Mixing Cards

Ravious · #1 08-04-12, 06:15 PM

I have a 5850 in my system. I am looking to buy a 5870. Is it possible to have them both running in a system at the same time (Non Crossfired).

Thanks!

RedgyK · #2 08-04-12, 06:22 PM

From what I know, you can run a 5850 and 5870 in crossfire, so they should be able to be run without crossfire too.. What is the purpose of this though?

You could just have them crossfired (with crossfire bridge) and just set crossfire to disabled, so then if you ever needed extra power in a game, you could enable it.

I am not sure on this, but I believe you could just put them in with no crossfire bridge, and it would work out just perfect.. One as the main GPU that show picture on the screen and such, and one just being there ready to do other tasks

Ravious · #3 08-04-12, 06:26 PM

The plan was to put the 5870 as the main card. Then I decided I could put the 5850 as the 2nd card which would be bitcoin mining so that I wouldnt loose performance in games.

The card I am looking at has been flashed to overlook the catalyst OC limits so would that be a problem?

RedgyK · #4 08-04-12, 06:36 PM

No, shouldn't really be a problem.. I would uninstall all drivers and catalyst before switching the card, then installing it again... Drivers are always a pain, better safe than sorry..

Sorry for not understanding, but what do you mean about that the card would be "bitcoin mining so that I wouldn't lose performance in games" ?

SavageCupcake · #5 08-04-12, 06:36 PM

i know that amd cards with the first 2 numbers the same can be crossfired (e.g 6850 and 6870) im pretty sure you could mix any cards if you dont connect them in crossfire but im not sure. btw what is bitcoin mining??

tharionos · #6 08-04-12, 07:03 PM

mostly the crossfire runs at the performane of the lowest card ?

something i heard

RedgyK · #7 08-04-12, 07:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tharionos

mostly the crossfire runs at the performane of the lowest card ?

something i heard

What you've heard is probably that if you for example have two 5850's, and one of them is clocked higher, it will be downclocked to the clock of the lowest clocked card.

The same way, a 5870 will be bottlenecked by the 5850.. So 5870 + 5850 crossfire will perform at pretty much the exact same as 5850 crossfire. Don't really know what it does, probably disables the extra shader cores and so on that the 5870, and clock it to the same as the 5850..

Anyway, this is kinda off-topic, just wanted to explain it a bit

WillSK · #8 08-04-12, 07:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SavageCupcake

i know that amd cards with the first 2 numbers the same can be crossfired (e.g 6850 and 6870) im pretty sure you could mix any cards if you dont connect them in crossfire but im not sure. btw what is bitcoin mining??

i googled bitcoin mining and i'm still none the wiser. some sort of virtual currency? what do you buy with it?

tharionos · #9 08-04-12, 07:14 PM

thanks redygk for that clearing explanation

back to topic

Ravious · #10 08-04-12, 09:55 PM

You use your GPU to generate bitcoins. You can sell them to make money. Bitcoins go for 3 pound each. My PC generates 0.5 Bitcoins a day.

https://eclipsemc.com

Eclipse Mining gives you money for how much you generate through Paypal (Received 2 payments today from them)

Some shops accept bitcoins as a payment method. Even some hotels accept them!