ATI HD4870X2 Issue - See Screenshot

[Digitalos]

Hey guys, wonderful site this, have learned a lot from looking around and reading the card comparisons. It seems as though I may unfortunately be in the market for a new video card. I've posted up detailed issues of my problem with a screenshot on the ATI forums, you can check it out here (http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview.cfm?catid=260&threadid=136405&forumid=11). I did some comparisons with my card, and some of the newer released, and was looking at the ATI HD 5770 as a potential replacement, which doesn't cost a fortune (just over $200 Aus here). I'm an avid gamer and don't really want to go backwards in performance if at all possible, looking at the comparisons my current card has a fairly monstrous memory bandwidth compared to nearly all the newer cards but the top of the line. Can any advise what a good replacement card would be, it doesn't need to be a massive jump to the frontline of power and performance, I just don't want to go backwards, and at the moment I'm not in a position to fork out a decent whack on a new card.

That is, if my current card is on it's death-bed which I am trying not to admit seems likely heh. ;)

Thanks!

[Radiator]

Uh.. a HD 5770 is more or less half of a HD 4870 X2.
A HD 5870 would more or less match your HD 4870 X2 (or two HD 5770s), or if you really want an upgrade, you'll have to shell out a shitload of money for a HD 5970.
Or you could get.. um..
Hmm...
Two GTX460's in SLi? Not sure how much that is going to set you back, but that'd certainly beat the HD 4870 X2 ( but wouldn't come close to a HD 5970 ).

[Digitalos]

Hi, I don't particularly want to do a big upgrade now as I was planning on that later on, this is more of an emergency patch. I'm certainly not looking at forking out another ~$1K for something, perhaps later on when I do a full upgrade. If I have to go backwards and get half of what I have now then ok I guess. :s

[saintjimmy]

What about a 5850? It can be as fast as dual 5770's in a few cases, and costs between $300 and $375 in the US. It would be going backwards, but not a whole lot, and you could always Crossfire it in the future.

[Digitalos]

I never had any joy with CrossfireX. I really think it's a broken system, I got trivial FPS boosts and some games refused to work at all. I spent about two months of intensive time with it and my end results were no bettter and I just avoid those things like the plague now. When I got the 4870X2 all those issues went away, so from now on I'm sticking with hardware crossfire rather than software which seemed to exhibit all manner of problems.

So whatever it will be, will be one single card I'm sure of that at least. The 5850 I will go look up now. I'm trying to find something a little quieter too, the 5850 is a moderate price jump from the 5770, despite coming with more power. Maybe I just need to take the backwards hit and then save for the big upgrade later on.

[Radiator]

A HD 4870 X2 basically is two HD 4870's on one PCB in Crossfire lol.
And a HD 5970 doesn't cost anything even near 1k USD. A single HD 5850 or a HD 5870 would be more or less comparable to your current card, if I were you, I'd get one of those and get another one later on.

[Digitalos]

A HD 4870 X2 basically is two HD 4870's on one PCB in Crossfire lol.
Yes and there is a HUGE difference in performance between that, and the two 4870s I had in CrossfireX mode prior. Which is why I will not be using a software CrossfireX setup again unless something really changes from ATI's end. Using a hardware CrossfireX setup, like the 4870X2 exhibits none of the issues the prior setup did. I never found out why, I just recall posting a lot about this on the ATI forums and on some Crysis sites which at the time were great places to speak to people with SLi and CrossfireX setups, and they were all experiencing similar results, not to mention the games like King's Bounty which just plain out ran at about 10fps unless I disabled the software CrossfireX setup, and ran it with 1 card, and even -then- it ran worse than when I had a single 4870 in. Trust me, I spent about 2 months all up testing this stuff before returning both my 4870s and testing out the 4870X2, which ran awesomely with no issues.

And a HD 5970 doesn't cost anything even near 1k USD. A single HD 5850 or a HD 5870 would be more or less comparable to your current card, if I were you, I'd get one of those and get another one later on.I'm not getting a software CrossfireX setup, as there are no assurances it actually works now. If they make an HD5870X2 then that's a different story. I was talking about a GPU that performs similarly to mine, which currently costs about $1K. My card second hand seems to be idling around the $350 Aus mark. New is about $600 and a comparable next gen card is easily at the $1K mark.

Anyhow I think if this card is dying I will get a cheapo 5770 to keep me going and then do a larger upgrade later on.

[Radiator]

Ugh... a HD 5970 IS a HD 5870 X2, simply with a different name.
As for your troubles with Crossfire, I reckon they were either your own fault or they were so long ago that the drivers weren't really on par at that time.
Your card doesn't cost anything even near 1k AUD, and neither does a HD 5970(which is the fastest card in existance at the moment).
Anyhow, I'd still get a HD 5850 or a HD 5870 and add a second one later on, CF DOES work properly with current drivers.
By the way what motherboard are you using? The two HD 4870's might've underperformed because of limited PCI-e bandwidth on the second PCI-e lane.

[Digitalos]

Ugh... a HD 5970 IS a HD 5870 X2, simply with a different name.
The difference is whether you are suggesting 1 card, or 2 cards in CrossfireX mode, regardless of whether the single card solution is in practice 2 cards together. There is a large difference in how the hardware utilizes and interprets these resources.

As for your troubles with Crossfire, I reckon they were either your own fault or they were so long ago that the drivers weren't really on par at that time.
You can search the ATI forums for my threads if you want, under the nick Digitalos. As well as In Crysis and Crysis Online. There were a large number of people on those sites who shared similar issues, as well as people who had posted individually themselves about not seeing a significant performance gain with Crysis as well as with other games, in addition to some other games ceasing to work. CrossfireX is just an immature technology, as is SLi and/or overhyped. For some reason when using 2 separate cards, rather than a single card which is in theory the same as hardware-wise as the 2 separate cards, there is a large performance difference. I spent ages trying to get my setup working, when it turned out it always -was- working and it was just me expecting much better results considering I payed twice the cost and got a measly 5% increase and a handful of non-working games. As soon as I went the solo-card route, with the 4870X2, things changed quite drastically.

Your card doesn't cost anything even near 1k AUD, and neither does a HD 5970(which is the fastest card in existance at the moment).
-At the time when I purchased my card-, it cost $976 AUS from CPL (http://www.cpl.net.au/) which is probably the cheapest Aus computer parts vendor. At present, the HD 5970 costs between $800-$900 AUS depending which version you get, which I call $1k, and it's certainly close enough to 'near $1k AUD' as you say to be a $1k plus a decent cooling system.

Anyhow, I'd still get a HD 5850 or a HD 5870 and add a second one later on, CF DOES work properly with current drivers.
I find this doubtful, usually I would be willing to take someones word on it, except this time around without exception everyone I spoke to who had the fortune to test both a CFX setup and a single card with internal CFX, had the same experience, which is quite rare in and of itself.

By the way what motherboard are you using? The two HD 4870's might've underperformed because of limited PCI-e bandwidth on the second PCI-e lane.Motherboard was posted in the ATI thread, it's an Asus M32A MVP Deluxe, when testing my CF setup both cards reported using 16x PCI-E using GPUz, as well as in CCC. Likewise with Futuremark my scores were around those users with a similar system, what was silly was that if I disabled 1 card and ran again, the score was within a few hundred points of the CF score, and again, matched users with the same hardware. It's just a dud system I'm sorry to say. If you ever want a decent GPU, get one that is essentially like the 4870X2, don't get two single cards.

[Radiator]

Interesting... you're prettymuch the first person I've heard of having such issues. Well suit yourself then.
And if the prices really are that high there, your best bet would be a HD 5850, I suppose.

[Digitalos]

Ok, this is weird. I've just done some tests with running actual games, and it doesn't happen at all. It only happens when using 3D apps and art packages, or playing videos in Win7.

Could this be a Win7 problem?

[Radiator]

Uh... could be. What drivers are you using exactly anyway?

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