Need help can't decide

[bio-infection]

Some benchmarks say 5850cf is better than 5970, others vice versa.
Will 5850cf get hot since they almost touch each other on the motherboard?
What about the crossfire game compatability, are there still problems with some crossfire setups with 5850 cf?
Advantage of cf is that if 1 card fails you still have another 1, where as if a 5970 fails its 520£ down the drain
Disadvantage of cf is that some games are not compatatible with cf, therefore won't see an increase in fps from 1 single 5850.

Thanks for your help

 

[cmndr_andi]

What is the case you will be putting this new system in?

A 5850CF setup will get hotter than a single 5850 - but the temps should still be OK. I would suggest getting a motherboard with wide spacing between the main PCIe x16 slots to minimize any chance of heat problems (such as this board).

AFAIK, 5970 is still crossfire (internally) so any games that don't play nice with 5850CF will have the same problem with a 5970.

As for £520 down the drain if the 5970 dies - well you may loose a couple of weeks during the RMA (when if you had a 5850 you could still operate well). However, you will recieve a replacement if the card fails during the warranty period (this one has 3 years warranty compared to the 2 years of the one chose above).

 

[UKDTweak]

The 5970 is basically two 5870 sandwiched together on one board runing internal Crossfire, but at the same core and memory speeds as the 5850, so CF 5850 would be similar performance, as above though, if you buy a 5970 and it fails, you have to RMA it and will have no graphics until its repaired/returned, were as with 5850 CF, if one dies you can still use the other till you get a repair/replacement

 

[bio-infection]

Case I will be using: antec 1200 so plenty of airflow
Strangely enough tho the 5970 has a sort of 'internal crossfire', in games which do not suppost crossfire the fps still is far higher than a single 5870. Where as 5850cf gained only 2 fps over a single 5850 in this game.