Crossfire increases FPS (in a kind of cheaty way), input lag stays untouched or becomes worse, because of Crossfire scaling overhead. Just look how alternate frame rendering works, if you don’t believe me. You will see that, if that technique is used, it will take two frames to answere an input request instead of one (or four frames in quad crossfire). This results to input lag staying the same, if crossfire would double the framerates, but it doesn’t, so the input lag gets worse. Conclusion: Crossfire is not for gaming purpose, or anything regarding realtime calculations. It’s fine for cracking passwords though.
What you said makes absolutely no sense. If you mean that, using crossfire, 60fps is identical to 30fps, this is how some people describe the effect of microstuttering, and with the latest generation of nVidia/ATi cards it has been minimized extremely (not that some people don’t experience it).
The “alternate frame rendering” is just how multiple cards’ frames are drawn onto the screen; it has absolutely nothing to do with improving or harming performance. Using two video cards DOES give noticeable improvement in performance and visual quality, there isn’t any doubt about it.
Just do what i said and read in detail how it works, then i may consider stoping to ignore you in the future. Seems you are incapable of using wikipedia.
Alternate frame rendering means that n graphic cards render frames alternately, which means exactly like i discribed that the frame you currently see is the frame the first graphics card created when you moved your mouse in the past, while the second graphics card is currently handling the current request. So if the graphics cards weren’t braked by the crossfire overhead, it would be exactly like having only one graphics card when it comes to the input lag, but as it is, the input lag becomes worse. If a game is not playable with one card (fps <40; <23 for retarded people), it will be unplayble with crossfire all the more.
So there is no point in using crossfire for gameing. But its not my job to stop an ignorant fool from wasting his money if he insists to. Btw. i know PC-Magazines invented to call it microstuttering because its easier to explain things to retarded people if you just give it a name and don’t explain it in detail.
I’m just going to pass you off as a troll, alright
The only game I experience microstuttering in is STALKER: Clear Sky but we all know how buggy that game is. The 5970 is basically two 5870s downclocked to the 5850s speeds (725/1000) in order to meet certain power draw requirements. With a little overclocking (which really isnt overclocking considering it was already downclocked) it can easily match two 5870s (800/1200) and if u have a good enough cooling system and psu u can push it beyond two 5870s. I have mine comfortable running at 900/1300
That’s true, but the only other reason I would recommend against the 5970 is because the 5xxx series has crossfire scaling issues corrected with the 6xxx series. Two 6850s perform about as well as a 5970 (check out the Techpowerup review) and cost significantly less.
Don’t worry, true alternative rendering hasn’t been used since the old Voodoo cards in SLI and the FPS was always multiplied by 2.
I don’t claim to be an expert on the technology behind dual card configurations, but I know enough to pass the claim of “it’s not for gaming” as totally absurd.
After reading that review I see what you mean, but the crossfire scaling in 5xxx series is still decent as I always get an FPS boost in games that support crossfire, albeit probably not as big of a boost as I would see with per say two 6850s or something better but still a boost none the less. I bought my card before even the first rumors of 6xxx series and seeing as how it punched a pretty big hole in my wallet for GPU I don’t feel the scaling improvements justify an upgrade.
Exactly, the 5870 is still an amazing card, especially considering how early it came out and how well it competes with modern cards, but when it comes to value for your money there are simply newer and better options out there.
I personally can’t wait to see what ATi does with the 6990, that should be a killer card (until nVidia releases their next dual-gpu card, that is).
If it weren’t then why would it even exist? XD
Also suggesting a higher wattage psu is a very good idea. All my friend’s are dumbasses and bought computers with mediocre GPUs and 250-350 watt psus so in a couple years there going to have to shell out a lot of unnecessary money to make their computers decent.
Setups with multiple monitors requiring more video outputs than one card has.
Its like Extenze for an e-penis.
I’m not denying that multiple graphics cards have their uses outside of gaming (SLi in particular does very well in folding@home), but if they didn’t provide a very noticeable boost in game performance I don’t see how dual gfx configurations can be recommended on various respectable gaming sites, or why gamers would say that buying a second card can make an unplayable game very playable at identical settings.
i would recommend you a cheap AMD phenom II X4 CPU (they have also level 3 cache, the Athlon II X4 doesn’t have L3), a AM3 mainboard, a GTX460 (zotac AMP! 1GB), 4 GB DDR3 RAM, 600W power supply. this all would cost you maybe 500-500 bucks and you’ll be great for all games that are coming the next 2 years.
If you have the money for a Phenom II x4 you would be far better off going for an i5-750/760 imo. Perhaps if the L3 cache is important to you you could consider the Phenom II x2 555 which is about $90 and hope you can unlock the other two cores and stay stable.
I have recently unlocked a 545 into a quad core and it’s running stable.
I wouldn’t buy a processor in the hopes of unlocking a core or two on it. There are too many things that can go wrong in the process, plus with the release of the i5 2500k it is quickly becoming my highly-recommended process, at least until Bulldozer comes out.
GTX 460 or GTX 480 depending on budget, budget hah.
but seriously, 480 v 580 is pretty shit, 480 still beats in some games and draws in others, you’re only looking at a 1-5fps difference in benchmarks, and poorer overclocking from the 580.
i have a 480, and it’s solid, no heat issues either.
You DO realize that those cards are several generations old, as well as being connected on one board? Two-card crossfire usually delivers less microstuttering than one dual-gpu card, plus microstuttering has been reduced A LOT since those days, with the help of more efficient hardware and software backing multi-gpu technology.