debating a second gtx 590 or two gtx 580 3gb's

[wheeljack12]

I already have a evga gtx 590. I was considering gettting another for quad sli but I am not sure if the 990fx will support quad sli even though it's still 2 way technically. If not, I was thinking of giving my brother the gtx 590 and buying two gtx 580 3gb's. If that's the path I should take in the gtx 580's, I wouldn't mind getting the msi lightning extreme 3gb if I did since I could go for sure two way sli in that sense without wonder or worry that I would be stuck with a second gtx 590 that I can't use. any thoughts?

[Roadhog]

Quad sli is pretty fail last time I checked.

[wheeljack12]

roadhog, I appreciate your opinion but I am looking more for facts. I am wondering if 2 way sli on 990fx mb's include quad sli (in this case gtx 590) or not. It's my deciding factor on which way to go.

[Madpistol]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128508

Quad SLI (as in 4 cards) is supported. There's no reason why you couldn't do two dual-GPU cards, each on 16 lanes a piece (8 lanes per GPU). However, I would STILL rather have dual GTX 580 3GB cards. That extra framebuffer will be more beneficial than simply throwing more GPUs into the mix.

With that board, it's simply Nvidia's SLI drivers that you're depending on. Unfortunately, I can't help you there.


BTW, that's a kick-ass board. I wouldn't mind sporting one of those in my current system. I also love that Gigabyte's competing board for LGA1155 (found here) is not only $100 more expensive, but the PCIe slots on the intel board aren't spaced right. In that respect, AMD has made a strong case for AM3+.

[Roadhog]

Originally Posted by wheeljack12

roadhog, I appreciate your opinion but I am looking more for facts. I am wondering if 2 way sli on 990fx mb's include quad sli (in this case gtx 590) or not. It's my deciding factor on which way to go.

Chances are if 890fx supports it, than 990fx does too since it is pretty much a rebadged 890 chip.

[Madpistol]

Originally Posted by Roadhog

Chances are if 890fx supports it, than 990fx does too since it is pretty much a rebadged 890 chip.

Remember, the 890 chipset didn't support SLI without a hack. The 990 chipset supports SLI natively. I think that's what he's going after.




EDIT: Jesus wheeljack, I just looked at your specs. That's one crazy system. Are you ever going to be happy with a PC?

[wheeljack12]

Originally Posted by Roadhog

Chances are if 890fx supports it, than 990fx does too since it is pretty much a rebadged 890 chip.

What they did with the 990fx is Nvidia gave the mb manufacturer's a bios code to allow SLI on the 900 series. Nvidia doesn't want to get into the chipset business so they bypassed it by doing this. This wasn't present in the 890fx series as it was crossfire only.

[wheeljack12]

Originally Posted by Madpistol

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128508

Quad SLI (as in 4 cards) is supported. There's no reason why you couldn't do two dual-GPU cards, each on 16 lanes a piece (8 lanes per GPU). However, I would STILL rather have dual GTX 580 3GB cards. That extra framebuffer will be more beneficial than simply throwing more GPUs into the mix.

With that board, it's simply Nvidia's SLI drivers that you're depending on. Unfortunately, I can't help you there.


BTW, that's a kick-ass board. I wouldn't mind sporting one of those in my current system. I also love that Gigabyte's competing board for LGA1155 (found here) is not only $100 more expensive, but the PCIe slots on the intel board aren't spaced right. In that respect, AMD has made a strong case for AM3+.

BTW, I have the UD5 mb, not the UD7 as the newegg listing shows. I almost went for the UD7 but no one locally had it so I went with the next best thing. It's layout is 16x,4x,16x, 4x, 8x, pci meaning my board max supports 3 way SLI. I am currently using the 1st 16x of course for my primary gtx 590 and the 8x for the sb xfi pci-e at 1x. That shouldn't drop the second card to 8x should it? Not that really matters, just curious. I do like the memory of the 3gb cards though. As for my system if you remember was a kick ass core i7 980x, gigabyte ud9 7 pci-e slot mb and 24gb of ddr 1600 ram. Sold off the cpu, ram and mb for a nice price. It sounds weird that here I am asking about enthusiast upgrades when I changed sides with high end hardware. Basically changed to AMD because I don't feel like spending $1000 every time Intel released a slightly higher clocked chip when I can get a cpu in hex core for a 3rd of the cost, a SLI mb at 1/3 the cost of the ud9, ram at 1/2 the cost of 24gb. That way I still don't bottleneck, have 8 core upgradability when it comes out, and native SLI in a AMD chipset. What more can you ask for in a balance of budgeting and still having enthusiast cravings at the same time. I even like the fact that the 990fx's are 32gb RAM ready. Here's a better question, could I add a 1.5gb gtx 580 and 3 way SLI that since I am guessing that now two gtx 590's in quad sli would be out of the question. The other problem is the new beta driver for Nvdia that just came out (275.50) max supports 3 way SLI on 900 series chipsets. Would the driver override the BIOS even if I had the UD7 MB? Realistically though, if quad sli can't be done, the 3gb cards are my next quest as I would give the gtx 590 to my friend in return for a 1.5gb gtx 580 that I would sell to help pay for two 3gb gtx 580's. Nice thing about the ud5 990fx, since (another selling point in case for AMD) is the backwards compatibility with AM3 as this MB supports every AM3 cpu out there in the 1st release BIOS.

[wheeljack12]

the other reason I am debating gtx 580 3gb's is newegg has zotac's 3gb for $540 cdn. Most 3gb cards are going for $590 to about $620 cdn with all being evga, zotac and palit for cdn retailers. I would get the MSI lightning extreme but it's a rare find.

[Rollo]

Originally Posted by wheeljack12

the other reason I am debating gtx 580 3gb's is newegg has zotac's 3gb for $540 cdn. Most 3gb cards are going for $590 to about $620 cdn with all being evga, zotac and palit for cdn retailers. I would get the MSI lightning extreme but it's a rare find.

You would do your system far more benefit buying a Sandy Bridge or highly clocked 1366 motherboard than any graphics move you can make.

Your graphics are great for the GD235HZ monitor, there is no need for more than 1.5GB VRAM for 19X10. Likewise, there is no need for 4 GPUs for 19X10, even with 3d Vision.

Your SLi scaling is being limited by the AMD CPU. I say this as someone with a 3.4GHz Phenom II in one rig, and a 3.4 GHz i7 in the other, and first hand experience with the CPU holding back the variety of GTX5XX SLi rigs I've used in that rig.

[snowmanwithahat]

Originally Posted by Rollo

You would do your system far more benefit buying a Sandy Bridge or highly clocked 1366 motherboard than any graphics move you can make.

Your graphics are great for the GD235HZ monitor, there is no need for more than 1.5GB VRAM for 19X10. Likewise, there is no need for 4 GPUs for 19X10, even with 3d Vision.

Your SLi scaling is being limited by the AMD CPU. I say this as someone with a 3.4GHz Phenom II in one rig, and a 3.4 GHz i7 in the other, and first hand experience with the CPU holding back the variety of GTX5XX SLi rigs I've used in that rig.

I think I saw that he's running 3 displays, in which case you could definitely see the benefit moving to more graphics horsepower.

Also as a general note... dual-core cards don't count as using SLI... I could use a 295 / 590 on my system and even though it's a P45 chipset it will work.

[Rollo]

Originally Posted by snowmanwithahat

I think I saw that he's running 3 displays, in which case you could definitely see the benefit moving to more graphics horsepower.

Also as a general note... dual-core cards don't count as using SLI... I could use a 295 / 590 on my system and even though it's a P45 chipset it will work.

It only says one display in his sig, if three I'd recommend two of the new 2.5GB GTX570s over the two 3GB 580s unless money is no object. Either way, he's CPU limited already.

Dual core cards are exactly the same as using SLi in terms of how they rely on AFR.