45nm

I'm looking at possibly upgrading to the new ATI Radeon HD 5800 series particularly the 5870. I was originally planning to upgrade to 2 5970's but I believe the pricing will be particularly high not to mention the crippled clock speeds. The question on my mind is if it is worth it to upgrade to 2 5870's in Crossfire.

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"... Introduce a little anarchy, you upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I am an agent of chaos. And you know the thing about chaos ? It’s fair."

"The world changed after August 8 this year."

Contagion

Driver support right now for CF on the 5870's arent that great.
I would either buy just one and wait for drivers (or two and wait for drivers if you dont mind the crappy drivers)
Or wait for the 5970 (5870x2)

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SEX
Look to the right now

tagurtoast

Wait for the 5970 and buy it then when you get more money buy another and you will have double the performance of your old system.

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Hi

meticadpa

To be honest, yes.

You'll get better performance, since Quadfire scales like crap, consume a LOT less power, be future proofed, and you can always add a third down the road.

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BlackHoleSon

is this because you want DX11? If thats the case i would probably recommend 5850's instead.

Overclocked to 5870 speeds, the 5850 performs only 5% less, and can be overclocked to 1ghz and possibly beyond. The price/performance ratio is awesome.

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100% of this BlackHoleSon likes lots of different kinds of music, and also respects people for their choices. If you are apart of the 100% of yourself that doesn't judge people by their music preference, feel free to agree with me.

Crazy9000

I've been satisfied with my pair so far. Have not had any issues at all.

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OpTioN: im gonna get 3 5870 x2 even though it prolly wont work
OpTioN: just to top you

tipsycoma

I don't think overclocking a 5850 will impact it's speeds that much.

I'd need some benchies or something to believe that.

grunion

Tri?

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Megahalems > TR Ultra Extreme
How do I uninstall Video Card drivers?
How do I see my in game temps?

45nm

Nope. My Essence STX is in the 3rd PCI-E x16 slot on my motherboard. Otherwise it won't be able to fit due to the NB design and the PCI-E x1 slot layout. Since I don't use a 30" monitor I will not be going Tri-Fire in the future as that is where the 5870 Tr-Fire scales best and is recommended for (otherwise it is a waste of money). It is highly unlikely I will be going for a Quad-Fire system in the near future considering the crippled clocks on the 5970 so I don't think I will consider the 5970. I am perfectly satisfied with my current setup. That doesn't mean I am not intrigued by Dx11. If there is enough games by the end of Q4 2009 that take advantage of Dx11 and show a massive improvement over 10.1 AND a price war with excellent supply of the Evergreen's then I will be given further incentive to upgrade.

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"... Introduce a little anarchy, you upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I am an agent of chaos. And you know the thing about chaos ? It’s fair."

"The world changed after August 8 this year."

J-vibe

There you have it from someone who is using what you looking for and he is happy with it so you can cancel the driver issue on CF

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