5900-Series: Eyefinity/CrossFire Tech Preview
In our original Radeon HD 5870 coverage, I was surprised to learn that ATI’s beta driver didn’t yet support Eyefinity in CrossFire. If ever there was a reason to buy a pair of powerful single-GPU boards that’d otherwise be CPU-bound in most single-monitor setups, it’d be taking advantage of this awesome new triple-output display technology. Two months later, Eyefinity and CrossFire are still not yet compatible on 5800- and 5700-series cards.
But ATI says it is working on a public driver that’ll enable Eyefinity resolutions with CrossFire’d boards.
More important, the company has a technology preview of its two flagship technologies working together on the Radeon HD 5970. It’s a very limited release that includes 21 titles, only works on the 5970, and is limited to landscape display configurations. But it’s Eyefinity. And CrossFire. Finally.
So, I bought a mini-DisplayPort cable needed to use the board's trio of display outputs, set the 5970 up with our three Dell U2410s, and started in on testing...
| Game Benchmarks, Single Radeon HD 5870 @ 5760x1200 (No AA / No AF), in FPS | ||
|---|---|---|
| Single Radeon HD 5870 | Radeon HD 5970 | |
| H.A.W.X. | 44 | 71 |
| Far Cry 2 | 54.12 | 82.44 |
| Left 4 Dead | 81.04 | 105.12 |
| S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky | 28.8 | 37.05 |
| World in Conflict | Crash | Not Compatible |
| Resident Evil 5 | Not Compatible | Not Compatible |
| Grand Theft Auto IV | 29.61 | Not Compatible |
Four of the 21 titles on ATI's list are in regular rotation here, and in those four games, performance in Eyefinity mode increases notably. All of the titles, save S.T.A.L.K.E.R., now play smoothly, and getting better frame rates out of Clear Sky is a matter of dialing down the details from Extreme to something more conservative. This is truly the combination I was so excited about when Cypress launched. As the chart suggests, there's still a lot of work to be done, though.
While this isn't the comprehensive support we were hoping for back when the Radeon HD 5870 debuted and we ran a pair of the cards in CrossFire, it's a solid step--and absolutely imperative for a card like the Radeon HD 5970 that's supposed to enable transparent multi-GPU rendering capabilities. Hopefully, now that ATI is selling a dual-Cypress card with Eyefinity "half-working," the software engineers (who've done wonders to improve the company's reputation for well-built drivers) will prioritize getting such an integral feature fully-implemented.
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amd did it again! WOW,..aren't we all shocked! lets see something out of their cpu line now! Ati's a life saver!!!
pity Toms forgot to include triple GTX285s
If they include triple GTX285s they will include 2 5970 aswell.
But the people who are gonna pay 1110$ for the gtx's or 1200$ for the dual 5970 really dont need the benchmarks, for them its a presitige to have this, so including them in this article is kinda useless.
All Hail ATi!!!
What a huge piece of tech!
Anyone else see the potential for a 5990 with GPUs shipped at 5870 speeds?
it even has solder points to make the 6pin into an 8pin PCIe power connector!
Can someone please explain to me why these graphics cards are referred to as 'discrete'? They're like the absolute least discrete components in my machine. Now that I mention it, why are they still called graphics cards and not graphics bricks??
And another question... are AMD aware that this card is bottlenecked by their fastest CPU? That means they are pretty much forcing customers who buy this to Intel .... what were they thinking??
AMD better put their foot down on those 6-core chips.
Awesome! cant wait to get my hands on one!
And still Crysis cannot be played at full detail with Aliasing / Filtering on as well @ 1080p...
You know what is the best thing about this card? OMFG!!! 640 euros!! Now that, my friends, is the best feature AMD could have implemented!!!
P.S :640 Euros = 957.95200 U.S. dollars. But wait, this card is 660 U.S. dollars = 440.940673 Euros.
Can someone please explain to me why these graphics cards are referred to as 'discrete'? They're like the absolute least discrete components in my machine. Now that I mention it, why are they still called graphics cards and not graphics bricks??
graphics mountains more like it
@Dandalf:
You seem to be confusing "discrete" with "discreet".
5970 is £574 at Novatech, I'm tempted but I'll wait for Nvidia's release.
i wish i could buy it.
This beast make my GTX275 looks like little toy..*sigh* even a tri sli cant even be compared with it..time to break my piggy bank LoL
Woop jimb you are right! My second point stands though
From dictionary.com
1. Constituting a separate thing
adj.
1. Marked by, exercising, or showing prudence and wise self-restraint in speech and behavior; circumspect.
2. Free from ostentation or pretension; modest.
Oh and the 5970 seems amazing. Out of my budget though, but then I'm happy with my 4850 which is considered weak sauce compared to these!
strictly for idiots.
I've got 2 HD5870's
better than HD5970 right?