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Review: Sapphire Radeon HD 5970 in two-card CrossFireX

by Tarinder Sandhu on 18 November 2009, 13:00 3.85

Tags: Win 7 - Radeon HD 5970 XF, AMD (NYSE:AMD), Sapphire, ATi Technologies (NYSE:AMD)

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qauw4

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Enemy Territory: Quake Wars

Enemy Territory: QW - 1,680x1,050 4xAA 16xAF
XFX Radeon HD 5850 1GBBFG GTX 295 SLISapphire HD 5870 XFXFX HD 5850 XFBFG GTX 285 SLIBFG GeForce GTX 295 1,792MB Sapphire Radeon HD 5970 2GBBFG GeForce GTX 285 1GBSapphire Radeon HD 5870 1GBSapphire HD 5970 XF
118.57187.05162.85164.15179.8154.1164.15117.87138.07160.6


Enemy Territory: QW - 1,920x1,200 4xAA 16xAF
XFX Radeon HD 5850 1GBBFG GTX 295 SLISapphire HD 5870 XFXFX HD 5850 XFBFG GTX 285 SLIBFG GeForce GTX 295 1,792MB Sapphire Radeon HD 5970 2GBBFG GeForce GTX 285 1GBSapphire Radeon HD 5870 1GBSapphire HD 5970 XF
99.5183.65162.45158.35161.3132.3154.9598.2117.1161.1


Enemy Territory: QW - 2,560x1,600 4xAA 16xAF
XFX Radeon HD 5850 1GBBFG GTX 295 SLISapphire HD 5870 XFXFX HD 5850 XFBFG GTX 285 SLIBFG GeForce GTX 295 1,792MB Sapphire Radeon HD 5970 2GBBFG GeForce GTX 285 1GBSapphire Radeon HD 5870 1GBSapphire HD 5970 XF
64.83137.3134.95116.4109.588.5112.661.9376.93158.55


Comparison cards Radeon HD 5970 XF GeForce GTX 295 SLI
Percentage increase in multi-GPU mode at 2,560x1,600 40.8 55.1

All multi-GPU setups produce >100fps at 2,560x1,600, and scaling remains reasonable when jumping from two GPUs to four.

Somewhat anachronistically, what's of a little concern is how two Radeon HD 5850s in CrossFireX just about beat out a single HD 5970. It brings questions of the single-card's dual-GPu implementation into play because it shouldn't happen.