AMD Laughing at HD 5870 benchmarks....

[romulous75]

I would really like to see AMD help the Folding@Home group get a fah client going that fully utilises the 4870 / 5870 GPUs, then I would most certainly buy one. As for the cpu bottle neck, is does not look like that will be a problem for too much longer, what with 12 core experimental cpus @ AMD pulling some impressive numbers.

 

[randomizer]

Folding@Home still isn't much chop on ATI though, last I checked.

 

[romulous75]

yep, that's what I just stated. more or less. Also that 12 core cpu.. http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=234105

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Its ATI dropping the ball, they need to upgrade their client, as Stanford doesnt care about speed, just precision, and undercuts the whole idea of F@H IMO

 

[darkvine]

Folding@Home still isn't much chop on ATI though, last I checked.

Yeah pretty much, but I was simply pointing out other reasons you might want it.

Same thing with the i7. People go off for hours about games not using it to the max and how a core 2 quad or a AMD x4 is just as good, forgetting that some people do other things then simply game.

 

[Gintok]

This interests me it really does not the rig contest but the AMD vs Intel + ATI vs nVidia discussion. I'm probably one of the few people who is not loyal to a brand. I've had both a quad from AMD and Intel and both were very good for different reasons (price, performance etc) same goes for cards.

Quite simply put I like the idea of the manufacturers battling it out, what I don't like is a complete and utter domination. My view is that with competition, technology gets better, and it gets better and efficient much faster than without competition. Prices also decline, it's an evolution. Without competition, or if 1 side got annihilated and was unable to recover, we would have less choice, a manufacturer would most likely raise their price as there is no competitor and they would be able to rest on the laurels.

That's my 2 cents, keep in mind I'm new so please don't shoot me

 

[EXT64]

Very true, and I think you'll find most of us agree with you. I always try to tell people to base their choice of manufacterer on what the manufacterer sells at the price they are looking for, not who sells the fastest top of the line. Looking at it that way, all four (ATI, NVIdia, Intel, AMD) have a strong segment or segments.

 

[one-shot]

Its ATI dropping the ball, they need to upgrade their client, as Stanford doesnt care about speed, just precision, and undercuts the whole idea of F@H IMO

I would say for practical medical uses, precision is far more important than speed. Accurate results can give scientists a more accurate model to work with, knowing that the results are very precise rather than more results which may not be as accurate.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

I would say for practical medical uses, precision is far more important than speed. Accurate results can give scientists a more accurate model to work with, knowing that the results are very precise rather than more results which may not be as accurate.

And in ignoring the speed, only because itll involve more work, not less accuracy, and since its already accurate enough, they dont care about the speed ignores the very spirit if F@H for most people that run it, thus a few of the comments here already.
If the scores are low, then it doesnt motivate people to use/do it, and thats my point, and their failure

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Its ATI dropping the ball, they need to upgrade their client, as Stanford doesnt care about speed, just precision, and undercuts the whole idea of F@H IMO

Well that is the point of F@H, accurate science, not people who are interested in another form of 3Dmark with Floptimizations and all. If the science we spoiled just so people could post higher PPD scores wouldn't that really undercut the whole idea of F@H more, in which case it could be replaced by a 3Dmark/day score?

Stanford should update the F@H client to allow ATi to make use of Local Data Share so the HD4K don't have to do the force calculations twice, however I think they're focusing on an OpenCL client according to MrHouston IIRC. However it might be a while until that launches, and as long as the reviewers know that if they decide to use F@H as a benchmark, then it won't matter too much for perception, but people will still wish they could even just do more to help rather than calculating some things twice for next to no reason.

It's a sticky situation, where do you put your resources, in updating the old client or making the new one better?

 

[randomizer]

yep, that's what I just stated. more or less.

When I started to reply, your post hadn't shown up. Notice there's only 34 seconds between them

Its ATI dropping the ball, they need to upgrade their client, as Stanford doesnt care about speed, just precision, and undercuts the whole idea of F@H IMO

Yea, Stanford only builds the core.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Well, Mikes right, its just that the points sytem is the payoff, and while that suffers, so do contributions, and Ive seen several people say theyre buying nVidia because of this, so, yes, ATI has to step it up

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Well contributions don't suffer if people buy nV, contributions might rise if there's the standard 20-60% advantage, but potential is lost, and that's where the old HD2K/3K design hampered GPU2 on the HD4Ks which finally had the fix LDS.

I personally just want them to make an OPenCL client, and care less about making a fix to the HD4K, but then again I only run it on HD2K & HD3K (and some nV GF8) rigs anyways, and will be moving to mobile HD5K, so maybe that's my bias toweards the desire for an OpenCL client.

 

[kamar6]

Help a noob. I'm building on a budget. Got a used ECS 6100pm board for $25. Put in a 7750 Kuma for $60. Added a 750MB WD Caviar Black for $67. My bro gave me a 600watt PS. Now I just need a GPU. I'm sure the 5870 and 5850 would be overkill for my system. What would be the best GPU that would not be overkill? 4870? GTX260? 4850? gtx250, 4670 etc....

 

[romulous75]

Help a noob. I'm building on a budget. Got a used ECS 6100pm board for $25. Put in a 7750 Kuma for $60. Added a 750MB WD Caviar Black for $67. My bro gave me a 600watt PS. Now I just need a GPU. I'm sure the 5870 and 5850 would be overkill for my system. What would be the best GPU that would not be overkill? 4870? GTX260? 4850? gtx250, 4670 etc....

That would depend on your budget and the intended use of the card. I take it you are building a gaming rig ?

For my TV box I just purchased a 9800GT. It requires no additional power but is almost as fast as an 8800GT (which does). Now that would happily run games @ 1280x1024 and perhaps 1680x1050 with no AA and medium settings.

If you have one of the latest CPUs it would run well. I know that E8400 or better run games nicely because of the 3Ghz frequency and decent cache. You may also get away with running a pentium dual core for much less. I've not heard of a ECS 6100pm board so I'm not sure if that's AMD or Intel. But for gaming I dont think it metters much.

 

[kamar6]

That would depend on your budget and the intended use of the card. I take it you are building a gaming rig ?

Yes, it will be for gaming. The most I could spend would be $150. The ECS 6100pm is an AMD board. The 7750kuma is the CPU (2.7ghz duel core). I know I could get an HD4870 for $150 but would that be overkill for a 2.7ghz duel core cpu? If the cpu would bottleneck the gpu I would rather save $50 and go with an HD4850 or a GTS 250.

 

[OvrClkr]

Well - I'm afraid I've got bad news for you. You may need to upgrade that i7!!!!!!!!

Not really, maybe at stock 2.66Ghz ... but at 4Ghz there will be no bottleneck

 

[romulous75]

That would depend on your budget and the intended use of the card. I take it you are building a gaming rig ?

Yes, it will be for gaming. The most I could spend would be $150. The ECS 6100pm is an AMD board. The 7750kuma is the CPU (2.7ghz duel core). I know I could get an HD4870 for $150 but would that be overkill for a 2.7ghz duel core cpu? If the cpu would bottleneck the gpu I would rather save $50 and go with an HD4850 or a GTS 250.

Perhaps these cpu scaling tests may help (although there's no low end gpus) :

http://www.guru3d.com/article/cpu-scaling-in-games-with-quad-core-processors/
http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=770

You may find other test floating around too.

 

[kimixii]

Lol, after reading this thread, i love my atom/gma950 combo on my aspire one =] lol, no but really, its great to see amd/ati back in the fray. A year or 2 ago when I got back into the thick of things, it seemed like nVidia was going to dominate and Ati was gonna always play catch up. Doesnt seem like that any more. Ive always been an Ati fan, although ive had a 7800GT from nVidia and loved it too. Competition is good, like Gintok said earlier, and its ok to have a bit of competition. My buddy has an AMD Phenom II X4 cpu, 2.8 ghz i believe, and although its prolly not as fast as its Intel counterpart, you cant beat the price to performance. He gets rediculous FPS in WoW and CS:S, which is all he plays. Not everyone hangs on Crysis or 3DMark all day. Lol.

 

[vjcsmoke]

That would depend on your budget and the intended use of the card. I take it you are building a gaming rig ?

Yes, it will be for gaming. The most I could spend would be $150. The ECS 6100pm is an AMD board. The 7750kuma is the CPU (2.7ghz duel core). I know I could get an HD4870 for $150 but would that be overkill for a 2.7ghz duel core cpu? If the cpu would bottleneck the gpu I would rather save $50 and go with an HD4850 or a GTS 250.

An HD4870 1GB for $150 would more than max out your system then. Your gaming resolution is one of the biggest factors to how good of a GPU you will need though. If you're gaming at 1680x1050+ get a 1GB card, otherwise a 512MB card should be enough. If you want to save a little money over the 4870 just get a 4850 for $100 and call it a day.

 

[solidsteel]

Sleep on this:

HD5870 Crysis Benchmark Score
CPU:AMD Phenom II X4 955BE
Win 7 RTM Win 7 RTM
VGA:HD5870 1GB
Crysis 1900x1200 4AA +16 AF DX10 Very High

min:30.**
avg:43.**
max:54.**

That's unbelievable, I'm 15 and I'm building my first gaming PC this Christmas with the same processor only the 965 BE, and an OVERCLOCKED XFX 5870!! I'll be playing at 1080p so that promises even better results, I cant wait man!!!

 

[sedaine]

Playing at 1080p - why do you need 5870????