5870 vs 2 8800's

[Rokins]

Any idea of how much of a performance increase for 5boxing I would see if I upgraded from two 8800 GTS 612 MB SLI to one 5870 with two monitors hooked up?

[Ughmahedhurtz]

On the Tom's Hardware charts, the overall score for the 5870 is 2150, whereas the 8800GT Ultra SLI isn't far behind at 1993. If you drop down to the regular 8800GT SLI, it's about 1682. Still no slouch.

I don't really see any point to spending $400 for a 7.8% increase in performance.

[Rokins]

well I just have the 8800 GTS x2, and I am having lots of problems with FPS and SLI running two monitors. I was hoping that since the 5870 has such good reviews using two monitors that it would help with a lot of my issues. What about the new 480?

[Sajuuk]

What about the new 480?

Don't. Sure, it's a power house, but it sucks a huge amount of power and pumps out heat.

What specific issues are you having? Are you running one monitor per card or both on one card? Are you using ISboxer? If not, give it a try, since it can be used to split up the GPU load of multiboxing between both your GPUs, increasing performance at little additional cost.

http://isboxer.com/index.php/guides/21-using-multiple-video-cards

[Rokins]

Don't. Sure, it's a power house, but it sucks a huge amount of power and pumps out heat.

What specific issues are you having? Are you running one monitor per card or both on one card? Are you using ISboxer? If not, give it a try, since it can be used to split up the GPU load of multiboxing between both your GPUs, increasing performance at little additional cost.

http://isboxer.com/index.php/guides/21-using-multiple-video-cards


I use ******** actually, and I have my 4 slaves set to low settings so they dont use up my resources. My main screen will twitch and slowdown periodically and I've even had graphical lockups where I had to restart the whole system. Also, very often I will have a problem where my FPS will lock to 30 FPS even though it was just at 60FPS and the only way to fix it is to restart the game. I have both monitors set to one card tied to the other with SLI, because using one card per monitor produced lines going across my screen all the time.

I asked about the 480 because they recently released drivers that fixed most of the heat issues, and power isn't a problem.



Edit: I guess I cant say any other program other than ISboxer here...awesome.

[MiRai]

Edit: I guess I cant say any other program other than ISboxer here...awesome.
Incorrect, you can say any program except that one. You continue to say you use SLI, which is a giant handicap while boxing. In your original thread you mentioned you turned off SLI and still got the same performance issues so I'm really not sure. Perhaps try removing that one card altogether so you're 100% sure SLI is not enabled. All I can say is "don't try to multibox while SLI is enabled." I wouldn't recommend the 480 either, it's too much money for crap performance and ATi's mainstream cards are beating the 480 which is newer. As for troubleshooting that particular software you're using...there is an entire community dedicated to just that, on a different site. :)

[Sajuuk]

As for troubleshooting that particular software you're using...there is an entire community dedicated to just that, on a different site. :)


Either way, I suggest you GET THE HELL AWAY FROM THAT SOFTWARE.


Besides, ISboxer/Innerspace are MORE powerful and can do a LOT more, at least to my knowledge.

Did I mention there's a free trial of innerspace?

[Hivetyrant]

I should add that I recently went from two 8800GTX's to two 5870's and the performance increase wasn't just noticable, it $@$ all over my old system.

Worth every cent from what I ahve seen (though I did also upgrade the rest of the PC, but my CPU on my last machine wasn't maxxed)

I think the key point for you (Possibly) is that the performance benchmarks are generally for single screen, demo benchmarks.
The best part about the ATI cards over hte older 7/8XXX series is that:
A) You can run 3 screens off one card
and
B) When you do run multiple screens, they have a much easier time rendering on seperate screens.

I noticed my 8800's struggled as soon as I tried running 3D apps on different screens, it worked, but it wasn't great.

My new pc runs my 6 toons in dalaran at about 40fps with average settings and I couldn't be happier.




Except for the drivers, having moved away from ATI years ago due to the stupid catalyst control center I was hoping it had gotten better.... It hasn't.... so expect a bit of pain in the beginning...

[Dramoth]

well I just have the 8800 GTS x2, and I am having lots of problems with FPS and SLI running two monitors. I was hoping that since the 5870 has such good reviews using two monitors that it would help with a lot of my issues. What about the new 480?

depends as well on the motherboard you are using... if the motherboard has an intel 845(I think that it's the 845 one), then there are known issues with the computer being able to handle SLi properly.

Also, the 8800 GTS comes with 640Mb of DDR2 ram not 612... unless it is some weird manufacturer that has only release it with 612Mb.

I 5 box on my system using SLi'd 8800 GTS cards and I dont actually get SLi because of the chipset which causes a few performance issues.

[alcattle]

I should add that I recently went from two 8800GTX's to two 5870's and the performance increase wasn't just noticable, it $@$ all over my old system.

Worth every cent from what I ahve seen (though I did also upgrade the rest of the PC, but my CPU on my last machine wasn't maxxed)

I think the key point for you (Possibly) is that the performance benchmarks are generally for single screen, demo benchmarks.
The best part about the ATI cards over hte older 7/8XXX series is that:
A) You can run 3 screens off one card
and
B) When you do run multiple screens, they have a much easier time rendering on seperate screens.

I noticed my 8800's struggled as soon as I tried running 3D apps on different screens, it worked, but it wasn't great.

My new pc runs my 6 toons in dalaran at about 40fps with average settings and I couldn't be happier.




Except for the drivers, having moved away from ATI years ago due to the stupid catalyst control center I was hoping it had gotten better.... It hasn't.... so expect a bit of pain in the beginning...

What software are you using to get both cards working (asume they are each handling different toons) I heard Win 7 and or IS will control the graphics correctly but no one has ever said for sure.

[Seldum]

uhh I hate running into topics where a certain program can't be mentioned... but only because I don't know why and what program it is :D

[Lax]

What software are you using to get both cards working (asume they are each handling different toons) I heard Win 7 and or IS will control the graphics correctly but no one has ever said for sure.
http://isboxer.com/index.php/guides/21-using-multiple-video-cards