Eyefinity question, to CFX or not?

[csaris]

2x5850s have the same performance as the 5970 only in stock! 2x5870s are 10% faster than the 5970 (both stock).

[sprewell]

I just bought 2 xfx 5870's and 2 more screens. Mixed feelings so far. On one hand crossfire and eyefinity is broken, most games are a stuttering and or screen tearing mess. On the good side crossfire and a single screen you can run every game maxed out to the hills including crysis.

Buyer beware if you thinkk eyefinity and crossfire will be headache free. When eyefintiy is working its fantastic but honestly if anyone on these forums with 2 5870's and 3 screens is gaming at 60 fps with no stuttering and or screen tearing speak up. Forcing v-sync in eyefinity mode is hard to do sometimes.. if you use to d3doverrider or something of that nature to handle your screen corruption you cant use it when in eyefinity mode. Unless of course there are multiple problems causing alot of people on the forums similar issues which is possible.

I havent had alot of problems using eyefintiy and 1 card but sometimes the performance hit sucks.

I'm with you on this. Just added a second 5870 the other day and with eyefinity its certainly a mixed bag. Wanting to run Bad Company 2 at higher settings was my motivation and unfortunately while the frames reported are good it does not feel smooth, there is that stuttering feeling present. One card is far smoother even though the frames reported are a little less. On the other hand COD4 and Hawx runs pretty well and feels fairly smooth. I really hope eyefinity + CFX improves soon or I will just sell the second 5870.

From what I've come across on other threads the 5970 doesn't suffer this stuttering problem that 2 x 5870s seem to have. Can anyone confirm this?

[Hydralisk_X]

I havent had alot of problems using eyefintiy and 1 card but sometimes the performance hit sucks.

I'm with you on this. Just added a second 5870 the other day and with eyefinity its certainly a mixed bag. Wanting to run Bad Company 2 at higher settings was my motivation and unfortunately while the frames reported are good it does not feel smooth, there is that stuttering feeling present. One card is far smoother even though the frames reported are a little less. On the other hand COD4 and Hawx runs pretty well and feels fairly smooth. I really hope eyefinity + CFX improves soon or I will just sell the second 5870.

From what I've come across on other threads the 5970 doesn't suffer this stuttering problem that 2 x 5870s seem to have. Can anyone confirm this?

The 5970 have their own specific eyefinity drivers I think which could explain any differences.

I'm actually in a similar boat. I really like my 5870, but some games are really feeling the hit in triple wide. I'm also waiting for benches of the 2 GB version to see if the extra RAM helps at extreme resolutions.

[noquarter]

Hm I was planning on adding a 2nd 5770 to my system next week in Crossfire to handle Eyefinity but now I don't know if I should add the 2nd 5770 or sell the one I have and buy a 5850. Need more comprehensive reviews :)

[ChristopherB]

I've been playing at 6060x1080 resolution for about a week now with a single HD5870 and I have to say I am really happy (and surprised) with the performance I am getting.

You can't "Max" games but I am still able to use all high settings in all the games I have tried. HAWX runs fine maxed with 2xAA, Just Cause 2 runs smoothly at a mix of high/medium settings, and even Crysis runs alright at "High" settings w/o AA.

I'd say it is certainly worth it to go Eyefinity even if it means lowering a few settings.

[MrD1sturbed]

So the 5850's didn't last too long as I wound up getting a Sapphire 5970 from newegg by luck (and thx to nowinstock.net). I have had it running with my eyefinity rig for about 2 weeks now and I must say I am thoroughly impressed with it. I've played DiRT2, BF:BC2, AvP, DoWII and DA:O all in eyefinity with settings at mostly high (had to turn down AA and AF usually to 2 or 4 depending on the game, but everything else was able to stay at high including HBAO in BF:BC2) and I am getting what I consider to be extremely playable frame rates (anything above 30fps and I am happy). Everything is smooth as silk. I'm loving it.

[sprewell]

So the 5850's didn't last too long as I wound up getting a Sapphire 5970 from newegg by luck (and thx to nowinstock.net). I have had it running with my eyefinity rig for about 2 weeks now and I must say I am thoroughly impressed with it. I've played DiRT2, BF:BC2, AvP, DoWII and DA:O all in eyefinity with settings at mostly high (had to turn down AA and AF usually to 2 or 4 depending on the game, but everything else was able to stay at high including HBAO in BF:BC2) and I am getting what I consider to be extremely playable frame rates (anything above 30fps and I am happy). Everything is smooth as silk. I'm loving it.

Glad to hear the 5970 is running smooth for you. I take it your 5850s in CFX did not do it for you. Were the reported frames good but the experience not completely smooth like my experience with 5870s in CFX?

[MrD1sturbed]

Glad to hear the 5970 is running smooth for you. I take it your 5850s in CFX did not do it for you. Were the reported frames good but the experience not completely smooth like my experience with 5870s in CFX?

Actually the 5850's were fine, I just had the opportunity to grab a 5970 and went for it. I personally wanted the extra slots open in my case for a dedicated PhysX card which I will be getting shortly. Then I can have the best of both worlds! :D

[dmanna]

Over the past month or 2 since I posted in this thread I have been much happier with my eyefinity investment. Crossfire is definatly improved quite a bit when using eyefinity. I have been playing Stalker cop (suprised it runs well) DoW 40,000 looks great and runs great, Just Cause 2 is unreal.. unfortunatly even at the res of 5040x1050 the game isnt quite as smooth as i would like, Torchlight (no big deal here), MW2, Grid, BC2, and Half life 2 ep 1 and 2. For soem reason Left 4 Dead 2 has a screen tearing issue when in eyefinity mode and I still dont think Dragon Age works correctly. I am definatly happy how things have turned out so far.

[sprewell]

Over the past month or 2 since I posted in this thread I have been much happier with my eyefinity investment. Crossfire is definatly improved quite a bit when using eyefinity. I have been playing Stalker cop (suprised it runs well) DoW 40,000 looks great and runs great, Just Cause 2 is unreal.. unfortunatly even at the res of 5040x1050 the game isnt quite as smooth as i would like, Torchlight (no big deal here), MW2, Grid, BC2, and Half life 2 ep 1 and 2. For soem reason Left 4 Dead 2 has a screen tearing issue when in eyefinity mode and I still dont think Dragon Age works correctly. I am definatly happy how things have turned out so far.

Good to hear you're relatively happy. What chipset is your motherboard. Just wondering if you're running your cards in x8/x8 mode versus the full x16/16. Just came across this review ( http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1472/intel_p45_vs_x48_crossfire_performance/index7.html ) of P45 vs X48 chipsets in crossfire and the differences are quite big particularly at high resolutions. Can only imagine what a P45 chipset (which I'm using) is holding eyefinity performance back in crossfire.

[Ceogar]

I've been playing at 6060x1080 resolution for about a week now with a single HD5870 and I have to say I am really happy (and surprised) with the performance I am getting.

You can't "Max" games but I am still able to use all high settings in all the games I have tried. HAWX runs fine maxed with 2xAA, Just Cause 2 runs smoothly at a mix of high/medium settings, and even Crysis runs alright at "High" settings w/o AA.

I'd say it is certainly worth it to go Eyefinity even if it means lowering a few settings.

That you run Crysis on high with just 1 card in 6060 x 1080 with playable settings i have a very hard time to belive. When i play crysis on my overclocked 5850 in crossfire 979 / 1200 ( Just as good as 5870 ) in 4900 x 900 i get avrage of lets say maybe 20-25 fps.

[sprewell]

[quote]I've been playing at 6060x1080 resolution for about a week now with a single HD5870 and I have to say I am really happy (and surprised) with the performance I am getting.

You can't "Max" games but I am still able to use all high settings in all the games I have tried. HAWX runs fine maxed with 2xAA, Just Cause 2 runs smoothly at a mix of high/medium settings, and even Crysis runs alright at "High" settings w/o AA.

I'd say it is certainly worth it to go Eyefinity even if it means lowering a few settings.

That you run Crysis on high with just 1 card in 6060 x 1080 with playable settings i have a very hard time to belive. When i play crysis on my overclocked 5850 in crossfire 979 / 1200 ( Just as good as 5870 ) in 4900 x 900 i get avrage of lets say maybe 20-25 fps.

I agree. Hard to believe Crysis can be run at high at those settings. Crysis Warhead is unplayable with high setting at 5760x1200. Lowering the shaders to mainstream is the first thing to do to stop the slideshow at 2fps. Overall I found mostly mainstream and a mix of some gamer settings to be ok at that res.

Ceogar - I take it your CFX 5850s are running nice and smooth for you (like no laggy feeling versus single screen)? Would you mind telling me what motherboard chipset you're on.

[Ceogar]

I have a Asus Sabertooth so intel p55.

[ChristopherB]

I haven't tested Crysis: Warhead, but I just ran the original Crysis at 6060x1080 with all settings at "High" with no AA and I got an average of about 25 FPS when playing through the first mission up to the part where you destroy the radar jammer. Now, granted for many people this is unacceptable but it felt pretty smooth to me. There is always the option of lowering one or two of the settings to medium and that could really boost the FPS especially in later scenes when there are more effects happening.

Fortunately, I have no real desire to actually play Crysis again so the relatively poor performance in the game doesn't bother me. I'm still having plenty of fun using Eyefinity in other games like HAWX, Blockland, and Just Cause 2. In a few months I may upgrade to Crossfire, but for right now the performance is quite surprising.

[sprewell]

Word of caution about crossfire eyefinity. I'm going to be selling my second 5870 and 5970 as it hasn't worked out for me. With crossfire there is noticeable lag for me. A single gpu is far smoother. Not all have this issue but I have been unable to pin point what it is that causes this for some and not for others. I thought it was x8/x8 bandwidth limitation but ruled that out as a 5970 has the same issues for me.

[01Boxer]

Somehow, i have a feeling that Crysis will still be used as a benchmark in 10 years.

[tfannon]

i believe the reason crossfire does not work well with infinity is because the crossfire bridge was not meant to move more than 2560x1600 pixels across it. you can google this.

this is also the reason the 5970 card actually handles it better as there is no bridge or the bridge is internal. there has been some talk that they are working to push the card->card communication back onto the PCI-E lanes. I wish AMD would actually officially comment on this. I am waiting before i pick up a second 5870.

id like to see someone actually do an in-depth eyefinity/crossfire performance review/writeup.

[sprewell]

Well for me the CF / EF stuttering issue was just as bad on a 5970 as it was for 2 x 5870s. I was thinking it might be the crossfire bridge (I was using 2 bridges) before I tried a 5970 and was shocked I had the same results.

[sprewell]

Here's something interesting from hardocp's new eyefinity6 review (included 2 x 5870 E6's in CFX and eyfinity). On the Bad Company 2 page Brent admits what some of us have been saying all along (http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/04/12/ati_radeon_hd_5870_eyefinity_6_performance_review/4):

"With multi-GPU CrossFireX we needed to aim for higher framerates in order for the game to feel smoother. When the average framerates were down around 30-40FPS, the game felt choppy even though the framerate was at 30FPS. We found that by keeping the framerate higher, the game smoothed out and the choppiness was diminished."

So even when they upped the frames into the 50s it felt smoother but the choppiness was only "diminished". Seems to agree with my experience with CFX & EF. Sub 60fps is noticeable. 60 to 90fps is a lot better but still there.

Crossfire eyefinity reviews really need to highlight this point more because really the reported fps particularly in demanding games is rubbish. You have a situation where 40fps is really 20fps effective.

Anyway this admission coming from a site like [H] kinda makes it official for me, that it's not an isolated problem but seems to be an inherent issue.

[01Boxer]

Well for me the CF / EF stuttering issue was just as bad on a 5970 as it was for 2 x 5870s. I was thinking it might be the crossfire bridge (I was using 2 bridges) before I tried a 5970 and was shocked I had the same results.

Are you using 4XAA ?