3x 30" Portrait 6970 CF Eyefinity vs 580 SLI Surround Showdown

Kenjiwing said:
I do not use Vsync.. and the tearing is not occurring so if I turn on vsync I should be able to create the issue?

Also if thats the case why wouldnt you just turn it off?
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You should be able to create the issue. Because if you turn VSync off, you get even more tearing! Very noticeable in portrait mode.
 
Vega said:
You running Vsync on? That's where the tear happens.



Yes, it is for the 6900 series. It's a physical hardware limitation between using mixed DP/DVI-D as they cannot "sync" properly under VSync on.




On another note, ran into AMD problems as usual. The CCC doesn't allow me to select 1920x1200 resolution which is the same 16:10, but lets me select 1680x1050 which is 16:10. Why on Earth would they not put 1920x1200 as an option there so I can knock out the 5760x1200 benchmarks? Then I try and force the resolution in ATI Tray Tools and it BSODS my Win 7 lol. God AMD drivers suck.
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In many cases what resolutions are available are what's reported by your monitors EDID information. ATI / AMD drivers are notorious for misreading this information. I've got at least one display I can't even use at all with any AMD cards for this reason.
 
FWIW, the CCC team is based out of Hyderabad while the drivers themselves are in Ontario.
 
Dan_D said:
In many cases what resolutions are available are what's reported by your monitors EDID information. ATI / AMD drivers are notorious for misreading this information. I've got at least one display I can't even use at all with any AMD cards for this reason.
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That's what I am finding. AMD driver problems as usual. The nVidia drivers let me set 1920x1200 just fine.
 
Vega said:
Original Post updated with new benchmarks.
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From what I can tell from all available information, the GTX 580's are overall the faster GPUs, but there are some cases where the lack of physical memory becomes a problem. When it does the Radeon HD 6970's tend to pull ahead. It depends on the games, and depending on which games you choose to test, you can actually favor one or the other. Fortunately there is a lot of testing information out there in which many games are tested. Furthermore I'd conclude that with the exception of the DX9 driver bug present in portrait mode, the NVIDIA drivers are vastly superior providing a much more elegant experience. You don't have the cabling issues or the problems with custom resolutions. I've run into those problems on my old Radeon HD 5970 as well. I've had nothing but smooth sailing on my GTX 580's in SLI.

Nice work. Personally I don't think all the separate AFR/SFR stuff is needed. Simply choose the defaults the driver uses provided the driver chooses the right one. If your drivers are current, generally speaking they do so automatically. For me the problems and cabling / need for adapters on the AMD side is worth a slight performance trade off in the applications where the AMD cards would be faster.
 
Fuck I wish this review came out after I ordered 2x 6950's (planning to OC to 6970's). This screen tearing issue sounds like a major pain and not something I want to deal with. Blah.
 
The AMD drivers should support what Vega is trying to do and its a shame he is having such a hell of a time. Its important to remember that his setup is so hardcore that it fits in the top percentile of Alphaness. I am sure 99.9% of people are not going to go triple 30" let alone triple 30"s with 25' cables & other various things. I would be interested if somebody could try the same tests with three dell 3011s to see if they get the same problems.

I am running three U2410s @3820x1920 resolution and everything is great with my two xfx 6970s in crossfire. I have no screen tearing issues and I do not use vsync, so maybe its just an issue with multiple 2560x1600 resolutions, as I said earlier, I would love to hear somebody's experience with three native display port Dell 2560x1600 monitors because I can't but help think that his HPs have something to do with his problems.
 
The screen tearing issue is not only limited to the super high resolution, but it is largely corralled to a single display. I played around with my preferred display settings as others recommended and was able to get it over on one of the side panels. Its definitely less noticable here but I already bought my second GTX 470 so I'm going to stick with them. This 6950 is now on FS/FT, I guess I'll wait another 5 years and check back in on AMD again. :p
 
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Please delete, accidental double post
 
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l88bastard said:
The AMD drivers should support what Vega is trying to do and its a shame he is having such a hell of a time. Its important to remember that his setup is so hardcore that it fits in the top percentile of Alphaness. I am sure 99.9% of people are not going to go triple 30" let alone triple 30"s with 25' cables & other various things. I would be interested if somebody could try the same tests with three dell 3011s to see if they get the same problems.

I am running three U2410s @3820x1920 resolution and everything is great with my two xfx 6970s in crossfire. I have no screen tearing issues and I do not use vsync, so maybe its just an issue with multiple 2560x1600 resolutions, as I said earlier, I would love to hear somebody's experience with three native display port Dell 2560x1600 monitors because I can't but help think that his HPs have something to do with his problems.
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Oh, so the tearing only happens on huge displays + long cables? That's encouraging to hear.
 
arachn1d said:
So with 3x 24" monitors I'm going to run into tearing? I have to turn on v-sync anyway don't I, otherwise tearing happens for all monitors?
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FWIW, I play BC2 on 3x24" monitors, and I don't notice any additional tearing on my my 5870CFX setup than I did with one screen, one card. YMMV, of course.
 
verylostindeed said:
FWIW, I play BC2 on 3x24" monitors, and I don't notice any additional tearing on my my 5870CFX setup than I did with one screen, one card. YMMV, of course.
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Same here.. I don't know what all this tearing's about. I've never been a fan of v-sync and only notice tearing once in a while if I really look for it.
 
Dan_D said:
From what I can tell from all available information, the GTX 580's are overall the faster GPUs, but there are some cases where the lack of physical memory becomes a problem. When it does the Radeon HD 6970's tend to pull ahead. It depends on the games, and depending on which games you choose to test, you can actually favor one or the other. Fortunately there is a lot of testing information out there in which many games are tested. Furthermore I'd conclude that with the exception of the DX9 driver bug present in portrait mode, the NVIDIA drivers are vastly superior providing a much more elegant experience. You don't have the cabling issues or the problems with custom resolutions. I've run into those problems on my old Radeon HD 5970 as well. I've had nothing but smooth sailing on my GTX 580's in SLI.

Nice work. Personally I don't think all the separate AFR/SFR stuff is needed. Simply choose the defaults the driver uses provided the driver chooses the right one. If your drivers are current, generally speaking they do so automatically. For me the problems and cabling / need for adapters on the AMD side is worth a slight performance trade off in the applications where the AMD cards would be faster.
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I would agree that at typical resolutions the 580 is the faster card. At super high resolutions though, the architecture of the 6970's really let them breathe. You can see that in a lot of games, not only do they catch up to the 580's, but they surpass them. But basically they trade blows back and forth.

If the 580's had more VRAM and they got rid of the DX9 portrait AFR bug, It would be more clear cut. The only reason I previously provided the AFR/SFR numbers was going SFR was the only way to get past the DX9 portrait bug. In that case even though generally SFR is slower than AFR, it would let you get a higher frame rate.

arachn1d said:
So with 3x 24" monitors I'm going to run into tearing? I have to turn on v-sync anyway don't I, otherwise tearing happens for all monitors?
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Are you planning on running landscape or portrait? I've noticed that portrait (vertical) screen tearing is much more noticeable to me versus landscape (horizontal) screen tearing. If you disable VSync, you will have screen tearing on all monitors but the individual tears are somewhat less noticeable. If you enable Vsync, you can move the tear around the connection ports but the single screen tear is very noticeable.
 
Vega said:
I would agree that at typical resolutions the 580 is the faster card. At super high resolutions though, the architecture of the 6970's really let them breathe. You can see that in a lot of games, not only do they catch up to the 580's, but they surpass them. But basically they trade blows back and forth.

If the 580's had more VRAM and they got rid of the DX9 portrait AFR bug, It would be more clear cut. The only reason I previously provided the AFR/SFR numbers was going SFR was the only way to get past the DX9 portrait bug. In that case even though generally SFR is slower than AFR, it would let you get a higher frame rate.



Are you planning on running landscape or portrait? I've noticed that portrait (vertical) screen tearing is much more noticeable to me versus landscape (horizontal) screen tearing. If you disable VSync, you will have screen tearing on all monitors but the individual tears are somewhat less noticeable. If you enable Vsync, you can move the tear around the connection ports but the single screen tear is very noticeable.
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Landscape mode for sure... I see. Damn that's unfortunate but I guess I'll have to see for myself and decide from there. Thanks!
 
Sweet, thats a nice bonus to my decision to do 2x470's. :D

I think I should be pretty safe from the Vram limitations at 3150x1680 as well. I'll post a thread on my monitor bezel removal next week, I'm planning to use self etching primer and matte black paint on the metal frame.
 
R-Type said:
Sweet, thats a nice bonus to my decision to do 2x470's. :D

I think I should be pretty safe from the Vram limitations at 3150x1680 as well. I'll post a thread on my monitor bezel removal next week, I'm planning to use self etching primer and matte black paint on the metal frame.
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Yeah sounds like you should be set with 470's.

Please do post pics of the bezel removal and paiting.
 
R-Type said:
Vega, the last post in this thread indicated that using modded quatro 265.90 drivers fixed the portrait fps cap bug, have you checked these out yet?
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1534984
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Ya, I noticed that post. I'll give those drivers a go when I put the 580's back in to test and see if it fixed the DX9 AFR portrait bug. I wonder if the performance would be affected though seeing as those aren't based on the latest optimized 580 drivers.

R-Type said:
Sweet, thats a nice bonus to my decision to do 2x470's. :D

I think I should be pretty safe from the Vram limitations at 3150x1680 as well. I'll post a thread on my monitor bezel removal next week, I'm planning to use self etching primer and matte black paint on the metal frame.
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Doesn't the 470 only have 1280MB VRAM? You should be alright though if you don'y apply tons of AA.

I was also thinking about doing some black paint on the aluminum frames underneath the bezels, but I decided to go with the electrical tape which although wouldn't look as good, it's easily removable. This way if the LCD's ever need to be turned in under the three year HP warranty I have, all I do is rip off the electrical tape and pop the bezels/back case back on and off it goes.
 
Just got my 2 extra U2410's i ordered. GOD DAMNIT THIS IS AMAZING.

48" of screen real-estate
 
FWIW, I run 3 x Alienware AW2310's in Surround Vision Portrait Mode.

GTX570 SLI
Core i7 860 @ 4ghz

No problems at all - I only play BC2. 120 - 130fps 90% of the time, on the more hardcore maps ~100fps.

All I require is 120fps for my 120hz goodness.

My 5970 was a pile of shite for doing it...
 
anthony256 said:
FWIW, I run 3 x Alienware AW2310's in Surround Vision Portrait Mode.

No problems at all - I only play BC2. 120 - 130fps 90% of the time, on the more hardcore maps ~100fps.

All I require is 120fps for my 120hz goodness.

My 5970 was a pile of shite for doing it...
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What are you running for GPU's?
 
anthony256 said:
FWIW, I run 3 x Alienware AW2310's in Surround Vision Portrait Mode.

GTX570 SLI
Core i7 860 @ 4ghz

No problems at all - I only play BC2. 120 - 130fps 90% of the time, on the more hardcore maps ~100fps.

All I require is 120fps for my 120hz goodness.

My 5970 was a pile of shite for doing it...
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Have you run into any DX9 FPS limits in portrait mode?
 
When you're playing on 3x 30 monitors Portrait, what resolution are you running?

I'm currently running 2x 6950's (unlocked) at 5760x1080 landscape on 27" monitors and it doesn't seem like I can turn on all the bells and whistles on games like WOW or BFBC2 etc. Does portrait provide a lower resolution or do both portrait and landscape push the same amount of pixels in the end?

i7 930 4.2 ghz w/HT
6GB DDR3 1600mhz
Asus PX58D-E
850w Corsair SLI PSU
2x AMD 6950 (bios 6970 bios unlocked)
3x 27" Planar 60hz monitors

Just curious. I do not have Framerate numbers, but I can get them if you want.
 
Portrait I usually run a bezel corrected resolution of around 5078x2560. Native resolution of course landscape or portrait naturally doesn't matter at 12.3 mega-pixels.

Portrait with bezel correction actually has a slightly higher resolution versus landscape as more blank or "black" pixels must be generated to correct for the areas behind the bezels. This accounts for a relatively small performance impact.

I can play WoW and BFBC2 at 60+ FPS with effectively twice the pixels as your setup with in game settings on high. Are you saying with 2x unlocked 6950's your dipping well below 60 FPS in WoW and BFBC2 on three 1080p monitors? If so you might have some sort of issue with your setup.
 
daines1 said:
When you're playing on 3x 30 monitors Portrait, what resolution are you running?

I'm currently running 2x 6950's (unlocked) at 5760x1080 landscape on 27" monitors and it doesn't seem like I can turn on all the bells and whistles on games like WOW or BFBC2 etc. Does portrait provide a lower resolution or do both portrait and landscape push the same amount of pixels in the end?

i7 930 4.2 ghz w/HT
6GB DDR3 1600mhz
Asus PX58D-E
850w Corsair SLI PSU
2x AMD 6950 (bios 6970 bios unlocked)
3x 27" Planar 60hz monitors

Just curious. I do not have Framerate numbers, but I can get them if you want.
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Should be same number of pixels. You sure both cards are clocked properly? I ran GTX 470 SLI at the same resolution, and BC2 was very smooth with all options max and 4x MSAA/2x SSTRAA. I think I turned off HBAO, but that doesn't do shit in that game anyway.
 
I'll get definitive numbers tonight to make sure. FRAPS the way to go for framerates?

I play BFBC2 and WoW at the moment. I do have Just Cause 2 and Metro 2033 installed and can attempt to pull numbers from that as well if you all want.

Thanks for the information all. I may try portrait mode soon since the fish-eye effect is pretty distracting. The weirdest thing with WoW in landscape is the fact that I can see further into the distance on the 2 outside monitors than I can on the middle screen: e.g., Sitting still, if I look forward I cannot see Stormwind in front of me, but if I turn my viewing angle to the left or right, it comes into view and I can see the city's details well. Turning back, it disappears again. I wonder if that is one of the causes for the lowered FPS.

I'll keep you informed.
 
I run BFBC2 spanned across 3 1080p monitors with a single HD6970, and performance is respectable (FPS = low 60's to high 30's). That's with all settings on high, HBAO on, and 1xaa, 4xaniso With the scaling of the 6900 cards, I don't see how you would have any trouble running either of those games with two 6950's. You even have a faster CPU then I do...
BF:BC2 plays very well in the 40-50fps range. You should be in the 60-70's with two cards, even if AA is turned up to 8x or so. What is your definition of bells and whistles?

Fraps would be the program of choice for gathering FPS info.
 
Bad ConNecTioN said:
I run BFBC2 spanned across 3 1080p monitors with a single HD6970, and performance is respectable (FPS = low 60's to high 30's). That's with all settings on high, HBAO on, and 1xaa, 4xaniso With the scaling of the 6900 cards, I don't see how you would have any trouble running either of those games with two 6950's. You even have a faster CPU then I do...
BF:BC2 plays very well in the 40-50fps range. You should be in the 60-70's with two cards, even if AA is turned up to 8x or so. What is your definition of bells and whistles?

Fraps would be the program of choice for gathering FPS info.
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It becomes a problem when your resolution climbs to 7680x1600. Trust me. One Radeon HD 5970 couldn't get it done. Not even close.
 
Vega said:
Have you run into any DX9 FPS limits in portrait mode?
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Yeah I did... I had all sorts of problems at first (especially with the GPU's down clocking on 3 screens) found out it was an 8/8x limitation.

I'm using an Asus Maximus 3 Extreme, and ports 1 and 2 are 8/8 so I moved to 2 and 3 which I think are 16/16x and my clock speeds and hence idle temps were improved, a lot.

The same with DX9 limitations........ TF2 was fine now :)

R-Type said:
Sweet, makes me feel much more comfortable about the capabilities of 1280mb vram.
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Yeah man it's fine for most games, I push 100fps+ constant in BC2 in a 32 player match.
 
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