Im sorry i have to say this, i will not bite my tongue and i am a fanboy!! I AM DAMMIT! i loves my ati, but if nvidia released a card that was resonable and fast i would buy it over ati, its all about the money, Now this thing that is bothering me, is oh wow the gtx295 is 15% faster then the 5870 with a whole NOTHER GPU!!!!!. lol seriosly, DUH! mind boggling. AND im buying this card when it comes out, i dont have no sissy case. lol i can fit this beast and power it. SO bring the pain on! and i cant wait to see this things benchmarks to woop some ass.

i just hope it's not another 9800gtx gets hot and goes bang card:shadedshu

Thanks Binge, And I gotta say I agree with you, not greatest card at all, and horrible price (from this source)

Also I own a 5870, and it is my best card right now, and as Binge stated I have done extensive core/memory clock testing, and I find what this card (5970) is on paper to be 'Lackluster', at least compared to what two full fledged 5870's on one board could do (in terms of stock clocks) and in my opinion a single 5870 is a little lackluster too.

Now there is the possibility ATi are doing this so that they have more up their sleeve to combat a Fermi card when it lands, but in my opinion they would already be right on the thermal threshold, and the power threshold for this card, and its already about 13" long, I think they have wedged themselves into a pretty tight spot here. Something faster would likely need to sport beefyer power connectors and beefyer cooling.

Man fermi is a gay name. LOL!!!

and how can you find the performace lackluster am i missing something here? whatever i dont understand, its like buying a ferrari over your pinto and being like yeah...i excpected better... WTF MATE

MarinebornMan fermi is a gay name. LOL!!!

and how can you find the performace lackluster am i missing something here? whatever i dont understand, its like buying a ferrari over your pinto and being like yeah...i excpected better... WTF MATE

Why are you flaming? He freaking owns the 5870, and a bunch of what he did was to test for himself what happened when you changed the clocks etc etc. After testing he formed some opinions of the card based on what's out on the market right now. I can tell you Wolf loves his GPUs and it doesn't matter to him whether they come in single or dual GPU flavors. It would behoove you to inspect the results of 5870 tri and quadfire tests as they are atrocious.

My opinion is formed having used and owned and overclocked (in the last 18 months);

8800GTX, 9800GTX, HD4870 Crossfire, GTX260 c216, GTX280, GTX295, GTX260 c216 1792mb SLi, and now a HD5870.

So when I say I think it's lackluster, yes it's my opinion but I'm hardly coming from a pinto, to a Ferrari, and the only reason I haven't bought a second 5870 is because I don't like how they scale (according to reviews), maybe they'll help this with drivers? I don't know.

So yeah, I kind of expected better, now to hear this card is clocked like 5850's I find lackluster, especially because in all of my experiences of Dual GPU solutions, you always have situations where you will fall back on single card performance, where this solution will be less than 20% faster overall than a 4890 overall.

and yeah I do love my GPU's Binge :D

BingeTerrible card, worse price. :toast:

just kinda wanted to respond to that blatent statement right there with mine

yea i'm definitely feeling what some(binge, wolf) are posting here. I don't think the HD 5970 is going to be anything too exciting as its clocked just above the HD 5850's core clock and the same memory clock. It's performance we've already seen. Now what would have been awesome to see is the HD 5970 have a core clock of say 950 and memory at 1350. That woulda been sweet.

I don't like it but it actually makes sense imo from a marketing point of view. The HD 5970 is probly going to fall between HD 5850 xfire and HD 5870 xfire performance wise so.... 5850xfire:~$615, 5870xfire:~$815. So i'd think it'd be fair to expect the HD 5970 to fall around $650-$700.

thats why you water cool it, and crank the crap out of it lol

Well here's hoping when it's released they drop the prices of the 5870/50, so they can make it $500, knock the 5870 down to say ~300-330 and a 5850 down to 200-230 - yes I pulled this from my ass :)

Then theyre onto something, because if it performs like 5850 CF, and costs 600+ USD, then the GTX295 still works 'pretty much' exactly where it is.

SasquiThey've been killing NVidia on that front. A normal 5870 costs $400, where a 295 is $600. Performance difference is about 10% (if that).

Hopefully, the availability picks up!

You seem to have little understanding about the price points, or are shopping at places with largely marked up prices! The 295 retails for about $500 ( www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130508 ) and the preformance difference is a fair bit more than 10 %, your looking at closer to 17-20 % , but to someone who like AMD I spose thats "about 10%" . Also given AMD's track record on it's high end cards, they will continue to have supply problems, as their fab/ manufacture facility's are separate, it saved them money, and their buisiness, but it's hurting their ability to fabricate and deliver their hardware. Also eyefinity is a pricey impractical gimmic!

wow thats a good price for the performance you will get! Compared to he GTX280's price when it was released.

Bjorn_Of_Icelandwow thats a good price for the performance you will get! Compared to he GTX280's price when it was released.

How long did that last? Times change and so does the economy.

I'm waiting to see what nV offers before I make any purchase decisions, so this announcement is of little consequence to me. But I can say this, the next card I buy must have solid GPGPU support, especially in video encoding.

BingeDespite all the slander I still think this is going to do worse than 2x 5870s in CF, and I think the price mentioned by the OP is still ridiculous.

wolfAlso I own a 5870, and it is my best card right now, and as Binge stated I have done extensive core/memory clock testing, and I find what this card (5970) is on paper to be 'Lackluster', at least compared to what two full fledged 5870's on one board could do (in terms of stock clocks) and in my opinion a single 5870 is a little lackluster too.

You guys are stating the excruciatingly obvious!1!:wtf:
Which dual card do you know that works better than 2 cards SLI'd or Crossfired? Is the GTX295 more powerful than 2 SLI'd GTX285's, or 3870x2 than 2x3870s, or 9800GX2 than 2x9800GTs, or 4870x2 than 2x4870s?

And on top of it, Binge, that "ridiculous" price is about the same than Xfired 5850s and is a single card, so is logically preferred and so expected to cost more than the 2 of them.
So what Binge, just another avenue of attack?:p

BingeHow long did that last? Times change and so does the economy.

Yep. didnt last that long.. but considering this new card from ATi has no competition, and ATi knowing this "shortage" gossips circulating around the net, ATi can have a reason to pull off a high price (say 2x that of a 5870). But they still stuck to exact price

inferKNOXYou guys are stating the excruciatingly obvious!1!:wtf:
Which dual card do you know that works better than 2 cards SLI'd or Crossfired? Is the GTX295 more powerful than 2 SLI'd GTX285's, or 3870x2 than 2x3870s, or 9800GX2 than 2x9800GTs, or 4870x2 than 2x4870s?

And on top of it, Binge, that "ridiculous" price is about the same than Xfired 5850s and is a single card, so is logically preferred and so expected to cost more than the 2 of them.
So what Binge, just another avenue of attack?:p

Not more powerful, but even is what we want dude, and as I remember it the 3870x2's GPU's were clocked 50mhz faster than a 3870, with memory a decent bit slower(but affecting performance less), the 4870X2 was clocked identically to a 48701gb, so I was expecting to not have to sacrifice 125mhz core and 200mhz memory on this card.

The 9800GX2 was clocked like a 8800/9800GT but had 16 more sp's, and the GTX295 like a 260 but with all 240 sp's, I guess ATi are taking a lesson from Nvidia's book and making their dual card not as fast as the top single card but carrying all the active core units.

Wile EI'm waiting to see what nV offers before I make any purchase decisions, so this announcement is of little consequence to me. But I can say this, the next card I buy must have solid GPGPU support, especially in video encoding.

For ur pronz?

First shipment incoming:

I talked to my major wholesale agent here in europe and he said that in about 10 days he is getting 5 samples of this card.

5. For a wholesale company.

That means that the biggest retailers are going to get 1-2 cards maximum if they squeeze everything out of the 3 wholesale companies in the country.

Tiv

wolfNot more powerful, but even is what we want dude, and as I remember it the 3870x2's GPU's were clocked 50mhz faster than a 3870, with memory a decent bit slower(but affecting performance less), the 4870X2 was clocked identically to a 48701gb, so I was expecting to not have to sacrifice 125mhz core and 200mhz memory on this card.

The 9800GX2 was clocked like a 8800/9800GT but had 16 more sp's, and the GTX295 like a 260 but with all 240 sp's, I guess ATi are taking a lesson from Nvidia's book and making their dual card not as fast as the top single card but carrying all the active core units.

Fair enough.:)
Though we have to settle with the fact that it's unlikely to happen for anyone (ATi, nV, Intel, etc). There will always be some sort of loss of efficiency in multicore systems vs the sum of efficiency of the singular cores, due to some of the processing power being lost to inter-communicatory overhead among other things.
It's all hearsay though for now, coz we don't know how it performs yet. Maybe it does match the Xfire 5870s for all we know.:confused:

From the companies' perspective, I think they want it to be a trade off, slightly more power from 2 cards, but more space, heat, noise, power draw, etc; or a single card that is slightly less powerful, but more convenient in the sense of taking slightly less power, & producing less noise, heat, space, etc.

BingeI'm guessing 13-25% below 5870s in crossfire only because of Wolf's tests in underclocking his 5870 down to the rated specs of the dual card. I am making an estimate and a statement based on opinion based on experience as well as some independant testing done by others. The 4870x2 performed about 10% less than 4870s in CF at the same OC. I have to admit that from what I've heard the 4870 drivers were more mature in their time than the 5870 drivers have been since release. If you want to assume that I made my judgement based off of ES cards, and pre-release drivers than you can pick up a pitchfork and torch with the rest of the fanboy hunters.

A small prayer for my life. Oh lord, protect me from the wrath of the ignorants who claim the worst of me.

Despite all the slander I still think this is going to do worse than 2x 5870s in CF, and I think the price mentioned by the OP is still ridiculous.

Sure, overall a 4870x2 runs slightly slower than two 4870s . . . but it's fully depended upon the screen resolution, too (or have we forgotten that?) - a 4870x2 ran slightly faster than two 4870s at higher screen resolutions than at lower resolutions . . .

And let's take into account that one single 4870x2 had lower minimum FPS and less "mini-stuttering" (the effect of loading things into the VID memory) than two 4870s do.

And I'm fully willing to back up these claims with my own hardware . . . If need be, I'll bench just one of my 4870x2s against my two 4870s with all cards at stock clocks - then, if further need be, I'll go digging through the i-nets for the numerous benchmarks that have been performed that show the same results.

Simply downclocking one x870 to the same frequencies that the dual-GPU card uses is not an acurate measurement of a dual-GPUs performance. That's just ridiculous. The whole PCB architecture is completely different, let alone the small differences between the GPUs.

And, again, one cannot take someone's "preliminary" benches of a completely different beast and determine with any amount of accuracy how something else (that's not even available for testing yet) will run.

That'd be like saying that the new ZR1 Corvette is going to be slower than the new Camaro SS . . . even though they both have the same powerhouse of a motor. There's differences between the two that make the faster car the faster car.

My x-fire 4870 set had no micro-stuttering while the x2 did have stuttering. I don't believe 4870x2 had better results than 2x 1gb 4870. Here's a source to back up my personal experience.

www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/crossfire_vs_sli/12.htm

You people are unbelievable. I can back up my opinions with fact and still it feels like I'm only met with harassment. Bad card, bad price. You don't just lump 5870gpus together and kill the clock by a few hundred MHz. Are they trying to impress people with how much it can overclock by selling a horrendously underclocked card, or is the heat just that bad? Remember these cards do throttle when they get hot enough.

Bad card, bad price sums up my feelings to the initial article written where e-tailers are asking for over 500 euros for the video card. Here is the difference between the euro total and the USD total. 514.46 Euros = 764.950574 U.S. dollars. Google is cool eh? That's slightly more than 5850 crossfire. Nice. Has anyone noticed that I don't own a 5870 or a 5850? One package almost got me to jump and that was the Vapor-X model. I just keep reminding myself that I've had better, and the idea of buying it for even $50 less than the GTX295 seems absolutely bonkers. It's not that the 295 is a NVIDIA card, but it's that my 295 clocked from 576MHz core clock, 1,242MHz shader clock, and 999MHz memory speed to 800/1710/1350 once watercooled. Before that on air I used 2xGTX295s to achieve 41K in vantage, and the fps in games were just outrageous. What am I supposed to say about the 5870 from my experience? Am I'm going to be surprised or amazed and taken to a whole new level of the visual experience?

imperialpainSimply downclocking one x870 to the same frequencies that the dual-GPU card uses is not an acurate measurement of a dual-GPUs performance. That's just ridiculous. The whole PCB architecture is completely different, let alone the small differences between the GPUs.

And, again, one cannot take someone's "preliminary" benches of a completely different beast and determine with any amount of accuracy how something else (that's not even available for testing yet) will run.

You're totally right, according to the last generation the x2 card will fail to the crossfire solution. Wolf shouldn't have explored the different frequencies of his card to see if performance was like a 5850 or near 1/2 what we might see in the 5970. I appologize for bringing it up? You figure out something better.

flamerKNOXYou guys are stating the excruciatingly obvious!1!
Which dual card do you know that works better than 2 cards SLI'd or Crossfired? Is the GTX295 more powerful than 2 SLI'd GTX285's, or 3870x2 than 2x3870s, or 9800GX2 than 2x9800GTs, or 4870x2 than 2x4870s?

And on top of it, Binge, that "ridiculous" price is about the same than Xfired 5850s and is a single card, so is logically preferred and so expected to cost more than the 2 of them.
So what Binge, just another avenue of attack?

Uhh... I could show you personal benchmarks that show my 295 beating two gtx280s @1920x1080 at the same clock speeds (by one or two fps, still amazing card). The 295 is 2x275s and not 2x285s. I don't doubt three gtx280s or 285s can beat a 295 at any time, but that's only because 2x295s don't scale as well. What does "just another avenue of attack," mean? I said something simple. You among others take it out of context, and look at what's happened. My response was to the article based on what I gathered about the subject. Fancy thing is other people agree. Fancier thing is that I didn't come to the conclusion without at least trying to understand the 5970 GPU. Unlike other people who may snear and scoff at company A or company B as a customer and enthusiast I'm only interested in what is truely innovative. Do multi-gpu solutions seem innovative to me at tri-quad configurations? No. Do multi-gpu solutions scale well at 3-4 gpus in crossfire. No. Will the 5970 scale well when in crossfire with another 5970. I don't know, but from what I've seen in the past I doubt it would. Is $750+ too much this year to spend on a GPU? Well since I only paid $600 last year on gpus and it allowed me to try 2x4870s, 2x4870x2, 2xGTX280s, and then got a free (for the cost of shipping) GTX295 because of the step-up program. I'd say it feels overpriced to me. Anyone else want to try and aggressively and assertively shove their reason down my throat about pricing or how ATI's card is going to innovate my pants off? I'll read it word for word and aknowledge your values as human beings, but are you going to work at it? I mean are you really going to have some sort of information other than the benefit of doubt to convince me otherwise? What was innovative about the 5870 besides the heat? I've learned that the past and present are very important in even trying to anticipate the future. I half expected such remarks about my initial post, but the arguing over things that are opinions supported by facts is what's really ridiculous. Hell the price of this card reported in the OP is actually starting to seem perfectly fine in comparison to the reaction to my posts.

I love die-hard fanboys. :rolleyes: One time durring this world series I got hit over the head with a bottle because I complimented a move made by NY in game 4. It really impressed me to no end how a player could steal second and third after the hitter's flyball was caught. I just got to remove the bandage this week.

BingeMy x-fire 4870 set had no micro-stuttering while the x2 did have stuttering. I don't believe 4870x2 had better results than 2x 1gb 4870. Here's a source to back up my personal experience.

www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/crossfire_vs_sli/12.htm

You people are unbelievable. I can back up my opinions with fact and still it feels like I'm only met with harassment. Bad card, bad price. You don't just lump 5870gpus together and kill the clock by a few hundred MHz. Are they trying to impress people with how much it can overclock by selling a horrendously underclocked card, or is the heat just that bad? Remember these cards do throttle when they get hot enough.

Bad card, bad price sums up my feelings to the initial article written where e-tailers are asking for over 500 euros for the video card. Here is the difference between the euro total and the USD total. 514.46 Euros = 764.950574 U.S. dollars. Google is cool eh? That's slightly more than 5850 crossfire. Nice. Has anyone noticed that I don't own a 5870 or a 5850? One package almost got me to jump and that was the Vapor-X model. I just keep reminding myself that I've had better, and the idea of buying it for even $50 less than the GTX295 seems absolutely bonkers. It's not that the 295 is a NVIDIA card, but it's that my 295 clocked from 576MHz core clock, 1,242MHz shader clock, and 999MHz memory speed to 800/1710/1350 once watercooled. Before that on air I used 2xGTX295s to achieve 41K in vantage, and the fps in games were just outrageous. What am I supposed to say about the 5870 from my experience? Am I'm going to be surprised or amazed and taken to a whole new level of the visual experience?

THe problem with such benchmarks as you've pointed to lie in the fact that they only show the average FPS of certain configurations, and typically only the average MAX FPS - on top of that, linking to one specific game benchmark is not a good judge of hardware configurations across various games, either . . .

if you had taken the time to look through the rest of the games tested in that specific benchmark comparison, you'd see that for about almost all other titles, the 4870x2 runs slightly faster than two 4870s paired up.

Honestly, when it comes to benchmarks, the biggest areas that we should be concerned with are not only the average FPS, but the average MIN FPS.

The micro-stuttering is most of the time system dependant. Whereas you might've had more micro-stuttering with a 4870x2 instead of two 4870s . . . I can claim completely otherwise . . . even after adding a second 4870x2 into the mix. As well - what kind of motherboard are you running? If you're primary PCIE slot doesn't support the 2.0 standard, then yes, it'll bottleneck the living hell out of a 4870x2.

And back to pricing . . . we cannot compare USD amounts to EURO amounts. These are two totally different markets with differing price structures, taxes, emargos, inflation amounts, alcohol, smog content, rad ppm, and various other variables between the two.

USA != EUR

If such were the case, we'd have the same prices for our goods over here, that europeanoners pay across the pond.


And then to the issue of heat - sure, 90% of all newer hardware will throttle themself if temps get out of control. But, heat is relative to each users individual case setup. Just because your setup is borked and you can't keep a card from frying itself doesn't mean that such is a typical experience for other users. It's actually quite unbelievable how quickly people place blame on a manufacturer's hardware when typically the issue lies in their setup.

You're totally right, according to the last generation the x2 card will fail to the crossfire solution. Wolf shouldn't have explored the different frequencies of his card to see if performance was like a 5850 or near 1/2 what we might see in the 5970. I appologize for bringing it up? You figure out something better.

Nice play on my user name - and very mature, I might add. It fills me with such delight to see such childish behaviour, especially when the total debate is starting to swing away from a user's opinion.


You want a better comparision idea? How about waiting until the hardware is released to the review sites for testing, instead of jumping to conclusions based on another user's unfounded testing with questionable methods.

At least, that is what would make sense, and be the logical thing to do, right?

It amazes me how quickly others are willing to jump on what is essentially "heresay" and follow through with it. It also amazes me that when ever someone starts stouting more logical and sensical information, said user is labeled as a fanboi - even though I shouldn't have to, anyone of the other regulars who've dealt with my posting over the last few years will be more than willing to tell you that a fanboi I am not . . . but, I guess when one is proven wrong and you have no other logical means to back yourself up, namecalling is the only logical retort, correct?

:shadedshu

Binge, your first post was mis-leading, or made people misunderstood, you should have said more facts than opinions from the start. :laugh:

[H]@RD5TUFFYou seem to have little understanding about the price points, or are shopping at places with largely marked up prices! The 295 retails for about $500 ( www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130508 ) and the preformance difference is a fair bit more than 10 %, your looking at closer to 17-20 % , but to someone who like AMD I spose thats "about 10%" . Also given AMD's track record on it's high end cards, they will continue to have supply problems, as their fab/ manufacture facility's are separate, it saved them money, and their buisiness, but it's hurting their ability to fabricate and deliver their hardware. Also eyefinity is a pricey impractical gimmic!

Did you make an account named after that terrible excuse for a forum just to slander AMD? I have to agree that AMD is having supply issues, but where's Fermi? The last I checked, Fermi was a sawed down version of an older card.