I'm wondering if this card runs in Crossfire mode once it's up and running or if it's considered "Single" even though there are two GPU's on it. I have an nForce motherboard and obviously I can' run crossfire, but would be interested in getting it if it's considered a single card once installed.
As far as your hardware is concerned, treat it as a single graphics card. However, software will see it as two GPUs with seperate VRAM. You will need to turn on Catalyst AI to activate the second GPU and there are still some titles out there which refuse to work properly with crossfire. I have a counter-question for you though.. don't you think your CPU will bottleneck such a beastly graphics card? Can you let us know how that goes?
no his cpu will not bottleneck it. as for the question. it will be read as 1 card.it has 2 gpus yes but it's running through a single pcb so everything will recognize it as one gpu.it will run most titles maxed out using the 2 gpus on board no problem. only games you might become more cpu bound and dependent is RTS and simulation games or games that run on older engines such as source engine and Bethseda engine(fallout series,ect.) also GT4 is more cpu bound cause of the bad optimisation and porting was done.yea it's been patched but it still uses more of the cpu then the gpu in game,but you'll be fine since you have a quad core cpu
Do you think my old warrior q6600 will bottle neck it. I can get this chip up to 3.6ghz but I need to go water. I am thinking about grabbing one of these cards around April maybe.
Cool now it is time to convince the wife to let me get it. I will still hold out for Fermi to see the prices get competitive
A q9450/q6600 most likely wont do more than 3.6ghz or over unless on water. Therefore it will be a bottleneck. My previous cpu was a q9450 and at 3.6ghz was even bottlenecking a 295 slighty. Performance was fine, but i knew it could do more. So as the 5970 is quite a bit more powerfull than a 295 expect more of a bottleneck. Whether this means dont buy one is up to the op. And I would still recommend it. It will be a large upgrade in terms of performance but dont be surprised if you dont quite get the same performance as say a corei7 at around 4ghz or so. Saying there will be no bottleneck is a bit of a misleading comment. no flame intended btw p.s i even think 4ghz might add some fps with my 5870.
I understand that, it is a good point. But what do we do. 4ghz is great but we need faster cpu's for these monster cards. I hope fermi will lower prices across the board. I am not upgrading platforms until the 6 or 8 cores come out and they have hydra mobo's!
yeah i understand. well if it were me maybe i would run x2 5700's or even 1x5870. tbh i cant say how a 5970 would run with a cpu below 3.6ghz. maybe performance would still be good but for the price it's a big amount of money 2 drop. saying that if you are planning on upgrading rest of the rig in the near future you already have a beast of a card.
Yea that is what I was hoping, get a killer card and be ready for the future. All in all I just want to be able to run BF:BC 2 at 1920 x 1080 and 4xaa and 16xaf. if I can do that with good graphics I will be happy. I won't be buying until after that game is released.
it will only bottlneck in cpu bound games not gpu bound or older engines as i mentioned before that tend to be more cpu bound. most people don't understand the term ''bottleneck'' fully.that's why it's misused many times. i'm saying i don't understand it fully either but i do have some common sense to read and learn much as possible about this so called ''bottleneck'' as example people on these fourms will try to tell me my e8400 is a huge bottleneck for my 5870 but my 5870 performs just as well as people with i7 or i5 rigs. upgraded from a 4870 and saw double performance as expected from benchmarks i read,especially on here. there's more to a bottleneck then just the cpu or it's clock speeds.architecture,ram,psu,software,ect. all plays a role in limiting your system performance. there will always be a bottleneck somewhere in your system no matter what you put in or how much you overclock something,but the bottleneck can be soo slightly that you won't notice a thing. just a heads up
Yea I do see your point. For me though I am slowing down in the game buying department. I have blown way to much money on games I don't play. I see me playing a lot of World in conflict in my future so the benchmarks I saw from this were impressive. I wonder if this game is more gpu bound since I have a quad. Like with the benchmarks I ran the lower I drop the graphics the faster it runs so that in essence is where the gpu is limiting my frames right?
well i wouldnt have said your cpu would be a bottleneck for a 5870 in any big way. cant say for sure though how much diff a corei7 at 3.7ghz and an e8400 at 3.7ghz would be. i doubt anything major. my point wasnt about the nuances of bottlenecking but whether a 5970 would be a bottleckneck for a cpu running at 3.6ghz and in these cases a q9450 and a q6600 it will be. we can argue/discuss/speculate on how much this is and bottom line is up to the op to go for it or not. personally i go for gpu's that are matched for my cpu and it's speed. i wouldnt get the 5970 for myself for several reasons, money being the main thing, but also because I havent reached a cpu speed yet I feel would be a good balance/get rid of any bottlenecking. that's just my take on it. either way i dont think it can be a bad move having the fastest gpu on the planet even if you are losing 15fps or so...will still fly!
Thank you all for the input. I'm aware that the CPU is a bit behind but as 3T3RN4L mentioned I'm expecting newer more GPU dependent games to perform a lot better. I know that me playing Combat mission shock force with this card wont improve my fps since the game is mostly CPU reliant. However, I do intend to upgrade the CPU and the MB a very short time after the GPU. I was just a bit concerned about how (if at all) this card would actually run on a nForce MB's since I used to own a 9800 GX2 which was one card but 2 GPU inside it and I had to enable "Multi GPU" in the Nvidia control panel. I'll keep an eye out for the next shipment on newegg and I'd be happy to report back once it's in my hands.
Going back on the CPU Bottleneck...yes, your current CPU will bottleneck the card. Even the OC'd i7 965 that Hilbert was using during his review of the card was bottlenecking the card, and that CPU was at 3750MHz! http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-5970-review-test/11 Not only that, but having the same processor as the OP, I can tell you from first hand experience that even at 3.4GHz, my two HD4870's in CrossFireX is still slightly bottlenecked. But honestly, even if there is a bottleneck, it's not going to kill your experience with the card. Even acknowledging that there's a bottleneck with my current GPU setup isn't stopping me from getting three HD5850's in TriFire.
