The major draw for dual GPU is space efficiency, the minor draw is a bit better power efficiency over two equivalent standalone cards.
I'd personaly prefer a pair of 5870s, especially when the 5970 costs significantly more than double.
If I had a really big farm the 5970s would be more worthwhile.
Topic: 5970 vs individual 5870 cores (Read 1109 times)
a single 5970 has 2x 5870, but AMD has to downclock these cores to stay within TDP. like the last poster said, they are more similar to 2x 5850 performance with the downclocks
A 5970 is essentially 2x 5850's! So, they get 800ish!
I see a lot of 5870 GPUs hashing in the neighborhood of 450Mh/s, yet I don't think I've ever heard of someones 5970 cranking out 900Mh/s. Obviously there are several limitation factors that come along with sticking two of those GPUs in such close proximity.... still, I'm curious what hash rates you 5970 owners have maxed your cards out at. I imagine that especially with a liquid-cooling setup, you can get these GPUs to operate more like they would on independent cards.
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