Are the 5970 performances good?

[sonnet]

I mean does it performs better than the 5870? (like 50% more or more?)
Since it's basically a crossfire on a single card I was wondering if it performs well since I might buy one (used).

[evanjfraser]

I mean does it performs better than the 5870? (like 50% more or more?)
Since it's basically a crossfire on a single card I was wondering if it performs well since I might buy one (used).

Heya, I have a 5970, and it works fairly well. I don't believe that cross fire works under linux though, so it probably is only giving me the performance of a 5870 under linux.

[chithanh]

Some things you may want to keep in mind:

The 5970 performs better than a 5870 only in games where CrossFire works. On Linux, only the proprietary driver supports CrossFire.

The 5970 has only 1 GB GDDR5 per GPU. This means that modern games may not be able to use AA or high-quality textures at resolutions higher than 1080p.

Many 5970s have been used for Bitcoin mining, often overclocked close to the limit. Sometimes too close. Because Bitcoin mining on GPUs is no longer profitable, these cards hit the used market now. If your card was used for Bitcoin mining, be careful that it was not damaged through overclocking.

All in all, if you can get a 7870/R9 270X or 7950/R9 280 for about the same price used, these will consume less power and be better suited for modern games.