Quote Originally Posted by antiacid View Post
All I see is "5970 > gtx580".

Don't use that "single gpu vs dual gpu" garbage, when I look at a graphic card, I look at the performance in games I am likely to play, at 2560x1600
Do you also look at whether those frames per second are rendered in a synchronized manner? You know, a card could render 60 frames in 0.001 seconds, and nothing else for the remaining 0.999 seconds, then theoretically it would be giving you 60 FPS, whereas it would feel absolutely no different from 1 FPS. Obviously I'm referring to microstuttering.

Now, I don't make the claim that 5970 has tons of microstuttering - I am merely stressing that FPS is, just by itself, not the single deciding factor about how good and smooth a gaming experience will be.

I had to say this since you said you would just look at the FPS numbers, which would be on average a fine thing to do if you were comparing single GPU setups, but when it's Single GPU vs. Dual GPU, different things are factored in the equation, and it gets murkier.

I am certain that, given the small (~0-5%) average FPS difference between 580 and 5970; 580 would be giving you a better gaming experience overall than HD5970 - and this is not even counting the usual SLI/CF problems like driver dependence and games that don't scale.