Radeon HD 5870 CrossfireX Performance Review

[Guru3D News]

As the dust settles from yesterdays Radeon series 5800 graphics cards release today we'll look into Radeon HD 5870 CrossfireX performance and scaling in a dedicated article covering a large benchmark...

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[ottoyu34]

Great review once again! I trust guru3d's benchmarks.

Is it me or what. The vantage score doesn't seems to reflect real-game performance

[Ven0m]

Thanks for the review. Such combo is just too fast :]
However... when 260 SLI won't suffice in the future, 5870 X2 may be a good upgrade.

Any temperature and noise info, please?

[vbetts]

It's bottlenecked?! Holy crap!

[Duke Nil]

Wow the performance in some of those is mighty impressive (anno 1404 in particular), it seems ati still has a fair bit of work to do getting crossfirex to scale properly in quite a few games though - getting beat by GTX 285 SLI is a problem, even in titles that favor nvidia

[Trolle]

hd5850 review and cf review now please :p

[Mega_Death]

Interesting results. Has anyone seen the report by X-bit labs (think it was them if I remeber correctly) where ATI products ran better on Intel hardware and Nvidia products ran better on AMD hardware? Has this been confirmed by another test site? Would this have anything to do with the results as stated in the guru3d review?

[mitzi76]

I think hilbert was high on 5870's in crossfirex when he wrote this!!

Wow they really do fly with some games. Beating 285's in sli by quite a margin in some games.

It just goes to show though it's still a lottery how well certain games scale in crossfire.

If anno1404 is your fav game and u have 2 of these cards..happy days!!

(dont know why you didnt push 4ghz for this review mr.h..perhaps that would have cleared up the bottleneck? you might have too for future reviews esp as nvidia's next gen will be on the scene in the not 2 distant future. holy cow!)

[DF-1]

this thing owns in HAWX and anno.

but for someone like me with a GTX 285 i rather get another one or two would be cheaper. better price/performance and in some games it kept up just as good (fallout 3, crysis warhead, and cod WAW).

anyone buying completely new graphics cards(probably gts 250 or below) this thing should be #1 on their list.

[CPC_RedDawn]

Some of those numbers are simply crazy. And the fact that a Core i7 965 @ 3.7GHz is a bottleneck is simply astonishing. Just proves that GPU's have moved leaps and bounds compared to CPU's. We need Intel to release a new Core i7 or even Core i9 or whatever Core they want to call it. Clock it at 5GHz each core (8 cores), give it 50mb lvl 3 cache shared, 20mb lvl 2 each core, and make it on 22nm. Yep I think the 5870 Xfire might just like that...

[Dahbob]

Woo it's here, 5870 Xfire

holy cow it's fast, you can already get 2x of those for around 700€ on their launch, not bad at all

[Passion Fruit]

I think ill wait until the 5870x2... Crossfiring these puppies is too expensive for me right now, although im tempted to crossfire 5850's instead... arghhh!

[DSK]

Hmmm i will wait till at least they drop to 250 or maybe even 230 then maybe xfire for me.

but anyways another flawless review

[Nuke_Meltdown]

You guys are still stuck with those 190.38WHQL for nVidia cards...There is new drivers (Even 190.62), time to install...Especially cuz 190.XX are horrible and 191.00 are available!

[SickBoy254698]

Originally Posted by CPC_RedDawn

Some of those numbers are simply crazy. And the fact that a Core i7 965 @ 3.7GHz is a bottleneck is simply astonishing. Just proves that GPU's have moved leaps and bounds compared to CPU's. We need Intel to release a new Core i7 or even Core i9 or whatever Core they want to call it. Clock it at 5GHz each core (8 cores), give it 50mb lvl 3 cache shared, 20mb lvl 2 each core, and make it on 22nm. Yep I think the 5870 Xfire might just like that...

Intel should sell a combo pack with a Gulftown OC'd to 6.0Ghz and a lifetime supply of LN2.


Not to go against the grain of the thread (again) but I'm not nearly as impressed as Hilbert was with the performance. After reading this review though it's even more apparent that the CPU is the limiting factor here not the GPU. So I am impressed with the 5870 now but the CPU bottleneck is going to be a huge issue for a lot of people in the near future. It would be interesting (and helpful) if we could see a comparison between different processors and the 5870 in single GPU and Crossfire mode. Preferably with the same games and settings Hilbert used in his two reviews. I think a lot of us have been waiting for DX11 cards so we can build a new PC around them. Knowing what kind of horsepower we need for the CPU would be helpful.

Regardless of whether we see that comparison or not I think a lot people who buy this card are going to be dissapointed with it's performance since only a small percentage of them will be running an i7 along side there new 5870. Of courese DX11 games will change that but who knows when we will actually see one of those.

[mitzi76]

Originally Posted by SickBoy254698

Intel should sell a combo pack with a Gulftown OC'd to 6.0Ghz and a lifetime supply of LN2.


Not to go against the grain of the thread (again) but I'm not nearly as impressed as Hilbert was with the performance. After reading this review though it's even more apparent that the CPU is the limiting factor here not the GPU. So I am impressed with the 5870 now but the CPU bottleneck is going to be a huge issue for a lot of people in the near future. It would be interesting (and helpful) if we could see a comparison between different processors and the 5870 in single GPU and Crossfire mode. Preferably with the same games and settings Hilbert used in his two reviews. I think a lot of us have been waiting for DX11 cards so we can build a new PC around them. Knowing what kind of horsepower we need for the CPU would be helpful.

Regardless of whether we see that comparison or not I think a lot people who buy this card are going to be dissapointed with it's performanc since only a small percentage of them will be running an i7 along side there new 5870. Of courese DX11 games will change that but who knows when we will actually see one of those.

sorry to say this but the simple solution dont buy 2x5870's unless u can overclock your cpu to 4ghz minimum...

2x5870's arent meant for older cpu's am afraid. you say that it is going to be an issue for a lot of people..

well not at all. either they buy 2 of them and realise they have a large bottleneck or they upgrade to a faster cpu that can cope.

(its a very common mistake for people to buy a gpu then realise they arent getting the return they wanted...then post here...and we tell them its a cpu bottleneck i must have answered at least 50 of these... )

[chispy]

yayyyyayyy , staggering numbers really , flying thru all this games ,
double the performance actually , CrossfireX scaling its getting really really good. Great review Hilbert , Please Please Hilbert overclock that cpu at 4.0Ghz or above and watch those numbers climb , this is so much fun to read. In the next CrossfireX Tri-Fire Please do it at 4.0 CPU please , i know theres a big bottlenck with 2 cards , 3 cards will be crying if that cpu its not overclocked . Thank you in advanced Hilbert for the next 5870 Threesome article and a ''gooood'' overclock on that i7 cpu .

Now i cant sleep :/ awaiting for my 5870 cards , hurry up Fedex

Regards: Chispy

PS- Remember to overclock the cpu on the next article please

[mitzi76]

Originally Posted by chispy

yayyyyayyy , staggering numbers really , flying thru all this games ,
double the performance actually , CrossfireX scaling its getting really really good. Great review Hilbert , Please Please Hilbert overclock that cpu at 4.0Ghz or above and watch those numbers climb , this is so much fun to read. In the next CrossfireX Tri-Fire Please do it at 4.0 CPU please , i know theres a big bottlenck with 2 cards , 3 cards will be crying if that cpu its not overclocked . Thank you in advanced Hilbert for the next 5870 Threesome article and a ''gooood'' overclock on that i7 cpu .

Now i cant sleep :/ awaiting for my 5870 cards , hurry up Fedex

Regards: Chispy

PS- Remember to overclock the cpu on the next article please

felicidades senor! pues que te duermes bien y mostranos photos y tus resultats temprano. mio es un ron dulce yayaya..

fins ara

[Passion Fruit]

Originally Posted by chispy

yayyyyayyy , staggering numbers really , flying thru all this games ,
double the performance actually , CrossfireX scaling its getting really really good. Great review Hilbert , Please Please Hilbert overclock that cpu at 4.0Ghz or above and watch those numbers climb , this is so much fun to read. In the next CrossfireX Tri-Fire Please do it at 4.0 CPU please , i know theres a big bottlenck with 2 cards , 3 cards will be crying if that cpu its not overclocked . Thank you in advanced Hilbert for the next 5870 Threesome article and a ''gooood'' overclock on that i7 cpu .

Now i cant sleep :/ awaiting for my 5870 cards , hurry up Fedex

Regards: Chispy

PS- Remember to overclock the cpu on the next article please

Steady big fella, i'll get you a tissue

[chispy]

[krayzieNRG]

those results are sick and to think there is a bottleneck plus these are the first drivers for the card......sweeet

[vbetts]

Originally Posted by chispy

yayyyyayyy , staggering numbers really , flying thru all this games ,
double the performance actually , CrossfireX scaling its getting really really good. Great review Hilbert , Please Please Hilbert overclock that cpu at 4.0Ghz or above and watch those numbers climb , this is so much fun to read. In the next CrossfireX Tri-Fire Please do it at 4.0 CPU please , i know theres a big bottlenck with 2 cards , 3 cards will be crying if that cpu its not overclocked . Thank you in advanced Hilbert for the next 5870 Threesome article and a ''gooood'' overclock on that i7 cpu .

Now i cant sleep :/ awaiting for my 5870 cards , hurry up Fedex

Regards: Chispy

PS- Remember to overclock the cpu on the next article please

You can give me one of them.

[H83]

Wow!!! i gotta say i´m really impressed by the perfomance of that Crossfire setup! The scaling was amazing, with the second card delivering, with the exception of Crysis (of course...) 70% or 80% increase in performance compared to a single GPU! Great stuff really.

The only problem is getting the money for 2 of those and a new system... (life is so unfair...).

[vbetts]

For me, it's getting money for just one lol.

[randomizer]

far i never been so impressed about crossfire before!!an you imagine new drivers????