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5850 Tri Fire (3x) setup advice for 2560x1600 gaming max detail..

barjoysee

barjoysee

barjoysee

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Joined
27 Jun 2006
Posts
167
Hi all

I’ve been building my new gaming rig for the last 6months..Well buying parts as I can get the money put by for them.:o
It’s all going into my TJ07 and is going to be watercooled. I want it to be no holds barred ...ultimate performance.

So far I’ve got :-
30” Dell 3008WFP
Full Nickel E/K and Aqua Compter Waterblocks
I7 920 DO
DFI T3EH6 1366
2x256Gb M225 Crucial SSD’s
6 GB OCZ 7-7-7-18 w/c
Creative Xfi Fatality PCI-x

I had (on the bay at the moment) a 4870x2 but have decided to upgrade it to a dx11 setup. At first I was going to get a single 5970 but on my friends I7 30” setup it does struggle at 2560x1600 on crysis using the top settings.
I’ve been looking at the best options performance/cost (don’t laugh) wise...:o

1x 5970x2 £540 *V.Vpoor availability
2x 5870 £650+ ok availability
3x 5850 £660+ ok availability

Ultra Extreme (don’t really want to go this mad...)
2x 5970x2 £1080 *V.Vpoor availability
3x 5870 £975 ok availability


From what reviews I’ve seen show 3 gpu’s scaling the best vs. 4 and 2 5850’s matching the performance of a 5970x2 in some ways to me the 3 5850’s would be the best way to go giving plenty of headroom ... ?
Any thoughts? Sorry if my OTT setup:( is annoying to any but a new job has allowed me to go more mad than I should have...and I have the money to go mad so to speak the last 2-3 years I’ve been struggling to put a fiver away each month (hence the 6 months).... building it so far.

Thanks
Barjoysee :)
 
I know you aren't 100% happy with the 5970, but I personally don't feel 3 5850's would be worth your time.

Wait about a month if possible for more fermi details to reveal themselves and with luck prices will drop a little, new products should also come into play.

I think that the 5970 would still be the best bet in my opinion, or 2 5870's crossfired. My reasoning for this is that whilst Crysis is a great game, it's probably also the only game that will elicit such a performance from not only the 5970, but any card out there. If you plan to play only Crysis, I don't even think 2 5850's will give you max performance on a monitor that res.

+1 for either 1 5970 or 2 5870s, giving you more room to upgrade in the future.

Regardless, enjoy whatever you get in your new setup mate!

EDIT: Quick look around on google for benchies threw this up at me, seems to be exactly what you are contemplating. [I hope I am ok to link, it's a forum post only: http://www.incrysis.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=29683]
 
wakayoda said:
your a fool going for 2 ssds

even one is a bad idea the tecs not good enough yet
Click to expand...

lol what are you talking about. I own a single m225 64gb, it's completely fantastic.

As for the setup, take no notice of whether Crysis runs well. Benchmark other games since a single 5970 should be more than enough
 
wakayoda said:
your a fool going for 2 ssds

even one is a bad idea the tecs not good enough yet
Click to expand...

+1

So so overpriced for something that will increase load times, the rate at which things open, close, install, etc just doesn't justify the price at all imo. You can buy an SSD which is 32gb-64gb which costs the same as a 1.5TB HDD. What the hell?

For people that want to flame me for my opinion on this go ahead, but atleast i actually gave a valid reason.
 
xGaffner said:
+1

So so overpriced for something that will increase load times, the rate at which things open, close, install, etc just doesn't justify the price at all imo. You can buy an SSD which is 32gb-64gb which costs the same as a 1.5TB HDD. What the hell?

For people that want to flame me for my opinion on this go ahead, but atleast i actually gave a valid reason.
Click to expand...

Price wise its hard to justify, But you say it will only increase load times, openining, closing etc.
Isn't that what were constantly doing on our PC's anyway ;)
 
wakayoda said:
your a fool going for 2 ssds

even one is a bad idea the tecs not good enough yet
Click to expand...


let me make it simple barjo...

you wanna run crysis at max right.....so heres the plan
if you can afford the graphics card you need and have money left over too play with buy a ssd

im sure evryone else would agree ...
if we have to wait 1 more minute for the game to open and you can play it in max with amazing statabilty

or have a raid 0 that loads the game in 10 secs and what heyy it laggs on max res

**Let common sense Prevail**
 
Hi guys
Thanks for the feedback..its a funny thing with games most seem to run at 100-150fps at 2560x1600

UT3 110-280 fps
Left for Dead2 110-160 fps
Avatar 60-100 fps

Then others run poorly

Crysis 30-40 fps
Crysis Warhead 30-40 fps
Stalker-clear skys 40+ fps
Borderlands 40-60 fps

Its all the power to take some from 30 to a smooth 50fps at v.high settings at 2560x1600..its wasted on the rest after all there isn't much point going from 150 fps to 300 fps.:rolleyes:

I'm not a mad crysis fan ..I do think its a good reference point...but I'm not hung up on it or anything.

I think Avatar blows crysis out of the water at 2560x1600 setting the detail you see is unbeliavble..the word should get around on how good this game looks and funnily how well it runs on a modified far cry 2 engine ( I believe)

from my temp setup

I also can't wait for AVP 3 Vs Predator to come out I hope I can run it maxed out.

5850's really are bargins if you put 2 together..you have similar performance to the 5970x2 but the costs are much better..E.g £460 Vs £550 as I said altough there isn't much in the way of reviews on the net more users on youtube that 3 GPU's scale v.v.well. I also think adding a 3rd one would push things into the realm of smoothness at a semi reasonable price ? £660:p

http://benchmarkextreme.com/Articles/HD 5870 Image Quality/Images/Stalker.jpg

OT-->
As to the SSD's they have a lot of advantages the Intel bus seem's to run out of speed at around 600-700mbs I'm using 2in Raid-0 and may add a thrid some day just for the space...I Don't miss the access times of my Raptors or the noise tbh..but each to there own I guess.:p
 
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To be honest i don't think your crysis FPS is going to increase.
heres a review of 5790's in crossfire:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_5970_CrossFire/7.html

As you can see it didn't work out too well. This was before the release of the 9.12 drivers though.
If you've got the cajones you'll probably be one of the 1st to 3way crossfire with 8580's.

The Bad news is that 2x5870's struggle with Crysis Warhead which is supposed to be slightly better coded compare to its sibling. Heres the 5870 review. still a very low score:

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-5870-crossfirex-test-review/11

i wouldn't spend all that cash to end up with 40FPS max on crysis!
 
Hi yeah I've seen these two reports the first one is using v. early drivers hence the non-exsistent 5970 crossfire result.
As said crossfire support is limited in the crysis games but better than not at all.
Also neither really show how well 3 Gpu's are working..
this review shows 2 5970x2's working well in crossfire..
http://www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews.php?reviewid=890&pageid=18
strangly with older drivers :rolleyes:
which is why I hoped someone out there might have such a setup?
 
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