a single 4870 would work in Tri Crossfire. Even tho the 4870x2 is crossfire on one board. It will still only run at Crossfire 4870 speeds meaning your 4870x2 will run at single speeds!

So no matter what combo it is a case of the weakest link then? That is what I thought was them most likely alright.

lmimmfn

Blazher wrote: »

A 4870x2 and a single 4870 wouldn't work in Tri Crossfire. Even tho the 4870x2 is crossfire on one board. It will still only run at Crossfire 4870 speeds meaning your 4870x2 will run at single speeds!

i cant be 100% sure, but ill say 90% sure youre wrong there, ive seen guys on forums having an X2 and single card in tri 'fire

Blazher

lmimmfn wrote: »

i cant be 100% sure, but ill say 90% sure youre wrong there, ive seen guys on forums having an X2 and single card in tri 'fire

Yes you can have a X2 in a tri fire system, But the X2 wont act as two cards. On less someone is using hacked Drivers. but ATI have it so the x2 is only one card in crossfire, When i was using duel x2s in Qfire. It was really only Duel Crossfire.

But yes. It should work like this.

4870x2 + 4870 = Tri

But from what i recall. It only works as crossfire.


And all crossfire works as fast as its slowest link.

I am maybe explaining it wrong. lol



here you go. Just found this link

http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview.cfm?catid=262&threadid=109477 It seems ATI has fixed the problem. As i said above it was a driver problem.

Komplett-Tech: Ryan

Check out xtremesystems. Im pretty sure ive seen quite alot of hacked drivers floating around there. Mostly the ATI/Nvidia hacked ones, but you might get lucky.

Blazher

Komplett-Tech (Ryan) wrote: »

Check out xtremesystems. Im pretty sure ive seen quite alot of hacked drivers floating around there. Mostly the ATI/Nvidia hacked ones, but you might get lucky.

There are lots of hacked drivers around the place.

I should have been more clear. At the time i was doing it, You couldnt do it with the ATI drivers, But there where hacked drivers to enable it.

But now it seems ATI them self have fixed it.

Effluo

Makes for an interesting proposition.

I think i'll just get one more 4870 1gb though. I play everything i own on the highest settings at 1080 already so i don't need it...


oh just found this nice article on mixing cards in xfire
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/9159-ati-hd4870-hd4850-crossfire-performance-review-14.html

Seems as though by in large, there are little benefits in going xfire with one slightly faster card and one slightly slower. In fact the mixed xfire results are actually worse than the 4850 xfire setup a lot/most of the time

marco_polo

Effluo wrote: »

Makes for an interesting proposition.

I think i'll just get one more 4870 1gb though. I play everything i own on the highest settings at 1080 already so i don't need it...


oh just found this nice article on mixing cards in xfire
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/9159-ati-hd4870-hd4850-crossfire-performance-review-14.html

Seems as though by in large, there are little benefits in going xfire with one slightly faster card and one slightly slower. In fact the mixed xfire results are actually worse than the 4850 xfire setup a lot/most of the time

Cheers, that seems to be pretty conclusive that it is no benefit in mixing at all really. So another 4870 it is then.

dreamers75

Have a Sapphire 512mb 4870 intend to go with another 512 doesnt seem to be a point getting a 1gb.

Effluo

dreamers75 wrote: »

Have a Sapphire 512mb 4870 intend to go with another 512 doesnt seem to be a point getting a 1gb.

Well that would be interesting enough!

It may well be better if you're playing at high resolutions...

dreamers75

Effluo wrote: »

Well that would be interesting enough!

It may well be better if you're playing at high resolutions...

I use my monitor as my limit the one i have is 1600*1200, it does me atm but i am allowed get a new one

Must find some benchmarks for 2 4870 @1600*1200

Effluo

At that res it'll fly.

Just so you know Arma II doesn't have great multi gpu support. You will not get that much more performance from it with a second 4870(unless there was a patch)

dreamers75

Arma is fine except i get have video memory bug, everything on high @1600 AA normal and video memory set to low and it runs at 60fps