Dear sir:
I'm glad that you pointed out that the 5970 is generally bested by two 5870s in CF. This is due to the fact that the two 5870 chips in it are down clocked to the speed of 5850s. This was down to keep the maximum power requirements down to no more than 300 watts at maximum, which I believe is an ATX power draw standard (?), though I'm not absolutely about it. If others now better, then please feel free to contradict me.
As for the comparison it was highly informative for me, as I'm thinking of either of these set-ups, largely due to the fact that I was "stupid" enough to have bought a Dell U27711 IPS monitor direct for one heck of a deal, with two more years of warranty. But the "additional" price, aside from the financial differential on the monitor, is that it takes more GPU "horsepower" to drive the thing at its native resolution of 2550x1440, which is why this test was so interesting. I have read that SLi "scales" much better in general that ATi CF, a fact due, I assume, to driver issues. That, of course, can be hopefully rectified by later releases. Maybe SLi has been around longer as well?
Simply put, it would seem, for now, that because the GTX480 is a faster card out of the box and that Nividia's SLI appears to scale much better compared to CF Nividia takes the win. But the win comes at a cost, namely additional heat, higher power draw, initial cost and noise. Heat and noise are subjective. And power consumption is as well, I guess. I mean, unless you're sitting in front of thing 24/7, I would doubt that it raise your bill that much. But then I don't know for sure. As for initial cost, well, if you're in the market for this, you're probably not begging for spare change.
And one last thing. I wish that people on these forums would behave themselves a little better. Yes, I realize that some of them are on the young side (I'm 52, though a young one) and thus given to fits of 'roid rage at times, for the lack of a better way of putting it, but it would be better for all concerned if tempers were kept a bit more under control. Jeez! We're talking about VIDEO CARDS people to play GAMES, ladies and gentlemen. As I write this there are some 20 million residents of Pakistan who are being flooded out of life and limb. How about using some their passion for them?
Rant now concluded. Thank you
![hellokitty[hk]](/community/data/avatars/m/169/169488.jpg?1355088591){kind=avatar}
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