Widescreen Gaming Forum

Actually, GTX480 has 1.5Gb VRAM. It makes a big difference in performance IMO.

I too, like AA/AF in games. I can turn up settings (AA/AF/Post processing etc) and still get better performance than 5970 or in quadfire.

Having 1Gb on 5970, it would bottleneck terribly @ hi res/settings. Any attempt to turn on AA/AF/Post Processing, and it would turn into a slideshow.

I believe the 2Gb VRAM on your 5870 makes little/no difference on performance. I think there was an article on hardocp:

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/07/20/nvidia_surround_technology_performance_review/1

Either way, I still think that driver optimization is the key.

How well do ATI drivers optimize the hardware? From experience, not very well IMO.

Be prepared to watercool if going tri SLI.

I tried in vain to keep temps down with air (even with a backplate+extra 120mm fans and ambient @20C). Max temps were reaching 102C with the fans @ 100%.

Also, make sure you're running a good 80+ PSU.

Good luck.

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Asus Maximus IV Extreme-Z : i7 2600K @ 4.6 : G Skill DDR3 12800 RipJaws 16Gb : 2 x Vertex 3 120Gb : 4 x Seagate Barracuda XT 2Tb : Galaxy GTX 480 Tri SLI : SilverStone Stider ST1500 : Corsair Obsidian 800D : 3 x Dell U2711 : Windows 7 Ultimate x64 : Koolance WC CPU/GPU

Actually, GTX480 has 1.5Gb VRAM. It makes a big difference in performance IMO.

I too, like AA/AF in games. I can turn up settings (AA/AF/Post processing etc) and still get better performance than 5970 or in quadfire.

Having 1Gb on 5970, it would bottleneck terribly @ hi res/settings. Any attempt to turn on AA/AF/Post Processing, and it would turn into a slideshow.

I believe the 2Gb VRAM on your 5870 makes little/no difference on performance. I think there was an article on hardocp:

Mm, I dunno. It's really setting dependent. Anything that breaks above the VRAM of the card makes framerates nosedive, as the 1GB vs. 2GB GTX460 review shows. Whether this remains 100% true for AMD is not certain, as they have (in the past) had more efficient memory routines. :)