The Fermi Thread - Part 3

[GoldenTiger]

Maybe at release. But not after the crossfire improvements in drivers released since then. I have been using a 5970 since shortly after release and it has improved substantially. In games that scale properly across 2 gpus and aren't cpu bound a 5970 is about 45-65% faster then a 5870. The average was dragged down by many games without proper 5970 support in the driver, but many were added in more recent drivers. Crossfire/SLI scaling isn't great, but it isn't 40% with proper profiles either.


That's why it's important to pay attention to driver version used in reviews. Some of the new fermi reviews will doubtlessly use old data for the rest of the cards. That doesn't really give you a picture of the reality of the marketplace now.

It's 40% faster on average at 2560x1600 with some AA (2x-4x) in general still for a stock 5970 compared to a 5870, from what I've seen with newer drivers (I haven't seen a good article on 10.3a's yet). Regardless, 40% on a slower 5970's GPU's (core clocks/etc.) isn't 40% over a 5870, anyway: the 5870 has higher stock speeds and can clock higher when oc'ing as well. Crossfire tends to spike your max FPS making an awesome-looking average, while not really helping the minimums a whole lot for the most part. I don't need 20min, 75avg. 140 max, I need 50min, 80avg, 110 max!

Nice finds on those pics Mindfury, thanks!

Yep especially since the latest Cat drivers have been excellent. It will be interesting to see if the 2GB 5870s get a boost too

Excellent?