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Gaming @ 2560x1600

B

bmt22033

Weaksauce
Joined
Mar 23, 2008
Messages
92
I'm planning to build a new gaming system in the next 2 - 3 months and I'm leaning towards a 30" 16:10 display (probably the HP ZR30w or the Dell U3011). I play a lot of FPS, RTS, and the occasional MMO and I really enjoy playing my games in all their intended graphical goodnesss, preferably at a decent frame rate. Is it reasonable to expect that a single GTX 580 would be able to provide that in most current and near-term games @ 2560x1600? If not, would two 580s in SLI be sufficient? And if so, what kind of issues (if any) still exist with an SLI setup? (My only previous experience with SLI was way back in the 3Dfx days).

I'm waiting on Sandy Bridge availability and reviews to finalize the other hardware but as of now, I would anticipate building this rig around an i7-2600K, a good mobo, probably 12GB DDR3 and a high quality PSU sufficient to power it all.
 
You're going to want two 580s.

I am running a 2560x1440 right now off a single 6970 and I already see the need for another card to get the full effects at the highest settings.

No need for all that ram unless you are doing a lot of ram intensive tasks.
 
One 6970 or 580 is enough for 2560x1600. I max everything out, usually with 8xAA, aside from Metro 2033. Even with two 580s or 6970s you still can't enable DoF so what's the point.
 
I doubt highly that with just one 6970 or 580 you don't dip below 60 FPS in any modern game with settings maxed. There's a huge difference between 30 FPS and 60 FPS imo.
 
x3sphere said:
One 6970 or 580 is enough for 2560x1600. I max everything out, usually with 8xAA, aside from Metro 2033. Even with two 580s or 6970s you still can't enable DoF so what's the point.
Click to expand...

It's not enough. Trust me. AvP, Metro 2033, and Crysis are examples of why one card isn't enough at that resolution. There will end up being more games that you can't max out on a single card, not less.
 
bmt22033 said:
I'm planning to build a new gaming system in the next 2 - 3 months and I'm leaning towards a 30" 16:10 display (probably the HP ZR30w or the Dell U3011). I play a lot of FPS, RTS, and the occasional MMO and I really enjoy playing my games in all their intended graphical goodnesss, preferably at a decent frame rate. Is it reasonable to expect that a single GTX 580 would be able to provide that in most current and near-term games @ 2560x1600? If not, would two 580s in SLI be sufficient? And if so, what kind of issues (if any) still exist with an SLI setup? (My only previous experience with SLI was way back in the 3Dfx days).

I'm waiting on Sandy Bridge availability and reviews to finalize the other hardware but as of now, I would anticipate building this rig around an i7-2600K, a good mobo, probably 12GB DDR3 and a high quality PSU sufficient to power it all.
Click to expand...

really can't recommend the 580GTX at the current price. if you want SLI I would go with a pair of 570GTX. once you go SLI with those the difference between it and the 580GTX just doesn't justify the price. and on a single 4mp screen you will not see any difference.

as for needing to go SLI, you don't. you will see better frame rates and might be able to crank 32CSAA but the real world difference between that and 8xAA (hell even 4xAA) is pretty minimal. so unless you need crysis at 4xAA at 60fps at 4mp no you really don't need it. that doesn't mean that it wouldn't be awesome :D

as for issues with SLI, any multi gpu setup will have issues sooner or later. but both crossfire and SLI have really come of age here. a pair of 6950 or 570GTX would both likely be trouble free for the most part and scale very well.
 
Two 580s at that resolution to max out all new games. I'm running SLI 580s on my 3008wfp and it's great. A single card can't handle it maxed.
 
Vega said:
I doubt highly that with just one 6970 or 580 you don't dip below 60 FPS in any modern game with settings maxed. There's a huge difference between 30 FPS and 60 FPS imo.
Click to expand...

Depends what you classify as modern. There aren't too many 'modern' games out that actually stress your hardware. Crysis, Metro 2033, and STALKER are the only examples I can think of. In games like Darksiders, Resident Evil 5, Mass Effect 2, Black Ops, I average well over 60 FPS with everything maxed.

Even AvP fully maxed at 8xAA on 2560x1600 was surprisingly playable on a single 6970. It dipped down to around 30 FPS in some really intensive scenes but otherwise averaged usually in the high 40s to 60. That's completely playable, for me.

Until more titles like Crysis, Metro 2033, and STALKER come out, all of which I've already played through, I can't justify adding a second card. It would do nothing for me right now.

I actually went from a dual GPU 5970 to 6970 and find the experience overall much smoother, but that's probably because of the limited VRAM on the 2GB 5970.
 
One card was fine until DX11 games were released. Since you're looking to play future games also which will be DX11 titles, two GTX 580s would be the best route.
If you're trying to save a little cash get two 6970s.

I always recommend getting one card first, evaluate your experience, then decided if you need a second. Only Metro and Crysis will tax a GTX 580 at this resolution and I'm not sure you need to spend an extra $500 to play them.
If someone wants to play games at 60fps+ consistently, they shouldn't be in the market for a 30" monitor. 1080p would be a better solution. OC the GTX 580 about 15% over stock and you'll have a great experience.
 
For the price of one GTX 580, I would buy 2X 6950 and ''unlock'' them. At 2560X1600, 2X6970 is often AHEAD of GTX580 SLI. Not enough video RAM on Nvidia offering IMHO. At 1080p and under, yes Nvidia is a better choice. But for 2560X1600 or multiple screen set-ups, 2X unlock 6970 or 2X6970 is better.

I can play everything, except Metro 2033, at max settings, max AA and AF (Just Cause 2, AVP, BBC2, etc) right now with my set-up. No stuttering, no micro-stuttering (lol at this myth...).

Me? I'm waiting for the 6990 next month to go Tri-Fire with a 6970. I didn't even think, not for a single second, of going GTX580 SLI. Meh. Not enough video memory for the price.

For high-res (2560X1600 or more) and/or multiple screen set-ups, GTX 580 SLI owners are in denial. 6970 Crossfire is better.
 
I would get 2 6950's and flash them to 6970's.. great cards for the price and they have 2gb memory per card.
 
ya with prices so high on the 580s I can't believe anyone is recommending them at this point.
 
WorldExclusive said:
One card was fine until DX11 games were released. Since you're looking to play future games also which will be DX11 titles, two GTX 580s would be the best route.
If you're trying to save a little cash get two 6970s.

I always recommend getting one card first, evaluate your experience, then decided if you need a second. Only Metro and Crysis will tax a GTX 580 at this resolution and I'm not sure you need to spend an extra $500 to play them.
If someone wants to play games at 60fps+ consistently, they shouldn't be in the market for a 30" monitor. 1080p would be a better solution. OC the GTX 580 about 15% over stock and you'll have a great experience.
Click to expand...

I run 3x 30" on 2x 580's and in most games I can get 60+ FPS with some graphic setting tweaking. You'd be surprised on how much quicker your games can run when turning down settings that a lot of the time don't even hurt image quality. Only problem with 12.3 mega pixels is I do run out of Vram pretty quickly and in some games I can't run any AA and some just 2x AA. But at that super high resolution you don't need much AA to begin with.

LEVESQUE said:
For the price of one GTX 580, I would buy 2X 6950 and ''unlock'' them. At 2560X1600, 2X6970 is often AHEAD of GTX580 SLI. Not enough video RAM on Nvidia offering IMHO. At 1080p and under, yes Nvidia is a better choice. But for 2560X1600 or multiple screen set-ups, 2X unlock 6970 or 2X6970 is better.

I can play everything, except Metro 2033, at max settings, max AA and AF (Just Cause 2, AVP, BBC2, etc) right now with my set-up. No stuttering, no micro-stuttering (lol at this myth...).

Me? I'm waiting for the 6990 next month to go Tri-Fire with a 6970. I didn't even think, not for a single second, of going GTX580 SLI. Meh. Not enough video memory for the price.

For high-res (2560X1600 or more) and/or multiple screen set-ups, GTX 580 SLI owners are in denial. 6970 Crossfire is better.
Click to expand...

Care to post all of these benchmarks where the X-fire 6970's are ahead of SLI 580's? 95% of the benchmarks I've read clearly have the 580 setup as faster.


hawx2.gif


lp2-medium.gif


lp2-high.gif


avp-2560.gif


dirt2-dx9-2560.gif


dirt2-dx11-2560.gif



And the 6970's run hotter and louder versus 580's

gpu-temps.gif


noise-load.gif
 
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I've got a CF 5870 + Dell 3008WFP and can't play any game at DX11. Everything just freezes, crashes or chops up. I plan on upgrading to CF 6950 and flashing them to 6970 next month. Definitely go for 6950/6970 for gaming at 2560x1600.
 
The 6950 CF is a no-brainer solution. 6970s if you want a peace of mind. That people are even mentioning the 580 in all seriousness shows the strength of fanboy blindness.

Seriously, you are going to pay a $300 premium for ~10% performance increase in 2 games, one of which is already running at 100+ FPS? That is the definition of retarded.

In fact, the 6970 CF is not only on par with the 580 in many cases, but beats it when and where it matters. The multi-GPU scaling scales better. The higher resolution performance scales better.

To take another review, here are the high-res results from Anandtech.com:

Crysis Warhead 25x16 4xAA:

580 SLI: 69.1
6970 CF: 64.1

Battleforge 25x16 4xAA:

580 SLI: 118.7
6970 CF: 95.3

Metro 2033 25x16 Analytical AA:

580 SLI: 35.5
6970 CF: 46


Hawx 25x16 4xAA:

580 SLI: 197
6970 CF: 175

Civ 5 25x16 4xAA:

580 SLI: 43.7
6970 CF: 47.1

Bad Company 2 25x16 4xAA:

580 SLI: 96
6970 CF: 94.9

STALKER COP 25x16 4xAA:

580 SLI: 58.9
6970 CF:76.4

Dirt 2 25x16 4xAA:

GTX 580 SLI: 125.2
6970 CF: 102.7

Unless you're running 3D 120hz monitors, the 580s makes no sense here.
 
Vega said:
I run 3x 30" on 2x 580's and in most games I can get 60+ FPS with some graphic setting tweaking. You'd be surprised on how much quicker your games can run when turning down settings that a lot of the time don't even hurt image quality. Only problem with 12.3 mega pixels is I do run out of Vram pretty quickly and in some games I can't run any AA and some just 2x AA. But at that super high resolution you don't need much AA to begin with.



Care to post all of these benchmarks where the X-fire 6970's are ahead of SLI 580's? 95% of the benchmarks I've read clearly have the 580 setup as faster.


hawx2.gif


lp2-medium.gif


lp2-high.gif


avp-2560.gif


dirt2-dx9-2560.gif


dirt2-dx11-2560.gif



And the 6970's run hotter and louder versus 580's

gpu-temps.gif


noise-load.gif
Click to expand...

I believe you misread his post.

He didn't say two 6950s in xfire (unlocked to 6970) were faster than 2 GTX580s

He said for the price of one GTX580, a better choice would be two unlocked 6950s in Xfire because two 6950s in xfire are faster than one GTX580 (and your links back him up)
 
Vega said:
And the 6970's run hotter and louder versus 580's
Click to expand...

A 1C difference in temp. Really?

The second graph you linked to actually shows that 6970s in CrossFire mode run quieter than two 580s. 48.3dB versus 49.7dB. It's not really a significant difference to matter but just thought I'd point that out.

I agree that the 6970s are a better buy than 2x580s. It's ahead where it counts.
 
x3sphere said:
A 1C difference in temp. Really?

The second graph you linked to actually shows that 6970s in CrossFire mode run quieter than two 580s. 48.3dB versus 49.7dB. It's not really a significant difference to matter but just thought I'd point that out.

I agree that the 6970s are a better buy than 2x580s. It's ahead where it counts.
Click to expand...

Depends on what your goals are. For me absolute performance was more important than bang for my buck.
 
absolute performance with no regard for efficiency is an absolutely ridiculous goal.

10 fps means shit all when you are at those levels.

Absolute performance is irrelevant relative to reality. It's like driving the fastest car on earth, when the speed limit is 65. And framerates won't ever actually effect your life, maybe driving fast will.
 
Vega said:
I run 3x 30" on 2x 580's and in most games I can get 60+ FPS with some graphic setting tweaking. You'd be surprised on how much quicker your games can run when turning down settings that a lot of the time don't even hurt image quality. Only problem with 12.3 mega pixels is I do run out of Vram pretty quickly and in some games I can't run any AA and some just 2x AA. But at that super high resolution you don't need much AA to begin with.
Click to expand...

I like to keep everything maxed out.:p
But with your setup I'm more than willing to turn down a few settings.;)
 
stealthy123 said:
absolute performance with no regard for efficiency is an absolutely ridiculous goal.

10 fps means shit all when you are at those levels.

Absolute performance is irrelevant relative to reality. It's like driving the fastest car on earth, when the speed limit is 65. And framerates won't ever actually effect your life, maybe driving fast will.
Click to expand...

Absolute performance is irrelevant? I thought we where on the [H]ardforum, not soccer mom's laptop forum. Maybe 10% performance difference doesn't mean much at 1080p when your 100+ fps, but for those of us demanding a lot from our hardware (3x 30"), 10% can mean a lot when your struggling to stay above 30 FPS.

On another note, I just bought 2x 6970's to test against 2x 580's at 4800x2560. Should be interesting.
 
Instead of SLI you could buy one high end card now that will play the now games well, and then in 6 months buy the next generation of high end that will play the next generation of games.
 
I have no problem running games with a single 5850 at 2560x1600. That said, I think two 6950's in CF (unlocked or not) are the sweet spot for 2560x1600 right now. If you want to spend more (6970 Tri-Fire?) go for it, but you won't see much improvement.
 
i game at that res with a 5850 - no i cant max some games [metro 2033] but most work fine - so i guess it depends on what type of experience you're after

word to the wise - dont spend $750+ in videocards for just 1 or 2 games just to say you can slide all the sliders to the right...
 
Vega said:
Absolute performance is irrelevant? I thought we where on the [H]ardforum, not soccer mom's laptop forum. Maybe 10% performance difference doesn't mean much at 1080p when your 100+ fps, but for those of us demanding a lot from our hardware (3x 30"), 10% can mean a lot when your struggling to stay above 30 FPS.

On another note, I just bought 2x 6970's to test against 2x 580's at 4800x2560. Should be interesting.
Click to expand...

that depends on whether you CAN SEE that 10%. not everyone here runs 3 4mp screens. on a single 4mp screen there isn't really any difference between a 6970 and a 580GTX with the exception of a few games. there will be NO difference between a dual 570GTX and a dual 6950 setup. People suggesting spending the extra 350 bucks are (IMO anyways) telling him to piss it away. actually I take bad the no difference, it is possible that the higher vram might allow the occasional higher setting of AA. (and that is on the cheaper set of cards here, so the cost difference is even greater) but even in the case of the 5970 and 580 we were talking about a difference of 4xAA vs 8xAA at 4mp. if I was looking for a nvidia setup that would hardly be a deal breaker.

don't get me wrong, you have a all in balls out system and its nice. I can't justify it for myself. but the OP is playing on a single 30" screen. you have 3 of them. if you think about it this thread derailed badly into a anti nvidia/amd rant. most of it was canned benchmarks that have already been shown not to reflect the real world of these cards. if he is looking for nvidia features (or just the brand) its pretty hard to recommend a pair of 580GTX over a pair of 570GTX.all you really get is a little more ram. if the OP doesn't need the nvidia features then the pair of 6950 might serve better. (though at this point they aren't all that much cheaper, about 50 bucks a card vs 175 difference for the 570 - 580GTX match so your might be more or less looking at vram depending on budget)

look at it this way, you can actually go trisli with the 570GTX for the price of a pair of 580GTX. (or trifire if its an option)
 
stealthy123 said:
absolute performance with no regard for efficiency is an absolutely ridiculous goal.

10 fps means shit all when you are at those levels.

Absolute performance is irrelevant relative to reality. It's like driving the fastest car on earth, when the speed limit is 65. And framerates won't ever actually effect your life, maybe driving fast will.
Click to expand...

Wrong. At 7680x1600 10FPS is a huge deal. It often makes or breaks what's playable. For a single 30" screen it only matters in a few games which I mentioned earlier. If those games aren't important to you then yeah, I'd agree. There is a point at which performance becomes cost prohibitive and the cost vs. the increase are far from linear. No one said that wasn't the case. For me, absolute performance made more difference than the money. I'm not saying that's the case for everyone.

Vega said:
Absolute performance is irrelevant? I thought we where on the [H]ardforum, not soccer mom's laptop forum. Maybe 10% performance difference doesn't mean much at 1080p when your 100+ fps, but for those of us demanding a lot from our hardware (3x 30"), 10% can mean a lot when your struggling to stay above 30 FPS.

On another note, I just bought 2x 6970's to test against 2x 580's at 4800x2560. Should be interesting.
Click to expand...

Agreed. And I'm interested in how your results pan out comparing the two at 4800x2560. Though I'm more interested in 7680x1600 results as that's what I use.
 
Vega said:
Absolute performance is irrelevant? I thought we where on the [H]ardforum, not soccer mom's laptop forum. Maybe 10% performance difference doesn't mean much at 1080p when your 100+ fps, but for those of us demanding a lot from our hardware (3x 30"), 10% can mean a lot when your struggling to stay above 30 FPS.

On another note, I just bought 2x 6970's to test against 2x 580's at 4800x2560. Should be interesting.
Click to expand...

lets see a full review in the video card section with comparisons on multiple current gen games.
 
homerandabe69 said:
lets see a full review in the video card section with comparisons on multiple current gen games.
Click to expand...

The 6970's are arriving tomorrow and I'll post up the review. Hopefully AMD doesn't have the same problem as nVidia when it comes to DX9 portrait. I get limited to 39 FPS using DX9 and AFR. Any other DX version and SFR mode doesn't get FPS limited.
 
Vega said:
The 6970's are arriving tomorrow and I'll post up the review. Hopefully AMD doesn't have the same problem as nVidia when it comes to DX9 portrait. I get limited to 39 FPS using DX9 and AFR. Any other DX version and SFR mode doesn't get FPS limited.
Click to expand...

Very keen to read that one! I might actually lose sleep over it.. lol
 
Not to bump an old ass thread, but suggestions for 2560x1600 for 1 video card? Is the GTX 580 still a "good buy" or should I be looking at a 590 or 6990? And I ask for 1 video card because I'm looking to be an mITX system. Thanks.
 
crazjayz said:
Not to bump an old ass thread, but suggestions for 2560x1600 for 1 video card? Is the GTX 580 still a "good buy" or should I be looking at a 590 or 6990? And I ask for 1 video card because I'm looking to be an mITX system. Thanks.
Click to expand...

Either the GTX 580 3GB or the 6990 are the top choices. You can of course get away with using a 6970 or an unlocked 2GB 6950. A single GTX 580 1.5GB will probably work as well, but you may have to keep AA levels lower in some games. I've not checked the memory usage in such scenarios so I can't say for certain.
 
crazjayz said:
Not to bump an old ass thread, but suggestions for 2560x1600 for 1 video card? Is the GTX 580 still a "good buy" or should I be looking at a 590 or 6990? And I ask for 1 video card because I'm looking to be an mITX system. Thanks.
Click to expand...

A single 580 is not enough for 2560X1600. And particularly the vanilla 580 with only 1.5Gb of VRAM.

At stock speed, a 6990 is 90% of 580 SLI. And with a waterblock, it can do crazy OC and go head-to-head with 580 SLI OC.

For a single card solution at that resolution, the 6990 is a much better card then a single 580.
 
my old voodoo card is the most quiet than all your set-ups, therefore its the best gpu out today.
 
Well, I have a passive hd5450 with dp dvi VGA for some eyefinity :D
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