Recent 5970 experiences

[safan80]

If you want to kick someone kick yourself.

You've now learned the price of being an early adopter.

ATI has been known for driver issues at the launch of a new product even Nvidia has driver issues at launch of new products. Although is usually takes ATI longer than Nvidia to work out driver bugs. ATI might have good drivers when Fermi is out. I for one am going to get myself a 5970.

[lutjens]

I understand early hardware can have issues that may not be readily apparent until the hardware is used in non-standard or non-typical configurations or with specialty software, resulting in bugs showing themselves in a configuration that wasn't (and realistically couldn't be) tested initially. The lack of fan display or control occurs on all hardware and combinations, not just specialty or off-the-wall configurations. Same with overclocked video cards (even slightly factory OCed ones) flickering the second monitor. In addition, the egregious error with the flashing batch file has the potential to really cause hardship for some people who aren't as tech savvy as the average user here, who has the spare hardware to recover their machine, and may require them to RMA their card.


Considering the price of these cards, I feel that a better effort could have been made to have a more polished product out of the box. You shouldn't have to be an experienced computer nut to use a new piece of hardware, especially one marketed as a flagship product on what is a mainstream system. Granted my machine isn't typical, but others have experienced the same issues on their mainstream machines that I have on mine. I'd have expected these types of issues if ATI had furnished the cards weeks or months ago for beta testing, well ahead of the retail launch. But to see them in a retail product is disappointing indeed.

My $0.02...

[HydrogenAlpha]

If you want to kick someone kick yourself.

I don't think good customers who spend a small fortune on top-of-the-line equipment should be punished by poor finesse of drivers / firmware. I mean, get real for a minute. You're giving carte blanche for release of any old tosh.

The price of early adoption is the high monetary cost. It shouldn't be a product which is not fit for purpose. We all know that drivers and firmware get better with time, but they should start out at least adequate and shouldn't brick your device.

My $0.02. XD

[zshadow]

I agree the drivers for the 5970 are poor, ATI really dropped the ball on this one. Disappointing considering this is their 'flagship' card. Hoping the 9.12s fix most of the problems I've been having.

[Toritechie]

I agree the drivers for the 5970 are poor, ATI really dropped the ball on this one. Disappointing considering this is their 'flagship' card. Hoping the 9.12s fix most of the problems I've been having.

I'm so very close to jumping on the 5970 bandwagon ... getting keyed up about the supposed joys of Eyefinity ....

... and then I read threads like this one and think that I should just stay away.

I've had almost a year of bombproof trouble free gaming from my GTX295; maybe I should just wait on the Eyefinity and 5970 combo ...

At least, I'll stay away from the Sapphire card.

In that vein ... Just WHAT card is solid as far as firmware/software tweaking? Asus, HIS, MSI?

[HydrogenAlpha]

I'm so very close to jumping on the 5970 bandwagon ... getting keyed up about the supposed joys of Eyefinity ....

... and then I read threads like this one and think that I should just stay away.

I've had almost a year of bombproof trouble free gaming from my GTX295; maybe I should just wait on the Eyefinity and 5970 combo ...

At least, I'll stay away from the Sapphire card.

In that vein ... Just WHAT card is solid as far as firmware/software tweaking? Asus, HIS, MSI?

AFAIK, all the cards out there at the minute are just ATI stock with a branding sticker on. I don't know of any partner that has altered the card in any way yet, so they're all much of a muchness.

I've had a 5970 and a 5870, and I sent the 5970 back. I LOVE my 5870 - so much quieter than the 295 it replaced and 2 monitors are not a problem on mine (a gigabyte one).
My 5970 (a HIS one) didn't handle 2 monitors well while gaming and loads of games would not run at all in high resolution without physically unplugging the second monitor. I expect these problems to be very short-lived, and I didn't expect ATI to have perfect drivers at release, but they know that many 5970 customers will be on multimonitor systems. If you have a single monitor setup at 2560x1600 then I would not hesitate to buy the 5970. Multimonitor non eyefinity users should probably wait until the drivers mature a little.

[skugpezz]

AFAIK, all the cards out there at the minute are just ATI stock with a branding sticker on. I don't know of any partner that has altered the card in any way yet, so they're all much of a muchness.

I

all the cards have a different bios though

[safan80]

I don't think good customers who spend a small fortune on top-of-the-line equipment should be punished by poor finesse of drivers / firmware. I mean, get real for a minute. You're giving carte blanche for release of any old tosh.

My $0.02. XD

Given the track record from both ATI and Nvidia drivers have been crap at launch. I ordered two 5970s, but I'm not going to have much time to play with them till after finals. I'm willing to bet the drivers should be much better by the time fermi is out. The only reason I gave up my 4870x2 was do to poor opengl support, the megatextures failed to load 9/10. My whole point is at launch people should lower their expectations. The early adopters have always been the beta testers.