AMD Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity Performance Testing

[Ryan]

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=793

Thought I would make sure you guys knew I had posted this.

[fatlazyhomer]

I think its safe to say that a single hd5870 will be sufficient for people using less than 3x30's.

[Notorio]

In regards to the test done on Eyefinity, the stretching and zooming is not really good news. Is like watching a widescreen movie tryin to fit the height and ignoring the width, in this case, it's ignoring the height tryin to fit the width, so you see cut off on top and bottom. Watching a widescreen movie on a 4:3 TV will create black bars on the top and bottom, most people think that it is annoying and the movie itself is small, so they would zoom in till the black bars are gone and cropping the left and right picture.

It's not a capability but more like a manipulation of the resolution, which is not good for people who wants the original display to show what's the intended picture.

The only way this will work is a game has to be developed for Eyefinity capability, and when it does work i think the right way should be the middle monitor should look the same whether you're playing a game on a single monitor or with eyefinity enable, when Eyefinity is enabled, the left and right monitor should show something extra which you cannot see when using a single monitor. That's why those games doesn't work as we expect, because we're manipulating the game display (example: the menu for RE5)

A short explanation would be, lets say, you see a big number "4 5 6" on a single screen where 4 is all the way to the left and 6 is all the way to the right of the screen. With Eyefinity it would make the number 4 appear on the left monitor and number 6 appearing on the right monitor, this is obviously stretching, the top and bottom part are cropped out, sacrificing itself so that the width will fit.

How i think Eyefinity should work is when Eyefinity is used, the same number "4 5 6" will appear exactly like it was on a single monitor but in edition the left monitor will show "1 2 3" and the right monitor will show "7 8 9", so you'll see "1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9", seeing extra without sacrificing anything.

I don't think there's anything that ATI can do to fix this, game developers don't intend for gamers to see certain things when it comes to multiplayer, it will be unfair to see a lot more compare to the other who doesn't have Eyefinity.

But i'm interested to see 3 monitors on a portrait setup, that setup is more closer in terms of resolution compare to a single monitor, the height is there, the width is balanced and not too long. But this time I think the left and right will be cropped out.

[fatlazyhomer]

Who says online gaming was meant to be fair? People use technology to gain an upper edge ALL THE TIME. Mice and Keyboard Xbox anyone?

With settings like IQ and draw distance, someone with better hardware will always have an advantage. Or hell, just a bigger screen, a better mice and keyboard, is an edge.

[3dfxrain]

Maybe drinking the coffee. I know it helped me, gave me an edge in BF2. Pwning the players on the other team. Sometimes.

Ok, so, yeah, I think what fatlazyhomer said was valid and definitely helps because can get more time to accurately get shots in a first person shooter if more frames per second. I thinks people know this already.

So, upgrade is good when it is giving more frames per second.

[Notorio]

Yes I agree that different hardware may have some advantage over the other, better mouse, pad, GPU, CPU. I remember the argument about Warcraft III (DOTA) long time ago, where IF widescreen is available for the game, a widescreen owner will surely have the advantage over a fullscreen user, no widescreen for Warcraft III said Blizzard due to this.

Nowadays everyone will go for a widescreen monitor anyway, Blizzard; please enable widescreen for that game, and those with fullscreen monitors, tough luck HEHE

Back to GPU, i've been planning to upgrade it since the 4800 series, waiting and waiting because the war between ATI and Nvidia was fierce, one will be better than the other in months, things change so fast, and when the decision is final i was about to get the HD4890 HAHA, and now DX11 is here with HD5800 series, the waiting continues, not sure If i want to wait for Nvidia's DX11 card to compare...decide to wait for some cool lookin custom coolin HD5870 and price drop :X (maybe I should not wait anymore, will not succeed to upgrade if i wait)

[3dfxrain]

AMD did really well with the 4xxx series. I am hoping that they keep it up with the 5xxx series and that NVIDIA competes more effectively, it would be good for us.

[Ryan]

Notorio, you aren't completely correct here. Most of the games actually already work as you want them to: where the center screen shows you the same stuff you would normally see on a single display and the left and right monitors display EXTRA material.

[dekruyter]

I have come over from green to the red side....love my 5870 (XFX). Not sure If I'm going to even try eyefinity....but I am running dual monitors, w/ the main monitor @ 1920x1200 (love this resolution).

[Notorio]

Originally Posted by Ryan

Notorio, you aren't completely correct here. Most of the games actually already work as you want them to: where the center screen shows you the same stuff you would normally see on a single display and the left and right monitors display EXTRA material.

Oh really!, In that case, it's alll good then but most of the games you've tested didn't work like what we mentioned? Most of them are zoomed in and cropped out like you said.

[Notorio]

Originally Posted by dekruyter

I have come over from green to the red side....love my 5870 (XFX). Not sure If I'm going to even try eyefinity....but I am running dual monitors, w/ the main monitor @ 1920x1200 (love this resolution).

That's good to hear. Before the 5 series came along, the 4870 X2 was a monster, power hungry and hot, expensive too. And now, seeing some test made with 5870, it sometimes beat the 4870 X2, using less power and not as hot, with a cheaper price tag...it's just insane.

[Brandito]

couple questions for ryan, are you still working on benchmarks for 3x24" monitors?

also after watching TWiCH today leo mentioned something about vram being a limiting factor for eyefinity and crossfire, to expand on that i'm wondering if 1gb is really enough for eyefinity. obviously it's getting the job done for your 3x30" screens, but would it benefit greatly from more? especially in crossfire where you're likely to run higher levels of aa and af?

also do both sli and crossfire still only use one cards video buffer? or do they now add the ram from both cards? i've never been big into multi gpu setups so i haven't really kept up on info in the past. now with eyefinity i see a definite use for crossfire. i'm still under the assumption that only one cards ram is used.

[TheGlasMan]

also do both sli and crossfire still only use one cards video buffer? or do they now add the ram from both cards? i've never been big into multi gpu setups so i haven't really kept up on info in the past. now with eyefinity i see a definite use for crossfire. i'm still under the assumption that only one cards ram is used.

Since the output is from 1 card, it has to have the video buffer. Textures etc are duplicated in each card, so the effective memory is the same as the amount of 1 card.

[Brandito]

Originally Posted by TheGlasMan

Since the output is from 1 card, it has to have the video buffer. Textures etc are duplicated in each card, so the effective memory is the same as the amount of 1 card.

yeah ok, that is ringing some bells now! makes sense, makes sense...so i'm wondering if these huge resolutions could stand to benefit from a larger video buffer?

of course my guess is 1gb is likely enough...i'm just question it because i thought we'd get another bump in vram this generation compared to last. throw in eyefinity style resolutions and i kind of thought for sure you'd want to up the vram. i guess though if it works it works? maybe bandwidth is to the point where needing more ram is negated?

[Ryan]

It's an interesting question: how much better would a 2GB card be with 3x30" monitors.

But I don't think that is the reason for the CrossFire delay.