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470sli v 5870xfire

Soldato
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... Crysis warhead is 87% for nvidia, not 76. I haven't checked any of the others.

Single-instance minimums are not exactly the best indication of overall performance anyway. Too many other factors can influence instantaneous minimums (CPU limitation, memory bandwidth limitaton, DRAM to VRAM paging etc). It's unrealistic to expect them to scale linearly with the average framerate.

If you want to play at statistics, you could look at the relative increase in minimum framerate going from single to multi-GPU. That's what the review is designed to investigate after all, and shows the nvidia cards in a much better light (they come out on top in every test). But still, instantaneous minimum framerates are too unpredictable to be a very useful measure.

The entire variation over the benchmark is given for each game though, so the true performance is easy to see from those plots.

I agree that it would have been good to include 1920*1200 as well, though clearly that.
 
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Soldato
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lol i wrote down 87 but must have read and typed another line, it must be late :)

Of course it shows the nvidia in a good light. Its one of the reviews that panders to nvidia not us the consumer. It doesn't show a broad range of resolutions nor a great scope of games.

The minimum fps % was just something i noticed, not trying to be profound about some new discovery.
 
Soldato
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Of course it shows the nvidia in a good light. Its one of the reviews that panders to nvidia not us the consumer.

That's a little unreasonable.

In the conclusion they say explicitly that they recommend the 5870 over the GTX480 in a single card configuration, but recommend the GTX480 in a multi-GPU config. This assessment is pretty well supported by the data. If they were an nvidia biased site, then they would not be recommending the 5870 at all. Nor would they have benchmarked with games where ATI is traditionally strong (like just cause 2 and BF:BC2).

You're beginning to sound as if you're trying to persuade yourself of something? :confused:



edit - searched toms hardware for an SLI vs crossfire review. They find pretty much the same thing. Not quite as big a gap, but they are using older drivers.
 
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Soldato
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Going by the requests of nvidia of how to review their products (resolutions etc) it still follows a fair amount of them. It's a half decent review though better than some. I dont't need to be persuaded, nvidia had no high end card that suited my needs this round. Isn't JC2 a TWIMTBP title?
 
Soldato
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Where on earth does it say that they are going by the requests of nvidia? :confused:

And surely the logic of benchmarking at 2560 is to remove as much CPU limitation as possible? And that owners of such high resolution screens are most likely to need the performance that multi-GPU setups can bring?


... This thread is starting to turn into another fanboy wrangle. The benchmarks are all out there - the OP has plenty of information with which to make an informed decision.
 
Soldato
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Bit OT but in answer to the reviews a few sites were black listed by nvidia for not using the review material/language nvidia wanted, i know it's charlie but it was corroborated by the sites involved.
http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/05/30/how-nvidia-blacklists-sites-hardware-secrets/
Not meaning to try to take a thread OT or into the realms of fanboy feuds having owned plenty on high end Nvidia cards. If the 470/480 did hd audio over hdmi i may well have bought one as they don't the 5870 was my best bet, my pc is used for hd video/audio a lot. Also the heat dump into my loop is much lower allowing me to run my fans lower and quieter.
The op is not deciding anything he says he is not changing, just wants to know our thoughts.
 
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Associate
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If i was buying now, i'd have to go with the 5870's as i like using hd audio over hdmi for home cinema. This is something nvidia are adding to the next round of thier high end cards.

valid point but with the money you save you could get one of those sound cards with HDMI out which it steals the video from the video card(s)
 
Soldato
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valid point but with the money you save you could get one of those sound cards with HDMI out which it steals the video from the video card(s)

Seems a little elaborate when a 5870 can do it without the need or added expense, heat, setup of a sound card. I just turn on my hd amp and pc automatically detects it and swaps sound output and video out to the hdmi.
 
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The Bottom Line
NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 460 SLI continues to impress, even at triple display resolutions. However, as the resolution increases, the gap does close between the Radeon HD 5870 CrossFireX and GeForce GTX 460 SLI. In the end though, there is no denying that GeForce GTX 460 SLI provided faster framerates and a smoother, more consistent, gameplay experience.

see even sli 460's is better than crossfire 5870's
 
Soldato
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OP never asked about 460's? If i were running 5760x1200 i wouldn't be looking at either of those setups. Would probably go for sli/tri480 with the extra vram.
 
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