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5850 crossfire or 6950 flashed to 6970

I'm a 5850 xfire user as well and am really happy with it. I'd say go with the 6950 though if only for the extra memory which will stand you in good stead for future games, lots of AA, higher res or multi monitors.
 
Hey,

After a few registry changes to enable afterburner to work correctly I'm very happy with my crossfire setup :)

3dMark 11 score of 8700 seems about right for the setup and perhaps I could get more by doing the everyone else does it thing of - reduce all settings to lowest in the control panel :)

Very happy though, thanks guys :)
 
Hello mate,

Its not loud at all. If you overclock them, sure they heat up quicker but they aren't annoyingly loud. On the desktop they make next to no noise. Also bear in mind, just because you have two of something at x db each, you don't add the db figures together so adding a second one hasn't really made anymore noise at all.
 
Oh right, I wouldn't be overclocking them I'm too "newbie" to fiddle around with that stuff. :P

Sounds good then.

I'm just always afraid of high end graphics cards because back in the day I bought a 6800 card (ohhh yeah...what a beast haha) and it was the loudest thing I had ever heard in a computer. Awful noise - comparable to a hoover.

I never want to hear that kind of noise again ! At the moment I'm using a passive cooled 4850 and the silence is bliss.

I don't care about noise whilst gaming, as long as hey are hush hush when idle / surfing web I'll be happy.

Still can't decide between X-fire 5850's or a single 480gtx soc or 6950 though. So many choices !
 
Been running 5850 crossfire for about a year or so now, I wouldnt say they were massivly noisy but you can certainly tell there is 2 of them.

Temperature wise i run both mildly overclocked at 800MHz core 1100MHz memory with custom fan profiles using MSI afterburner to keep the temps below 70C when under load. This dosent bother me because i usually keep my headset on whilst gaming so I never notace the noise, they are quiet during desktop/browsing use.

Performance wise they munch anything i run on 1 monitor (only 1680 x 1050) and havent found anything that causes slowdown yet. The only negatives are that they suffer in eyefinity because the 1GB VRAM just isnt enough and occasionally you can have fun and games with crossfire support issues although most modern games have given me no problems.
 
Crossfire imo is best avoided unless you have a large case with plenty of airflow as 2 cards running full pelt in games create a huge amount of heat. I have had loads of issues with 2 5870's mainly revolving around heat, crashing and now seemingly random artifacts and the game screen flickering off black none of these issues i get using either of the cards alone. Im now considering a 6990 for the ease of 1 card
 
Hey mate,

I have a HAF 932, the card clearance due to my UD7 is about 5mm and they don't overheat at all. Overclocked to 1000mhz core they only reach about 65 degrees for the better vented one or 69 for the one thats right above the other. (40% fan profile)
 
Cheers for the input guys.

I think I'll go down the single card route then.

6950 Twin FrozR II ... 480 SOC ... 560Ti SOC ...

Well at least I have narrowed it down to 3 cards now ! Not sure which to pick.
 
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