ATI 5870 in Crossfire

By Justin Robinson
Sep 29, 2009 | 10 Comments
Tags: ATI | 5870 | Crossfire

Snapshot: A quick-fire look at dual 5870's.

Crossfire has been around for ages, but it's only recently been redesigned to work inside the case as opposed to the annoying external dongle that plagued the 1xxx series.

And of course the 5xxx series cards have well and truly launched, which brings us to actual performance numbers, somewhat hindered by the looming deadline tomorrow.

Thankfully I nabbed just enough time to throw together a rig and whacked together the following tech, to give a mini-update on what you can expect from high-end gaming rigs:

Core i7 965
ASUS Maximus II Extreme
OCZ 1866 CL7
ASUS 5870
XFX 5870
Corsair HX1000
Intel 80GB SSD
Dell 30" LCD

Amazingly with all this tech running, Crysis was playable at 1920x1200 on Ultra high at 30-50fps! The two cards (for a combined total of 3200 shader units) worked together to eke out this excellent result in both 3DMark programs:

Dual 5870's in Crossfire!

Performance is definitely very high so make sure you check out the three-page indepth review of the 5870 in Issue 106 - out on the 14th of October!

Want to check out the first Australian review of Final Fantasy XIII? We got in this month's Atomic!

Plus HD projectors, Napoleon: Total War, Intel's new six-core processor, PC upgrading guide, and a whole lot more.

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10 Comments

Thoughts on this article? Add a comment below.

Mudg3 Sep 29, 2009 2:06 PM	nom nom nom nom nom. And with some overclocking we could have some awesome results
danin316 Sep 29, 2009 2:32 PM	this is awesome tho has any1 checked out the new Lucid Hydra 200 chip that makes any crossfire/ sli combination possible on motherboards mmmm severe droolage and if wat there claimin is true would love to see a 5870 and 295gtx working side by side just for the hell of it. come on atomic do an article on that want yor pov on it
nesquick Sep 29, 2009 3:02 PM	Should send them to me I will show you how to benchmark them :P
Mudg3 Sep 29, 2009 4:38 PM	You can have them after me Nessy
mattstandingup Sep 29, 2009 7:44 PM	Lucid Hydra http://www.atomicmpc.com.au/News/152840,lucid-hydra-chip-spotted-on-msi-p55-motherboard.aspx
MedicineBaby Sep 30, 2009 12:59 AM	I look forward to the day when a 'budget' PC will be playing Crysis on Ultra High at 1920x1200 @ 80 fps. Then I will re-read this article and go "WTF WAZ GOIN' ON!" ;P
tOrtise Sep 30, 2009 10:26 AM	Very nice indeed, but what was the jump from a single 5870? Is Crossfire worth the $$$$?
nesquick Sep 30, 2009 11:32 AM	Tortise unless you have a Core2 duo, Core i5/i7 or AMD phenom II all around 3.8GHZ+ I would say no since the bottleneck you create from adding the second card.
Tezlin Sep 30, 2009 12:13 PM	@MedicineBaby: I can already imagine sitting down with my kids in 25 years and saying "AND WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT, BUT WE HAD THINGS CALLED LAPTOPS AND THEY WERE AS BIG AS YOUR 400 PETABYTE HARD DRIVE!" and they'll stare at me in astonishment and then go back to playing the computer game located on a chip inside their head. >_>
thesorehead Sep 30, 2009 12:47 PM	Tezlin - +1 "Hang on Dad - you're saying that you used to play computer games using your hands?" /back to the future

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Atomic Magazine

Issue: 111 | April, 2010

Atomic is a magazine aimed squarely at computer enthusiasts, gamers, and serious PC upgraders.

Every month we bring you the latest reviews of new technology and PC components, in depth features on everything from overclocking to console hacking, and gaming previews and interviews.

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