ATI Radeon 5970 for $350 - Good Deal ?

[twam]

Hey everyone,
I just got my hands on a 5970 for $350, it was only purchased 3 months ago and still has warranty.
The card was only used for about a week and not for mining purposes. The guy i got it from is a hardcore gamer and he said it didn't have enough balls to play Battlefield 3 (I think that's the game not sure...) on the Best settings.

My PSU cant power it but looking on ebay and other selling 5970's i think $400 would have been a deal.
So the money i saved won me a 850 Watt 80+ Cooler Master PSU

Thanks for looking
Twam

[DeathAndTaxes]

I would take it.  At one time you could get used 5970s for $300 but I think those days are gone for now.

[Miner612]

No.

5970, although a good card with dual GPUs, awesome for gaming, SUCK ASS for mining.

You cannot crack MSI Afterburner using them.  Which means you cannot underclock the memory or overclock the core very much.

You are better off getting two 5850s and over clocking the HELL out of those.  That is basically what a 5970 is.  Two 5850s but I would rather have two 5850s ANY DAY over 1 5970.

[DeathAndTaxes]

No.

5970, although a good card with dual GPUs, awesome for gaming, SUCK ASS for mining.

You cannot crack MSI Afterburner using them.  Which means you cannot underclock the memory or overclock the core very much.

What the hell are you talking about?  Where did you get such bogus info?

MSI AB works just fine w/ 5970 but cgminer works even better.  Driver (no catalyst control center) + SDK 2.1 + cgminer = optimal perfromance. You don't need anything else.  cgminer can set clocks, fans, and voltages.   Memclock runs stable down to 150Mhz.  I usually run at 820/190 (found 190 is faster by 1 MH/s or so than 150) but I baby them.  840 is possible with aggressive cooling and 870 with watercooling.

Mh/s is roughly 450 per 1 Ghz which is exactly the same as HD 5870.  Obviously you can't clock a 5970 to 1 Ghz so running at 820 MHz gets 82% of that, at 870 Mhz it is 87% of that, etc.

You are better off getting two 5850s and over clocking the HELL out of those.  That is basically what a 5970 is.  Two 5850s but I would rather have two 5850s ANY DAY over 1 5970.

Well a 5850 has a different core than a 5870/5890. It has 1440 shaders vs 1600.  It also has inferior cooling system and VRMs which are only capable of lower amperage. Still you can drive a 5850 pretty hard but it has a lower performance per watt (mainly due to use of a chopped down chip & lower MH/s per board).   A properly tuned 3x5970 dedicated rig can get >2.5 MH/W (3x5970 @ 820/190/1.05V = 2.25 GH/s @ 870W) at stock voltage. If/when the network becomes more efficient, one can undervolting and underclock to get >4 MH/W (4x5970 @ 600/190/0.90V = 2.2 GH/s @ 530W).


On edit: fixed a couple typos.

[someone703]

+1 to what DeathAndTaxes said

If it's in good working order, take it.  $350 I would say is a fair price for it.  Under $350 would be very nice but hard to come by and anything over $350 I'd probably just pass on it personally.

5970s are considered to be, if not among, THE best card for mining considering how much you pay for it, how much watts is uses, and how many hash/s you can get from it.

I've got 1 hashing now, 1 being RMA'd (crosses fingers that it doesn't take forever to get back to me), and possibly another if the buyer manages to get his PayPal re-activated and doesn't change his/her mind on selling it to me.

[abbeytim]

i use saphire trixx  plus make sure upls is disabled so you can oc gpu and underclock mem also use the sapphire trixx gadget with vista or win7 to monitor your vrm temps or use gpuz to monitor those temps  and yes i use cgminer its easy to use also i reccomend sdk 2.1 with latest drivers it gives you best mh/s
650-660 mh/s @ stock core and 300mhz mem  just watch those vrm temps if you oc i also recomend setting your fan to at least 45% caus the auto fan may cool your gpus just fine but may not cool your vrms enough happy mining






this man has no punctuation or good spelling so do not critisize him

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

[twam]

Great thanks for all the info, i got the card.
Also my 850 Watt PSU should be able to power 2 5970's if i want to upgrade.

[someone703]

Yup, 850w should be fine for 2x 5970 I would think.

I'm pushing ~450w with 1x 5970 while mining but I've also got a bunch of other hard drives and stuff (not a dedicated mining rig so not exactly the most efficient).

Another 5970 should add ~250w leaving some headroom if I had an 850w PSU.

Do keep in mind that PSUs are most efficient around 50% or so but if your system ends up pulling around 600w on an 850w you should be alright.

[twam]

You have a 450Watt PSU ?
I haven't installed the 5970 yet cause im waiting for the 850 W to arrive but currently i only have a 450 watt and stuck with my 5450...

Thanks again
Twam

[DeathAndTaxes]

Do keep in mind that PSUs are most efficient around 50% or so but if your system ends up pulling around 600w on an 850w you should be alright.

Just buy good high quality 80Plus-Gold PSU.  They tend to have very flat efficiency curve from 20% to 100% so you can pretty much load it however you want.

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/4508/seasonic_x_1050_1050w_power_supply_review/index5.html

For example:
@ ~50% load it is 91.3% efficient
@ ~85% load it is 90.0% efficient
@ ~95% load it is 89.0% efficient

So you lose only 1% to 2% loading the PSU higher.  Older PSU and crappier PSU tend to have a steeper curve. 

Buy good high efficiency PSU from solid brands (like Seasonic) and you can load them much higher without much loss.

[twam]

The PSU i got is a "Cooler Master 850 Watt 80+ Power Supply" Its not Gold 80+ thought i dont think.
Here is what it is but i didn't get it from newegg - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817171017
I only have 1 5970 now but if i upgrade to have 2 i hope it will still be efficient.

[yochdog]

No.

5970, although a good card with dual GPUs, awesome for gaming, SUCK ASS for mining.

You cannot crack MSI Afterburner using them.  Which means you cannot underclock the memory or overclock the core very much.

You are better off getting two 5850s and over clocking the HELL out of those.  That is basically what a 5970 is.  Two 5850s but I would rather have two 5850s ANY DAY over 1 5970.

    This person has no clue what they are talking about. 

[twam]

Im glad i got a lot of active replied as i thought i did my research well and bought all my stuff then to have someone say i did it all wrong scared me.
Happy to be on my way and heading in the right direction.

[Drake356]

All dem bitcoins saving AMD

[Hoang]

No.

5970, although a good card with dual GPUs, awesome for gaming, SUCK ASS for mining.

You cannot crack MSI Afterburner using them.  Which means you cannot underclock the memory or overclock the core very much.

You are better off getting two 5850s and over clocking the HELL out of those.  That is basically what a 5970 is.  Two 5850s but I would rather have two 5850s ANY DAY over 1 5970.

    This person has no clue what they are talking about.  

Yes, that guy seems dont know any at all!

[Miner612]

No.

5970, although a good card with dual GPUs, awesome for gaming, SUCK ASS for mining.

You cannot crack MSI Afterburner using them.  Which means you cannot underclock the memory or overclock the core very much.

What the hell are you talking about?  Where did you get such bogus info?

MSI AB works just fine w/ 5970 but cgminer works even better.  Driver (no catalyst control center) + 2.1 SDK + cgminer, you don't need anything else.  cgminer can set clocks, fans, and voltages.   Memclock runs stable down to 150Mhz.  I usually run at 820/190 (found 190 is faster by 1 MH/s or so than 150) but I baby them.  840 is possible with aggressive cooling and 870 with watercooling.

Mh/s is roughly 450 per GH/s which is exactly the same as HD 5870.  Obviously you can't clock a 5970 to 1 GH/s so running at 820% gets 82% of that, at 870 Mhz it is 87% of that.

You are better off getting two 5850s and over clocking the HELL out of those.  That is basically what a 5970 is.  Two 5850s but I would rather have two 5850s ANY DAY over 1 5970.

Well a 5850 has a different core than a 5870/5890. It has 1440 shaders vs 1600.  It also has inferior cooling system and lower amperage VRMs.  You can still drive 5850 pretty hard but it has a lower performance per watt (mainly due to chopped down chip & lower MH/s per board).   A properly tuned 3x5970 dedicated rig can get >2.5 MH/W (3x5970 @ 820/190/1.05V = 2.25 GH/s @ 870W) at stock voltage. If/when the network becomes more efficient with undervolting and reduced clock it is possible to get >4 MH/W (4x5970 @ 600/190/0.90V = 2.2 GH/s @ 530W).

Never knew CGMiner can change clock speeds.  I use Phoenix.  Never had a problem with it so I never changed to anything else.

Thanks for the info.

[twam]

for new forum members 99.98% of the time anything DandT says is good as gold...

Yeah he has been helping me in a couple threads, info is gold.

[joshv06]

I'm gonna get a 5970 tommorrow for 360, it is a reference card.

[DarkEagle]

No.

5970, although a good card with dual GPUs, awesome for gaming, SUCK ASS for mining.

You cannot crack MSI Afterburner using them.  Which means you cannot underclock the memory or overclock the core very much.

You are better off getting two 5850s and over clocking the HELL out of those.  That is basically what a 5970 is.  Two 5850s but I would rather have two 5850s ANY DAY over 1 5970.

what a bullshit... I have 3x5970 in 1 mining rig. The Afterburner overclock them _perfectly_. Even if you have any troubles with overclocking you still could modify the BIOSes with overclocked settings so it will be there are no any need in overclocking software at all...

[stcupp]

No.

5970, although a good card with dual GPUs, awesome for gaming, SUCK ASS for mining.

You cannot crack MSI Afterburner using them.  Which means you cannot underclock the memory or overclock the core very much.

You are better off getting two 5850s and over clocking the HELL out of those.  That is basically what a 5970 is.  Two 5850s but I would rather have two 5850s ANY DAY over 1 5970.

your smoking crack a 5970 gets like 750 Mh/s