# 4870 Xfire to 5870 work log - now with intel to AMD!



## Mussels (May 18, 2010)

upgrading to a 5870 soon, but getting the option to test 5870 crossfire while i'm at it and see how much awesomer it is


Basically just running a small group of benchies on both sets of cards, including measuring power for my own reference (it'll help me decide if crossfire is worth it on this system later on). Because its for my own reference (and bystander curiosity) i am NOT bothering to post screenshots of test results - just numbers.

Tests are being ran on system in specs - but with a few changes to clocks.

CPU is at 4.2GHz 1.35v
Ram is at 886Mhz 5-5-5-18




> 4870 crossfire results:
> 
> Company Of Heroes:
> 
> ...






> Single 5870 results:
> 
> CoH DX9:
> 
> ...



I'm expecting similar performace from the 4870's to the 5870 - perhaps slightly slower due to OC, perhaps the same due to CPU bottlenecks. Crossfire may use more CPU power than a single GPU, so i'm expecting it to be quite even - that said, i'm expecting massively lower idle power usage (~120W less).

As for 5870 crossfire: i expect shit results due to my CPU holding everything back. Yeah i may be able to run more AA in the few games i cant already max out, but my min FPS should stay the same due to the CPU. Playing around with MSI afterburner has shown me that my CPU tends to max out before my GPU's do.

edit: crossfire testing has been nuked. i no longer have access to the second card.


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## dr emulator (madmax) (May 18, 2010)

what psu are you going to use for cf with the 5870?


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## heky (May 18, 2010)

I would say his Corsair TX750 can handle 2x HD5870


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## Mussels (May 18, 2010)

heky said:


> I would say his Corsair TX750 can handle 2x HD5870


with ease.


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## Mussels (May 22, 2010)

updated some results


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## Mussels (May 22, 2010)

for a triple post update: After talking to myself for a bit, i have a theory about why the 5870 is faster, despite reviews saying otherwise.


Theory goes: 

CPU power is used to feed the video cards. I was CPU limited in most games, not GPU limited.

Being two GPU's, the 4870 crossfire setup must have taken more CPU power to feed it, than a single 5870, despite the overall similarities in GPU power.

Thus, by reducing that extra CPU overhead i've reduced the CPU bottlenecking for overall faster performance.


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## Frizz (May 22, 2010)

So basically, 1 GPU will always have less bottleneck than 2 GPU's even if 1 is reasonably faster than 2 older GPU's combined? If so that is awesome. I'm yet to upgrade to a 5870, since by the looks of my CPU and PSU there maybe a significant bottleneck? I'm not too sure, but how do you find the improvement overall?

Are you getting an urge to upgrade to 1156/1336 to optimize the card?  

In any case, congrats glad you replaced those 4870's.


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## Mussels (May 22, 2010)

randomflip said:


> So basically, 1 GPU will always have less bottleneck than 2 GPU's even if 1 is reasonably faster than 2 older GPU's combined? If so that is awesome. I'm yet to upgrade to a 5870, since by the looks of my CPU and PSU there maybe a significant bottleneck? I'm not too sure, but how do you find the improvement overall?
> 
> Are you getting an urge to upgrade to 1156/1336 to optimize the card?
> 
> In any case, congrats glad you replaced those 4870's.



its just a theory, but its backed up by a trend i've seen in a few threads... a user with a mid range CPU goes and slaps in some high end card, and reports that its 'slower' with the extra GPU(s) enabled.

The latest example of this was a guy with an E8600 and TWO 5970's... the more GPU's he had, the slower it got. This would back up my theory of more GPU's eating more CPU power.

oh and i'm going AM3/Thuban by christmas... no rush yet, i'm waiting for a board with more USB 3.0 


edit: pics of the old vs new


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## Frizz (May 23, 2010)

You make me want to pick up one of these babies asap .


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## Mussels (Jun 2, 2010)

upgrading to a thuban 1090T 6 core sex god. using this thread to compare since its already got some benchies 


Intel system benchies (focused on CPU/ram)

CPU is at 4.2GHz 1.35v
Ram is at 886Mhz 5-5-5-18

Superpi






Wprime:







the thuban is due 8am tomorrow morning


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## Mussels (Jun 3, 2010)

AMD is up and running 







Wprime has detected my idle clocks, but it was at load clocks while the test was running.


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## Mussels (Jun 3, 2010)

I should note that atm, my AMD system is stock CPU with ram at 1066Mhz 7-7-7-21 - SPD timings since i dont have time to tighten them before work.


superpi:

Intel: 11.468
AMD: 19.757

58% of the speed of the intel at this test. This test DOES favour intel and my ram timings are shite, so this is expected.

Wprime:

32M:
Intel: 22.2
AMD: 8.55

259% the speed. considering i have 300% more cores, the ram timings could boost this to a perfect speed 300% (making me think that at stock, my new CPU is as fast as the old one OC'd)

128M:
Intel:  712.2
AMD:  266.5

267% faster - longer test is more reliable, backs up what i said above.


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## Mussels (Jun 3, 2010)

tested with ram at 5-5-5-18
max temp reached (reported by AMD overdrive) was 51.5C







it was slightly SLOWER this time (i guess due to AOD in the background)


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