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5870 + Samsung 2233rz

Soldato
Joined
19 Jun 2009
Posts
6,407
Location
London
Anyone?

As title states I'm quite curious to know if the 5870 works at 120hz with this monitor as I've heard there are a lot of problems with it but haven't really found a definitive answer about this, so was hoping someone here is running that combination.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks & Merry Christmas :cool:
 
Absolutely no reason why it wouldn't. There used to be some issues with the 2D clock running too slowly to support the 120Hz refresh rate but that was fixed by a simple overclock. It's also been fixed in the graphics drivers as far as I'm aware.

Merry Christmas.
 
I'm contemplating between a GTX470 and 5870 but the only thing that is making me a bit wary about the 5870 was the reported probs with 120hz.
 
It usually works, but some people still do get some issues. If you do go for the 2233rz (have one myself for gaming and love it) I'd reccomend the GTX470 just because it works without any issues with the monitor 99.999% of the time.

Dunno what your budget is but if you order today with the 5% discount you can get this for ~£208 which is an absolute steal: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-066-GI
 
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I had problems with this combo even though 120hz worked ... it just didnt feel as silky smooth, so i replaced my 5870 with a 460gtx and it felt spot on and i was very glad!

The impression i got was that its a problem with 5xxx drivers as i never had this on a 4870/90 when i had them.
 
I didn't have this problem with my 5850 (and this was a while ago) so I'm not really sure if it was a specific problematic driver release or what. The BenQ XL2410 certainly had no issues running very smoothly on the 5850 + latest drivers.
 
I could notice it on games where the fps is very high, 120fps +

Its as if 120fps on 8800 / 4890 / 460 just felt smoother than exactly 120fps on a 5870.

I tried various drivers and just couldnt fix the prob.... I'd love to know if it was just my 5870 but i suspect its just something most don't notice.

I initially noticed it in quakelive which i play pretty competitively but once i'd noticed it, i could also tell in everything else.

Just my opinion but i'd say 120hz = go nvidia to be safe.
 
The 5870 is a steal at the current price but I'd rather not have the idea of whether 120hz will or will not work properly with this card so I'll probably go for an nVidia card.

P.S. What nvidia card would be on par with the 5870?

Thanks :)
 
I could notice it on games where the fps is very high, 120fps +

Its as if 120fps on 8800 / 4890 / 460 just felt smoother than exactly 120fps on a 5870.

I tried various drivers and just couldnt fix the prob.... I'd love to know if it was just my 5870 but i suspect its just something most don't notice.

I initially noticed it in quakelive which i play pretty competitively but once i'd noticed it, i could also tell in everything else.

Hello this is exactly my own experience on HD 6850 - few other people have noticed it as well (as I've discussed it on esr) and it is clear that faulty drivers play a huge part in this. I've also found a workaround for it (or to be more precise - I was able to tell what's causing it and on esr they've advised me the best workaround I've found so far). I wrote a long post on AMD forums with detailed explanations of the problem + workaround and I will try to let AMD folks to know they should fix it. While my current workaround works it still requires me to manually switch profiles in Ati Tray tools as I've been unable to do it automatically - which sux badly.

This is my AMD post

http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview.cfm?catid=260&threadid=144181&enterthread=y

I would definitely want to try out nvidia card to see how it feels, because even with the fix I can still register some tiny microish stuttering - despite the fact that GPU is utilized to like 20% most of the time. I've never noticed anything like that on HD 3870 and 800x600@120Hz, (but maybe that's because I was never searching for it) so I wonder if it would be better on nvidia card. If you are willing to help me I would be interested in similar graphs for nvidia card as I added in the AMD post. Or if nothing else if you could at least send me the row data saved by fraps (timestamps of the frames) for let's say 60 sec of quake live gameplay on 460. I would appreciate that a lot.
 
If you manually overclock it using AMD tool for example (not Overdrive) then the clocks should stick. That's what I did when testing my 5850 and there was no stuttering of any kind. I also measured GPU utilisation and it was as you would expect - it was running nearly flat out. I didn't test Quake Live but I don't see why this would be any different if you're forcing clocks and not letting the card moderate them.
 
Roughly 60 second fraps capture from quakelive with a Samsung 2233rz @ 120Hz running a single GTX470:

http://aten-hosted.com/files/quakeliveframetimes.csv

And graph from my little proggie:

frametimesql.jpg
 
Roughly 60 second fraps capture from quakelive with a Samsung 2233rz @ 120Hz running a single GTX470:

http://aten-hosted.com/files/quakeliveframetimes.csv

Thanks and wow - this is pretty awesome when compared to the ATI card (comparing the row data). Absolute majority of frames is rendered within <7.6, 8.4> interval of previous frame

and the standard deviation for all 60 sec is just 0.111 !

We even have roughly similar setups - I am on Q9650 @ 3.6GHz, Asus P5Q Deluxe (with all power savings disabled in bios and windows), 4x2GB DDR2, Seasonic X-750 PSU so I would conclude that the card is very likely the only thing that makes the difference.

It seems like I will be after some nvidia card pretty soon - as soon as I figure out how to cool quietly some GTX 570/580 xD

Edit. as I see native res of your LCD is 1680x1050 while mine is 1920x1080 - mentioning this just for completness - I don't think that it would work as great on any resolution on the ATI card.
 
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Manually overclock for gaming to disable powerplay.

I've done similar tests with Quake2 at 250fps with powerplay enabled and disabled. Disabled is a constant ~4ms frametime. Enabled shows a number of frames dipping into 20ms. These can be felt in-game as small stutters.
 
Manually overclock for gaming to disable powerplay.

I've done similar tests with Quake2 at 250fps with powerplay enabled and disabled. Disabled is a constant ~4ms frametime. Enabled shows a number of frames dipping into 20ms. These can be felt in-game as small stutters.
Yes - that's the workaround I've been reffering to - after that the performance is acceptable, but I would say - still not perfect. And it seems like it's much more perfect on the nvidia card (however strange it may look)
Edit. I feel like I should probably swap for my old HD 3870 and test if I can find any sing of stutter there / compare the 6850 fraps graphs. I'd really like to know if previously I didn't notice it because I wasn't looking for it or because it simply wasn't there.
 
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To be fair I've been playing quake games, etc. for 10+ years and know how to get my system running absolutely perfect for them... that said you obviously know your stuff so I'd assume your setup is running optimal too.
 
GTX470 is similiar performance, wouldn't really call it on par tho both have wins and losses, stick the 470 to 800MHz tho and it leaves the 5870 behind. Any of the upper end factory overclocked GTX460 (810+MHz) will be quite close/on par with a stock 5870.
 
I'd help with any graph you need btw if i know how :)

I found actually that the problem was greatly enhanced when my 5870 was overclocked which i found baffling too.

It was so immediately obvious when i moved to the 460 that it was just perfect.

I do notice the same issue on certain other games like source based games (l4d 2) where the fps is very high. It just doesnt feel right yet again on the 460 it felt perfect instantly.
 
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