Is this worth it? SLI vs 5xxx series. -Updated-

[The_Blood_Raven]

Hey, I'm thinking of getting my cousin a new 5xxx series card for his birthday in a little less than a month. However, I'm not sure whether the 5870 is worth it over the 5850 or if either are worth it over his current setup.

His rig (made by me):
E6750 @ 3.2 Ghz (possibly 3.6 again if I can get it back up there)
4GB of G.skill DDR2
XFX 680i LT
2x EVGA 8800 GTS 512mb

So am I far off to assume that the 2 8800 GTS 512s in his rig is slightly lower than a single GTX 275? When the GTX 280 came out it wasn't quite as fast but the extra memory and the newer drivers should have pushed the GTX 280 well above them and the GTX 275 is very similar.

Thanks to the limited memory and bandwidth he can't play any game with AA at his native res 1920x1200 and Crysis is only really playable at medium at his native res which has always seemed odd to me. Also Fallout 3 maxed at that res hitches a bit even without Vsync or AA, which always seemed odd to me aswell but I chocked that up to low memory bandwidth/VRAM and low minimum framerates thanks to SLI.

So do you think a 5850 would be a large increase in performance, do you think the 5870 would be a far more substantial upgrade, or do you think neither is much of an upgrade? I have a feeling that it should add a good 30% boost without AA, but far more, in the range of 50%+, with AA enabled. Am I right or am I overestimating the 5xxx series or underestimating the 8800 GTS 512s. I think the low memory bandwidth, VRAM, and the SLI problems have made his setup close to being inbetween a GTX 260 and a GTX 275. Though i have also seen people compare the GTX 260 very favorably to this setup as well, so I don't think it is just me.

Also do you think that processor will bottleneck his cards? At 3.2 Ghz playing at 1920x1200 shouldn't be a problem and the high res gaming should nullify any short comings of the CPU in every game except for GTA 4.

Thanks for any help, I can't make up my mind on this present.

 

[The_Blood_Raven]

You said it went from 1200 to 1600 in 3d mark? Do you mean 12000 to 16000? If not, then there is most definitely something seriously wrong lol...

You might also want to check the pcie clock rate in the bios, it's probably a set multiplier of the FSB, but it might be changable, who knows...

Ah found my typo, yes I meant 12000 to 160000. I am thinking it is a video card problem, I need to test the slave card individually because it isn't always tested when OCCT is used. Also I just booted up some Crysis on my mother's GTX 285, yeah their is something wrong with his results.

 

[hypocrisyforever]

2x9800GTXs with 512mb = 1GB, divide that by 2 and you get 512mb...the same as a single GPU

ATI x2 GPUs actually have the same amount of RAM as two regular GPUs in crossfire.

4850x2 with 1GB basically means each GPU has 512mb, combined equaling 1GB. 4850x2 1GB = same amount of VRAM as 2x4850s w/ 512mb each.

That's why there is a 2GB version of the 4850x2...that is the version with twice the RAM.

This man is correct. Your ram does not double, it is exactly what one card is. I run two 8800gtx's which is actually a generation older than the other ones, and I have no problem running Crysis at 1920x1200 on a mix of enthusiast settings and gamer settings, aa off.

And as for what the other guy said about one card sometimes "being faster than two because the ram splits in half"....that is hogwash.

 

[HibyPrime]

Ah found my typo, yes I meant 12000 to 160000. I am thinking it is a video card problem, I need to test the slave card individually because it isn't always tested when OCCT is used. Also I just booted up some Crysis on my mother's GTX 285, yeah their is something wrong with his results.

Oh the irony lol... 12000 to 160 000? holy ***, thats a monter of an SLi setup! 😛

I'm just messing with you.. ignore me...

 

[dndhatcher]

And as for what the other guy said about one card sometimes "being faster than two because the ram splits in half"....that is hogwash.

Thats not what I said. I said AA makes the diminishing return stronger. Two card should always be at least as fast as one at the same settings. There are some games that do run faster if you shut one card off, but that has nothing to do with RAM.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/graphics-ram-4870,2428.html
The bigger your screen size and smaller your ram, the worse AA knocks down your FPS.

I was pretty sure in SLI the memory is mirrored not added so it really works more like an 8800x2 card with only 512MB RAM, not 1GB.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/245454-33-crossfire-faqs
Look around the middle where it talks about doubling memory. It doesnt.

 

[rescawen]

i wish i were ur cousin 🙁

 

[jay_l_a]

I'm sure you've tried these, but worth mentioning:
1. Check for a BIOS update
2. Re-seat the cards, and SLI connector

FWIW, I score about 16000 - 17000 (depending on the clocks) in 36Mark06 with Crossfire'd 4870s, about the same score as the machine in question.

Crossfire 4870s are about the same as a 4870X2 (roughly)

According to this chart:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-5850,2433-6.html

the 4870x2 (and perhaps by extension 8800GTS SLI) appear a little faster than the 5850.

I doubt going from 8800GTS SLI to a 5850 would be much (if any improvement) at least in Crysis.

 

[The_Blood_Raven]

Oh the irony lol... 12000 to 160 000? holy ***, thats a monter of an SLi setup! 😛

I'm just messing with you.. ignore me...

Damn it, this is what happens when you type on an Archos 5...

 

[The_Blood_Raven]

i wish i were ur cousin 🙁

Yeah my family is all pretty much worthless, but he is a good kid and really does deserve it so all my birthday/christmas shopping for my outer family goes to him. 😀

 

[Bluescreendeath]

Thats not what I said. I said AA makes the diminishing return stronger. Two card should always be at least as fast as one at the same settings. There are some games that do run faster if you shut one card off, but that has nothing to do with RAM.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/graphics-ram-4870,2428.html
The bigger your screen size and smaller your ram, the worse AA knocks down your FPS.

I was pretty sure in SLI the memory is mirrored not added so it really works more like an 8800x2 card with only 512MB RAM, not 1GB.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/245454-33-crossfire-faqs
Look around the middle where it talks about doubling memory. It doesnt.

1. In an Sli supported game, SLi with more than 1 card will always be better than a single card...no matter the AA, resolution, settings, etc

2. The only time when 2xcards in Sli is worse than 1 card is if a game doesn't support SLi or it has bad drivers.

3. Sli/Xfire, the memory is added together, but each card still has access to its original VRAM. 4850x2 with 1GB means each card has 512mb of RAM. That is where there is a 4850x2 with 2GB.

 

[dndhatcher]

1. In an Sli supported game, SLi with more than 1 card will always be better than a single card...no matter the AA, resolution, settings, etc

2. The only time when 2xcards in Sli is worse than 1 card is if a game doesn't support SLi or it has bad drivers.

Thats what I said. Your way is more clear, though. I reread the OP and he said he turns AA off anyway so its not an issue.

3. Sli/Xfire, the memory is added together, but each card still has access to its original VRAM. 4850x2 with 1GB means each card has 512mb of RAM. That is where there is a 4850x2 with 2GB.

So the x2 cards do the same kind of memory splitting as xfire/sli. Thanks for clarifying. There are so many contradicting explanations of how that works.

 

[Bluescreendeath]

^ Aye no problem.

I was also confused at first by the video RAM issue in x2 cards - before I found out x2 cards are basically just two Sli/Xfire GPU cores in a single card...basically just the same as regular Sli/Xfire.

and that the companies labeling it as "1 GB" was just a marketing gimmick...lol

XD

 

[nforce4max]

I remember the old days of 3dfx ware each gpu in sli had unique data rather than a mirror in todays cards and one card would draw evens while the other did odds (old sli would draw lines of pixels before being sync for display . Later the era of the quantum3d cards.

Well thats it for the history lesson, on the 8800gts 512 the frame buffer is to small for that res so any thing with a 1gb over 256/512bit would make nice improvements. I would also suggest ditching the board since it is holding back any future upgrades so any cheap 780i or p45 board will do for any multi gpu setup while providing a better upgrade path for a new cpu in the future if wanted/needed.

 

[The_Blood_Raven]

Well I got it over here and did some benchmarking in Crysis (there is something wrong with the Far Cry 2 installation and it instantly freezes):

Settings:
1920x1200 no AA/AF
High settings with Very High Shader and Texture quality.

Min. FPS: 15.08
Average FPS: 35.44
Maximum FPS: 51.52

Seems to me that the dual cards are destroying minimum FPS, but overall this is a decent set of results.

 

[The_Blood_Raven]

Fallout 3 still hitches every once and a while maxed at 1920x1200 with no AA/AF, does this and the Crysis results seem normal?

 

[nforce4max]

I don't know what to tell you then but you could check to see if the cpu is heavily loaded and check the ram timings since that has quite the impact. By adjusting I got better fps in gta iv and crysis. So make sure it is nothing else like the board or very high temps. If every thing checks out as it has you are left with no option to upgrade the gpu with out down scaling the res on that monitor. 512mb at 1900/1280 is suicide even with the G80 boards that was not a good idea and the GTX295 tops out in that area with out a major loss in fps so long it didn't go above. High res gaming is limited to frame buffer and fill rate so a simple 5850 or a GTX275 would be a worth while upgrade with out the complications. With such cards I wouldn't go above 1600/1280.

 

[The_Blood_Raven]

Well I got up early (here) a redid the testing by slapping in my mother's GTX 285 and it does about the same, but without the huge framerate drops that I attribute to SLI. Still, I'm going to put some time aside later to play Crysis with those 8800s and see how it goes.

 

[The_Blood_Raven]

Well I just read some reviews and I see that 2 GTX 260 core 216s in SLI are slightly below a single GTX 295, slightly below a 5870 aswell. Are you telling me that upgrading from 2 8800 GTS 512mbs to 2 GTX 260s + a bit of extra performance is NOT a good upgrade? I'm confused...

 

[Mousemonkey]

From all the benchies I've seen it's not worth going lower than a pair of 275's from my GT's and I would put the GTS's slightly higher, so overall no not a good upgrade IMHO.

 

[dndhatcher]

Well I just read some reviews and I see that 2 GTX 260 core 216s in SLI are slightly below a single GTX 295, slightly below a 5870 aswell. Are you telling me that upgrading from 2 8800 GTS 512mbs to 2 GTX 260s + a bit of extra performance is NOT a good upgrade? I'm confused...

From all the benchies I've seen it's not worth going lower than a pair of 275's from my GT's and I would put the GTS's slightly higher, so overall no not a good upgrade IMHO.

Thats how I read it also. Twin 260s would be maybe a 50% increase over twin 8800s. Twin 275s would be close to doubling the GPU power.