Quad Crossfire X Vs Crossfire X On 4870 Cards

[nightsider]

as mentioned in a previous thread

 

there are two cards mentioned the

Gigabyte HD 4870 512MB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDTV Out PCI-E Graphics Card found here

and the

Sapphire HD 4870X2 2GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDTV Out PCI-E Graphics Card found here

 

i want to know would it be better to go Quad Crossfire X instead of standard two way Crossfire i have heard that some of the Nvidia dual core cards were having a stuttering issue with games is it true for the ATI cards as well

[dj_budi668]

as mentioned in a previous thread

 

there are two cards mentioned the

Gigabyte HD 4870 512MB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDTV Out PCI-E Graphics Card found here

and the

Sapphire HD 4870X2 2GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDTV Out PCI-E Graphics Card found here

 

i want to know would it be better to go Quad Crossfire X instead of standard two way Crossfire i have heard that some of the Nvidia dual core cards were having a stuttering issue with games is it true for the ATI cards as well

 

4870X2 Xfire to go Quad is more better than 4870 3way Xfire.

As same as 9800GX2 SLI to go Quad more better than GTX 280 SLI.

You can imagine 9800GX2 3way in nForce 780i or 790i board

LOL

[Puck]

as mentioned in a previous thread

 

there are two cards mentioned the

Gigabyte HD 4870 512MB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDTV Out PCI-E Graphics Card found here

and the

Sapphire HD 4870X2 2GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDTV Out PCI-E Graphics Card found here

 

i want to know would it be better to go Quad Crossfire X instead of standard two way Crossfire i have heard that some of the Nvidia dual core cards were having a stuttering issue with games is it true for the ATI cards as well

What are you asking?

 

If you want to know if dual 4870X2s(crossfireX) is a better buy then two 4870s(plain crossfire), then the answer is pretty much no. You will only see benefits in benchmarks and very few games like GRID at extreme 2k+ resolutions. A 4870X2 and a plain 4870 also actually runs slower in some games, because it limits each gpu to 512mb instead of the gig a piece each 4870X2 gpu has. That is one reason why very demanding games show more performance with a single 4870X2 compared to crossfire 4870s, even though they are the same gpu. A better alternative would be a 1gb4870 when they become more widespread paired with a 4870X2, so they each keep their gig of ram per gpu. Even that does not have too impressive of a gain, since ALL of these cards are so severly cpu limited already.

 

In most graphics intensive games and this generation of cards a higher cpu overclock may get you more fps then adding another gpu - ESPECIALLY for those considering quad gpu setups.

 

I can attest that stuttering is not an issue for 4870X2 cards though. The new higher bandwidth bridge chip and memory archetecture does its job very well, and that is without the 5gb/s sideport enabled yet which should help the cards scale even better in more demanding games in the future.

[nightsider]

Thanks puck round about september im going to start doing some planing for a system of my own since mine is getting out dated verry rapidly, and i was wondering what all the hype about Quad crossfire was about, so have i got it right

 

two Sapphire HD 4870X2 2GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDTV Out PCI-E Graphics Cards is marginaly better than

 

two Gigabyte HD 4870 512MB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDTV Out PCI-E Graphics Cards?

[Rehit]

i would avoid Sapphire like the plague...

their customer service could not be worse.

after 3 weeks trying to get an RMA thru them NewEgg replaced my out of 30 day return window card for free.

you do not have to take my word.

just e-mail them and see if they even reply.

[capthowdy575]

you dont deal with sapphire ever you deal with the vendor were you bought your card from. iv own all sapphire expect some evga which i liked to.

[Compxpert]

VisionTek FTW.

[Waco]

Thanks puck round about september im going to start doing some planing for a system of my own since mine is getting out dated verry rapidly, and i was wondering what all the hype about Quad crossfire was about, so have i got it right

 

two Sapphire HD 4870X2 2GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDTV Out PCI-E Graphics Cards is marginaly better than

 

two Gigabyte HD 4870 512MB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDTV Out PCI-E Graphics Cards?

1 4870 X2 >>>> two 4870 in Crossfire.

 

2 4870 X2 in CrossfireX are *usually* as fast or faster than 2 4870 in Crossfire but most games don't scale well at all with 4 GPUs.

[nightsider]

1 4870 X2 >>>> two 4870 in Crossfire.

 

2 4870 X2 in CrossfireX are *usually* as fast or faster than 2 4870 in Crossfire but most games don't scale well at all with 4 GPUs.

i cant say ive had the privalage of running 4 GPUs on a side note what does scale actualy mean sorry if that sounds like a Noobish question

[Verran]

i cant say ive had the privalage of running 4 GPUs on a side note what does scale actualy mean sorry if that sounds like a Noobish question

When people talk about "scaling" they're describing how performance increases with additional GPUs.

 

In a perfect world, 2 GPUs would perform twice as well as 1 GPU. That's not usually the case though.

2 might perform 1.75x as well as 1.

3 might be 2.25x,

and 4 might be 2.75x.

Etc, etc.

 

When people say that SLI/CF "don't scale well" they mean that adding more GPUs is not adding as much performance as you would hope.

[nightsider]

thanks for the explanation verran

[Rehit]

you dont deal with sapphire ever you deal with the vendor were you bought your card from. iv own all sapphire expect some evga which i liked to.

 

 

we should probably tell NewEgg since they were dealing with Sapphire directly...

they finally gave up and just sent me a brand new card.