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Need a realistic alternative to my 5770 Xfire

Nbolo

Nbolo

Nbolo

Associate
Joined
25 Oct 2010
Posts
100
Location
Bristol, UK
Hey all,

So i've been running 2 x 5770 for a few weeks now and finally got around to running a furmark stability test, the results both shocked and horrified me!

After 25 minutes my primary hit 105 degrees! Seems my case is simply to small and cramped (ZALMAN Z7 PLUS, ASUS P6X58D-E MOTHERBOARD (there's about 4 mm's between the 2 cards)) to handle an Xfire system, despite the fact that the fans have a dedicated 120mm case fan blowing on them at full blast!

Anyway, i removed my second card and OC'd the first one (clock to 940 and memory to 1350) and it's now running at a more reasonable 75 degrees.

However, i'm just not getting the performance i want from a single 5770 and attempts to overclock any further get my stability issues on the farcry 2 benchmark tool (grey screen or white screen with grey banding).

So what i need is a new solution, i've considered selling the 5770's but have no idea how much i'd get for them, anyone know? and if so what would you reocmmend i get for the price? (i'm looking at the radeon 6 series myself).

Last question (i'm just full of them today!) any idea if i could push the 5770 any further? and how i'd go about it?

Any advice at all would be very much appreciated, thanks guys.
 
I had a look at the ASUS P6X58D-E manual, and it seems the two blue PCI-E 2.0 x16 is x16 lane, whereas the white/grey PCI-E 2.0 x16 is x8 lane.

I'm not sure if the crossfire bridge is long enough, but how about this? You put the one card in the top blue PCI-E 2.0 x16 x16 lane slot slot, and ther other into the white/grey PCI-E 2.0 x16 x8 lane slot. The gaps between those two slots is much wider (which would allow better airflow into the top card...would be even better if you can get a fan blow toward the gap), and this should allow you to crossfire at 8x/8x (you'd probably lose 3% speed max comparing to crossfiring at x16/x16), and would definitely better than using just a single 5770.
 
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Wow the replies around here come fast! thanks guys!

Marine, you've embarrased me now, i should've noticed that, thanks! will try it tonight

Ejizz, any idea how the 6850 handles an OC? i've read about people getting 5850's close to 5870's via OC, wonder if the 6 series is similar, might see if i can dig anything up on it (beats work!)

Cheers guys
 
Nbolo said:
any idea how the 6850 handles an OC? i've read about people getting 5850's close to 5870's via OC, wonder if the 6 series is similar, might see if i can dig anything up on it (beats work!)
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6850 is basically pretty much same performance and speed as the GTX460 1GB in terms of frame rate in games.

6850 stock clock is at 775MHz, and GTX460 1GB stock clock 675MHz.
Overclock wise, 6850 can overclock to 850-900MHz average, 950MHz if lucky (75-175MHz OC), as for the GTX460 1GB, it can overclock to 800-850MHz average, but can hit 900MHz if lucky (125~225MHz OC). Roughly speaking, the 6850 clock speed need to be around 100MHz higher than GTX460 1GB's to deliver similiar frame rate. The price of 6850 has however gone up, and it's now pretty much £150+ everywhere, which is same price as the GTX460 1GB.

As for 6870, it compete with the GTX470 since they are in the same price range £180~£200. At stock clock 900MHz, it is simliar to GTX470's performance in games.
Average overclock on the 6870 would reach 950~975MHz (50~75MHz OC), which put it at around stock 5870 speed. GTX470 can overclock from stock clock 607MHz to 820-850MHz (213~243MHz OC), and it put it at a bit faster than stock GTX480 speed, BUT the GTX470's extra performance and overclockability comes with the cost of higher power consumption, and hotter and louder comparing to the 6870.

If it wasn't clear enough, just clarifying that the 6850 is a bit slower than the 5850, and the 6870 is a bit slower than the 5870.
 
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Thanks marine, a big help.

So many shiny grapihcs cards, so few shiny coins to pay for them all!

GTX460 or a 6850 then, not sure i'm to keen to go back to an Xfire system, so much more hassle!
 
Marine-RX179 said:
Personally I wouldn't go from 5770 xfire to a 6850 or GTX460 1GB. If I were you, I'd start saving up and wait for 6950/6970.
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This.

However, if you had to buy a card right now, I'd say it would have to be the 6870. I don't think you'd see enough of a boost over 2x 5770 with a 6850 or 460. Plus if you buy a 6870 you can xfire it later and the scaling ability of these 68xx cards is nothing short of amazing.
 
I'll test the 2 x 5770 setup with marines suggestion on slots and see what temps i hit while gaming (sadly i'm mainly playing fallout new vegas which doesn't use xfire.. damn them, so will have to make do with the far cry 2 benchmark program).

What would you say is a safe temperature for them to be running at?
 
you could space them out more (if you have the space)

OR

You could get a 5850, that's what i did and it worked a treat. i bought it second hand for £170 and it was a huge improvement over the 5770's because it was so cool and easy to overclock. Otherwise you could get the 6 series, but they're not really worth the money. I would go for the 5850 unless you want 3D
 
3D isn't a big concern, the 5850 is an option, might check ebay and see how much 5770's are going for these days, any ideas?
 
Furmark is not a real representation of how hot your cards will get during games.

If after 25 minutes its reaching the maximum temperatures that it should hit I would say thats fine.

NO GAME WILL EVER MAKE IT THAT HOT.
 
Part of me was hoping furmark was misleading, will give it another go with a game instead of furmark then, see how i get on, thanks guys.
 
Nbolo said:
Part of me was hoping furmark was misleading, will give it another go with a game instead of furmark then, see how i get on, thanks guys.
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Furmark tends to be for the sake of knowing the "worst case scenerio" on how hot can the card(s) get; in real-world gaming environment, there is almost no game that would stress the graphic card/GPU at 100% usage 100% of the time :p
 
Marine-RX179 said:
Furmark tends to be for the sake of knowing the "worst case scenerio" on how hot can the card(s) get; in real-world gaming environment, there is almost no game that would stress the graphic card/GPU at 100% usage 100% of the time :p
Click to expand...

Correction, there IS NO game which will.
 
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