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5850 Crossfire

  • Thread starter Thread starter LiE
  • Start date Start date

LiE

LiE

LiE

Caporegime
Joined
2 Aug 2005
Posts
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Milton Keynes
I've placed an order for a 5850 and plan to run it in a crossfire configuration with my current 5850. It's my first foray into crossfire and have a couple of Qs.

Is it a simple case of slotting the other card in and connecting them together with the bridge? Then downloading the profiles and I'm good to go?
 
I had 5850 CF once and apart of me regrets getting rid of them now!. As it's near on the same speed as my gtx 580...
Any way back on point!,
Very easy to install, just pop the new card into the slot and pop in the CF bridge and power connectors as well and switch on the computer, when I had mine I did not need to install any drivers or profile as windows detected it and sorted it out for me. And worked perfect for me.
What psu do you have?.
 
xfired 5850s sti pack a serious amount of horsepower don't they? Im building system next week but not sure wether to buy a 5850 (xfire at years end) or spend more now on a 6950 2GB now.
 
weyland yutani said:
xfired 5850s sti pack a serious amount of horsepower don't they? Im building system next week but not sure wether to buy a 5850 (xfire at years end) or spend more now on a 6950 2GB now.
Click to expand...
If you run a single monitor @ 1920x1080 or lower then get the 5850's Xfire. Only if you use a higher res on a larger screen would you gain anything with the 6950 and that would only be in a few games. 5850's are awesome cards.
 
Last edited:
Defunkt said:
If you run a single monitor @ 1920x1080 or lower then get the 5850's Xfire. Only if you use a higher res on a larger screen would you gain anything over the 6950 and that would only be in a few games. 5850's are awesome cards.
Click to expand...

+1

I've had the 5850 CF like I said and I have tested gtx 480 SOC, 6950 and the 6970 (2gb) versions and now I've got the the gtx 580 and I play at 1920x1080res and the fps is the same near enough!.
5850 CF are gr8 and I had mine running on antec true power 650w.
 
Had mine running for over 2 weeks are they are superb. Been playing all games at 1920x1080.
 
weyland yutani said:
Are the benefits of crossfire as simple as higher res, more fps, more AA etc?
Click to expand...

Pretty much. It's essentially doubling the performance of the card. Two 5850s at ~£240 will easily outperform a 6970 2GB, which actually costs a little more.

The disadvantages of CF/SLI are the increased power consumption, noise and heat, and the necessity for a board that supports it.
 
5850's are some of the coolest and quietest cards to use in pairs and also you don't need a crazy amount of power. 650W is ample. Temps you can expect are 30C idle and noise levels will depend on the card used but I haven't heard a noisy 5850. Even once overclocked on their factory coolers they are quiet and cool enough to not have to worry about them.
 
Indeed. I have had my two 5850s within a fews of their release in 2009, just before everyone realised their popularity and put the prices up on them. Got them for £200 each, and they have been brilliant.
 
I have 2 x 5850 xtreme and I'm amazed how quiet they are, easy to overclock and never had an issue playing over 20 or so games.
 
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