Very basic question (well 2 actually) how much of a benefit for day to day use is crossfiring GPUs. I have an Asus 5770. And do you have to match cards, as in exact make and model or even model number. For instance: would I need another Asus 5770 or could I get a cheaper card, passive even? I am running watercooled but dont want to stress my loop anymore until I improve it.
Personally, I'd say that crossfire is probably not important for you. You don't have to buy Asus. You don't have to buy a 5770 - but performance will be better if you do - remember, crossfire does not provide 100% improvements, so spending £60 on a card that has 50% of the performance of your current card would not be good value for money. The improvement is usually around 30-50% in optimized games, but in quite a few games crossfire causes problems or doesn't work at all. If I were you, I'd sell your 5770 and buy a GTX460 or 5850 - it'll provide the same amount of performance as crossfired 5770s, but in all games, not just the ones that support crossfire well - as well as being more power efficient. If you sell your 5770 for £60 (£75 with waterblock? maybe?) you'd be able to buy a GTX460 for the same price as another 5770 - which would be better for all-round gaming. The 5770 is a good budget card, but it's not great for crossfire, purely because there are more powerful single-gpu cards available, which are better all-rounders. Crossfire is only really useful for the people who have really powerful GPUs already - and even then only in a few situations.
I understand. I don't actually "need" the extra power as the 5770 plays all my usual games at 1920x1200 at high enough settings, it's basically the only thing left in my PC I haven't done! So was more of a "bling thing" Doing some research all the passive cards seem to not feature crossfire anyway, and the PC was built to be a silent performer as in no sound at all apart from through the speakers!
Well I got my second 5870 so once I have finished building this will let you know what difference it makes in CoD4 and photoshop.
Agree with Bakes I am getting a 5850 on Tuesday for that very reason. 5770s in crossfire can perform on par/better than the 5850 in some situations, but at games which do not play well with crossfire, they can perform worse than a single 5770 if things are particularly bad. A single powerful card will always be a bit more consistent, and then if you really want to crossfire, crossfire that
Saphire seem to favour passive cards and have two: 5550 - £64.60 5670 - £89.86 What gain if any would I receive from adding either of these? I know it would make more sense to sell my card and get another, but I just want to know I have done all I can do...
Have a look at this article http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2009/11/24/multi-gpu-round-up/1 And this table shows the various compatible combinations http://sites.amd.com/PublishingImag...iagrams/HighResolutionJPEG/CF_combo_chart.jpg I've used crossfired cards (2) in the past and been pretty happy with the results, although i think 1 mid/high range card is the better option these days, depending on your expectations and requirements.
Please note, my PC is not only a games machine, it is used for video editing / encoding in Premiere and some Photoshop work too.
If you can wait a while mate mine will be another 3 weeks and it will be up and running as I will be using mine for the same reasons Especially for Cs4 as that is hard on GPU's
Only benefit of crossfire is the added performance. Two 5770's perform (most of hte time) very similarly to a single HD5870. Other than that there's really no point in getting another graphic card. Unless ofcourse you want to connect your PC to more than three screens. EDIT: I'm still not impressed by the GPU-use in other tasks than gaming. There's been talk about it for ages, but I'm yet to see GPU have an impact on Photoshop.
A couple of things to note here. Crossfire/SLI is far better than it was a few years ago, most cards these days will give a good 70-80% increase, the GTX 460 might even give more in some situations. The other thing to be careful off, is that if you put a slower card in, both cards will default to what ever speed the slower of the 2 cards is running. So for example if you use a 5770 and a 5550, they will run at the 5550's speeds, so be careful when mixing cards. It's much better to run a matching pair.
frontline: from that chart then I would need either another 5770 or a 5750 for compatibility? My WC loop is based around a Zalman Resorator with a XSPC RX240 with 4 Scythe fans in push/pull running at 600 rpm: It keeps my CPU (1090T @ 4GHz) and stock 5770 nice and cool with stock water blocks. If I were to go down the route of non-passive and needed a 5750/5770 I would need another waterblock (would keep to the zalman for now to keep it all the same and they are only £17). But I am concerned the added heat from another GPU may be too much.... Maybe I am just day dreaming again...
The ones with the black dot are the preferred options - so a second 5770 would perform better than a 5770 + 5750. But those are the 2 cards you could crossfire with your existing 5770.
You could get another GPU on that big old rad no trouble, you might see a couple of degree's increase, but nothing to worry about.
It is a big old rad - but the pump is a weak Zalman Resorator 300lph 0.5m head: http://www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/products/watercooling/reserator1-pump I am tempted but I am also thinking it may be overkill for what I actually need, and it's my head wanting something I won't benefit from. My main game at the mo is Supreme Commader 2 which I have maxed out on all settings and it plays A-OK, so the real use would be benefits in CS5 etc...
I dont need the PC I'm building, thats not going to stop me from doing it, Think about it, how many people that drive a Ferrari actually use to it's true potential, I'd say about 95% dont.
2 5770 is around 5870 performance give or take the game and if you pick up one cheap enough its worth the upgrade, ignoring all power concerns and actual gpu usage in other items. ( 600 watt would do for 5770cf ) the days when cf and sli wasnt close to 70% + performance are long gone. Scaling is insane at the minute and is closer to 70% + across the board the nvidia cards are closer to 85% not sure if bit tech ever did a cf and sli review but other sites have google sli cf performance and have shown some impresive scaling the 480s are truly mesmerising in sli if you can stand the heat and its the only way id even recomend the card
