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

[Rollo]

Originally Posted by Skinner

Ooops, I read to quick and thought the TS considered 3 GTX580's vs 2 GTX590's. But you're right, for the balance of his system he's better of with a sandy bridge system, then adding more GPU perf..

Understandable, has happened to me many times. I'd rather have the 3X3GB 580s as well.

(or better yet 3 X 2.5GB GTX570s- saves $600 and should handle any monitor set besides 75X16 for memory requirements)

[wheeljack12]

well, I found my solution. as I stated in another thread I had to take out my lsi megaraid sata 3 controller because it didn't like the last 8x port on the mb. Well, I thought I might as well get what I paid for and put in into the 16x port that a second vid card would have went into and voila, it works. So, I killed the bottleneck of the 990fx's sata 3 controller now and don't have or need to spend money on a second vid card. BTW, the reason I chose the 990fx was one for sli which I won't use now but the obvious is the 8 core fx upgradability. With AMD going back to the drawing board for the fx series to get more "horsepower", what would you be thinking when the 8 core come out in sept for gpu scaling. I know there is still a limit but would there be a better benefit waiting for the 8 cores?

[Rollo]

Originally Posted by wheeljack12

well, I found my solution. as I stated in another thread I had to take out my lsi megaraid sata 3 controller because it didn't like the last 8x port on the mb. Well, I thought I might as well get what I paid for and put in into the 16x port that a second vid card would have went into and voila, it works. So, I killed the bottleneck of the 990fx's sata 3 controller now and don't have or need to spend money on a second vid card. BTW, the reason I chose the 990fx was one for sli which I won't use now but the obvious is the 8 core fx upgradability. With AMD going back to the drawing board for the fx series to get more "horsepower", what would you be thinking when the 8 core come out in sept for gpu scaling. I know there is still a limit but would there be a better benefit waiting for the 8 cores?

No, the bottleneck isn't in the number of cores for 99.99% of games, it's in the design of the CPU.

AMD cpus haven't been able to do as much work per clock since the Athlon 64 vs P4 days.

Even on intel vs intel, a $300 quad core SB i7 mostly edges my $1000 hex core i7. The only thing more cores is good for is servers and some productivity apps. (and I suppose running multiple apps) For gaming the promise of multithreading is largely unused, and probably will stay that way.

[Dazz]

Depends on what you are doing if you are going to go tripple display then 2x 580GTX 3GB are better then 2x 590GTX. When you are pushing so many pixles you will find you will run out of memory. Even at 1080p rez anything above 8x FSAA you will run into memory problems in alot of newer games

[Rollo]

Originally Posted by Dazz

Depends on what you are doing if you are going to go tripple display then 2x 580GTX 3GB are better then 2x 590GTX. When you are pushing so many pixles you will find you will run out of memory. Even at 1080p rez anything above 8x FSAA you will run into memory problems in alot of newer games

The "run out of memory" thing is highly over hyped.

I run a GTX590 on my 57 X 10 display set, and have a couple of 2GB GTX560Tis I could be using. I don't, because the 590 provides a better gaming experience.

I just bought an intel 990X/Asus Rampage iii/H70 for more than the cost of a couple 3GB GTX580s to replace my i7860/Asus Maximusii/H50. I guarantee you, if I thought my gaming was somehow being spoiled by the 1.5GB of VRAM, I would have just kept the OCd 860 and bought the 3GB 580s.

Guys like Kyle at H go looking for differences in video cards because it's their "job" to do so. I've played at 57 X 10 with 1.5GB card(s) and 2GB cards and have the 1.5GB card in my box.

I will say I noticed pretty quickly with the 1.25GB GTX570s and got rid of them quick.

BTW- I agree with you on 3 way vs quad, and would take the extra memory for longevity over the reduced scaling of the 4th GPU.

[Dazz]

http://hardocp.com/article/2011/05/1...vidia_vs_amd/3

Says otherwise about memory restrictions.

As you can see at 5760x1200 and FSAA the GTX590 hit a wall hard.

What you are looking at is a graph of performance at 2560x1600 with Very High Settings enabled and 4X MSAA enabled and Depth of Field enabled. We are now running this game at the highest possible graphics settings and image quality. What is impressive is that Radeon HD 6990 CrossFireX can do this at an average of 60 FPS with a minimum of 44 FPS! Now only can we now play at these settings, but we can play with extreme performance!



We tried this on the GeForce GTX 590 SLI setup, and it just wouldn't have it. The framerates remained in the single digits and the game was very choppy. The fact is, the 1.5GB of RAM per GPU on GTX 590 SLI is killing the performance potential.

[Rollo]

Originally Posted by Dazz

http://hardocp.com/article/2011/05/1...vidia_vs_amd/3

Says otherwise about memory restrictions.

As you can see at 5760x1200 and FSAA the GTX590 hit a wall hard.

You linked to a game that the 2GB ATi cards couldn't even play at 57X12.

My own needs are different than Kyle's. I'm gaming at 57X10, up to 4X AA because I only play first person shooters and I'm looking for smoothest gameplay. (not to get tiny increases in IQ at the expense of fps)

In any case, NVIDIA wins the multimonitor race hands down because:
1. They can do it in 3d.
2. NVIDIA OEMs offer gamers products at 1.5, 2, 2.5, and 3GB VRAM and ATi only has a couple 2GB products.

[Roadhog]

Ati can do 3d, they also have 1gb and 2gb cards. I'm sure an aib could make a 4gb gpu if they wanted. You're worse than a broken record with your same replies over and over.

[Rollo]

Originally Posted by Roadhog

Ati can do 3d, they also have 1gb and 2gb cards. I'm sure an aib could make a 4gb gpu if they wanted. You're worse than a broken record with your same replies over and over.

Originally Posted by Rollo

In any case, NVIDIA wins the multimonitor race hands down because:
1. They can do it in 3d.
2. NVIDIA OEMs offer gamers products at 1.5, 2, 2.5, and 3GB VRAM and ATi only has a couple 2GB products.

Please reply to what I said, and not misquote me.

I was not aware ATi can span 3d across monitors. For that matter, I don't believe there are any computer monitors for sale in N America that ATi can do 3d on.

What ATi OEMs "could" do, and are currently doing, are very different things. Who knows?

Theoretically ATi "could" do some hardware accelerated physics effects like I'm enjoying in the new Alice game, but they aren't. (even though they said they would many times over the last four years and even went so far as to say they were the preferred physics solution at times)

NVIDIA relevant gaming cards for multi-monitor
1.5GB: GTX580, GTX590
2GB: GTX460, GTX560Ti, GTX560
2.5GB: GTX570
3GB:GTX580

That is six different cards* at all price and performance levels from $150>$600.. ATi board makers only have 3 models, and one of them has the dubious "honor" of being the only card in history to be a legitimate challenger to the infamous FX5800Ultra as the "loudest video card in history".

Of course, I haven't even mentioned that NVIDIA brings users of it's last gen cards (e.g. GTX285, GTX295) multimonitor support as well while ATi excludes last gen customers and forces them to upgrade.

Yep, I'm pretty comfortable with my assessment of NVIDIA offering the best multimonitor experience by far. I've played on 6 and 9 panels, and not only think this is impractical for the home, but plain annoying have the main action bisected by bezels.


*seven if you count the 1.5GB and 3GB 580s as different cards

[wheeljack12]

I agree with you Rollo. I think AMD is trying to market their hd3d to hdtv users. Because Nvidia has about 10 or so monitor models with about 5 brands making 3d vision monitors. AMD has 2. Zalman and Samsung. Trust me, before I made my decision to go gtx 590, I weighed out keeping the 3d vision goggles and monitor over a 6990. When I couldn't find anything for amd's hd3d except a zalman monitor at the time,it won me over. Not to mention I just can't go back to AMD after having two 5970's that I couldn't get half of my games to play. Also, right after I sold off the 5970's I had, the seller told me one died right after he bought it. I only had the 5970's because they were fast, not efficent. When the gtx 480's came out I was all over one within days of nvidia's press release. In other words, I don't trust amd video drivers worth a poop after that. And hey, why I should I have to buy 3rd party software for my 3d experience in games (tridef 3d) for AMD when Nvidia offers it for free with every driver update. My next big purchase will be not a second video card but a 27' acer 3d vision monitor. I already have someone lined up to take my 24' and 3d vision goggles asap after purchase of the 27' since the acer comes with goggles and has a built in ir emitter. BTW Rollo, you really don't think AMD for it's cpu's can hold their own with the fx series? The only I think I don't like about multimonitor setups is the lack of support for nvidia surround or I would have kept my other 2 24' monitors. I do agree with rollo that more than 3 monitors is impractical for the home.
BTW Roadhog, the only way for awhile you will see 4gb cards from anyone is if ASUS does a ARES 2 card for AMD. And they are pretty much busy getting MARS 2 to market right now.

[Roadhog]

Originally Posted by Rollo

Please reply to what I said, and not misquote me.

I was not aware ATi can span 3d across monitors. For that matter, I don't believe there are any computer monitors for sale in N America that ATi can do 3d on.

What ATi OEMs "could" do, and are currently doing, are very different things. Who knows?

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/ATI...ing,10742.html

http://www.elitebastards.com/index.p...ases&Itemid=34

Originally Posted by Rollo

NVIDIA relevant gaming cards for multi-monitor
1.5GB: GTX580, GTX590
2GB: GTX460, GTX560Ti, GTX560
2.5GB: GTX570
3GB:GTX580

ATI relevant gaming cards for multi-monitor....
1GB: 6770, 6790, 6850, 6870, 6950
2GB: 6990, 6970, 6950

Hell, I could even go back to the 5 series for multi monitor support on a single GPU if I wanted.

Though, even you said that 1 gpu is worthless for eyefinity and surround gaming... So, that leaves us with... hmm... 6990 and 590... 2GB vs 1.5GB. Also, don't you need SLI for surround gaming too? So that pretty much removes every gpu from your list except the 590.

Also, what are you talking about excluding previous gen? Hard to exclude something that is already featured. Unless you want to go all the way to the 4000 series. lol.

[Rollo]

Wheeljack-

I don't know if the new FXs will hamstring multi GPU scaling, but I hope they won't. My concern on the other forum is due to reports of seen of reduced clocks and prices, low yields, and low performance with early revisions.

I hope AMD proves me wrong, I was glad to see NVIDIA and AMD get back together on SLi.