I just got....

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i assume you have two or three large monitors.....because if its for a single monitor running 1080 or lower it's a bad move
 
nobody_here said:
i assume you have two or three large monitors.....because if its for a single monitor running 1080 or lower it's a bad move
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No.

Some of us enjoy having maximum settings on lower resolutions with zero hickups. Metro2033 comes to my mind. Play that with every singe setting maxed and lots of MSAA/AA and see if you can get rid of FPS drops under the 20's.
 
xIronCrossx said:
No.

Some of us enjoy having maximum settings on lower resolutions with zero hickups. Metro2033 comes to my mind. Play that with every singe setting maxed and lots of MSAA/AA and see if you can get rid of FPS drops under the 20's.
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true in a few cases but a single powerful card will always be the wiser choice for single 1080 gaming and replacing those two with one single faster card is what i would have chosen

for instance, Crysis running the MWLL mod, complete whore on a pc, really tough, SLI'd 460GTX setup delivers no more performance than single 460GTX.....at same details settings and resolution
 
nobody_here said:
true in a few cases but a single powerful card will always be the wiser choice for single 1080 gaming and replacing those two with one single faster card is what i would have chosen
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What single card is faster than 2xHD 6970s though? Even the new GTX 6xx/HD 7xxx at the end of this year/begginning of next year will probably not perform better.
 
I'm not gaming at 1080p - 1920x1200 w/ all the trimmings is what I was looking for, and I figured the extra 500 MB or so of video memory would help that, especially with AA.
 
xIronCrossx said:
What single card is faster than 2xHD 6970s though? Even the new GTX 6xx/HD 7xxx at the end of this year/begginning of next year will probably not perform better.
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but the crossfire setup wont be able to perform any better and will be putting off more heat and using more power than the single card

he asked, so im saying, i think in his case a single fast 580GTX would have performance better for his money....its just what i would have done, he asked

jimbean21 said:
I'm not gaming at 1080p - 1920x1200 w/ all the trimmings is what I was looking for, and I figured the extra 500 MB or so of video memory would help that, especially with AA.
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1920x1200 is really no different than 1920x1080, not enough to matter, and the extra memory wont come into play until you start trying to run double monitor resolution, you wont use all 2Gb on a single monitor setup
 
Good move. A lttle overkill for now but who knows what games will be coming down the line and how demanding they will be. For now though play at 16X ED SS AA and 16X Anisotropic Filtering LOL :D
 
I wasn't necessarily saying I wasn't going to get a larger, higher res monitor pretty soon either. 30" is certainly possible.

I was also thinking down the road to Diablo 3, Duke Nuke'em Forever, etc. and whatever kick ass games are coming.
 
Right on. Yeah I just kinda figured this out myself not too long ago. Built this system I have and it plays the games I play, Crysis and BFBC2 maxed completely out @ 1080. No problems. By the time I would need the horsepower of two cards and by the time I ever bought a second monitor any SLI/CF setup I think they would be outdated.
 
This is by no means "future proofing" - I don't believe in that horse shit and anyone that does has their head buried in the sand.
 
It will of course extend the life of my PC's abilities obviously.

I just wanted something I could expand pretty heavily. Perhaps into multi-monitor or very high resolution single monitor.

1920x1200 @ 26" is nothing to scoff at.
 
nobody_here said:
i assume you have two or three large monitors.....because if its for a single monitor running 1080 or lower it's a bad move
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Pretty much this. It's going to be overkill for one monitor. Try out one card and see if you are happy. Otherwise I would go ahead and make the jump to either a 30in or eyefinity if you want to push those cards. Pretty much no way in hell you are going to hit 2GB of vram usage at that resolution.
 
... my entire rig, truthfully, is overkill.... now it's just doubly so.
 
jimbean21 said:
It will of course extend the life of my PC's abilities obviously.

I just wanted something I could expand pretty heavily. Perhaps into multi-monitor or very high resolution single monitor.

1920x1200 @ 26" is nothing to scoff at.
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I get the feeling you are under the impression the size of the monitor has anything to do with the video cards needed. The resolution is what matters. 1920x1080 or 1200 at 22" is the same at 26" only less detail because the same number of pixels are being stretched across a wider area.
 
nobody_here said:
true in a few cases but a single powerful card will always be the wiser choice for single 1080 gaming and replacing those two with one single faster card is what i would have chosen

for instance, Crysis running the MWLL mod, complete whore on a pc, really tough, SLI'd 460GTX setup delivers no more performance than single 460GTX.....at same details settings and resolution
Click to expand...

Also need to keep in mind that some games are coded or supported poorly for multicard gaming, civ5 for ATI, DCS-A10 immediately come to mind. Civilization 5 performs better with multiple cards but its scaling isnt quite as good as Nvidia's scales in that game and DCS-A10...I have to disable one of my cards to get decent framerates in that game. I've played MWLL and its awesome for sure, but I get the impression that the devs for that freeware mod dont have the resources to properly code in multi-gpu support...or know how to code in a way that plays nicely with multiple cards...but thats just all guessing really as I don't know dick about coding.

If anything, I say you made a good buy to improve the length of time those cards will be useful as I think games will hit the vram wall at max settings within a year or so...if you plan on keeping both cards. If you upgrade more often then that, id say go ahead and make your move to eyefinity. If your one of those people that thing bezels will be in the way, go to your local B&M electronics store and just buy a couple monitors and give it a try, if you dont like it, then return it and spend your cash on something else.
 
USMCGrunt said:
Civilization 5 performs better with multiple cards but its scaling isnt quite as good as Nvidia's scales in that game
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A lot of review sites are still using old drivers in their tests or not retesting the older cards at all. Here's someone using the latest drivers for both Nvidia and AMD:
Source
image2gs.jpg
 
awesome move IMO as I upgraded from a single GTX480 as well.
just make sure to put some space between that top card though
 
nobody_here said:
I get the feeling you are under the impression the size of the monitor has anything to do with the video cards needed. The resolution is what matters. 1920x1080 or 1200 at 22" is the same at 26" only less detail because the same number of pixels are being stretched across a wider area.
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No, I am fully aware that the size does not matter, as the resolution is the resolution.

I was just saying that 1920x1200 at 26" isn't "low end"
 
mtbush said:
awesome move IMO as I upgraded from a single GTX480 as well.
just make sure to put some space between that top card though
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Thanks man... glad to see someone that did something similar and liked the results.
 
Gotta bring this thread back to life a little - new question:

Tri Fire 6970's = super over kill for 1920x1200 obviously

But for 2560 ?

I've got the board / PSU to handle it... and it's not that much more $.

Any thoughts?
 
I say good move heres why....

1. You have the cash to get 2 6970s
2. People think its a bad idea because they do not have the cash to get 2 6970s
3. You are futureproofing against bigger more intense titles coming out in the future
4. nVidia Fan boys troll this side of the aisle
5. You got what you want and that is all that matters
6. Who cares if you play at 640x480 as long as you have no issues with smooth liquid gameplay.
7. Once again you will get trolled. Its a matter of time.
 
jimbean21 said:
Gotta bring this thread back to life a little - new question:

Tri Fire 6970's = super over kill for 1920x1200 obviously

But for 2560 ?

I've got the board / PSU to handle it... and it's not that much more $.

Any thoughts?
Click to expand...

I still think triple for 2560 is super overkill... one card is good for that except maybe the most atrociously taxing titles like metro etc... That is afterall the benefit of having a 2gb frame buffer.

However if you are like me I am going triple as soon as I can get a freaking nf200 board, because I want smooth eyefinity and if I want to play in one LCD mode at 1920x1200 at like 500fps with all options on with no vsync then I will and if you want to do the same on one LCD then you freaking ROCK!
 
tangoseal said:
I still think triple for 2560 is super overkill... one card is good for that except maybe the most atrociously taxing titles like metro etc... That is afterall the benefit of having a 2gb frame buffer.

However if you are like me I am going triple as soon as I can get a freaking nf200 board, because I want smooth eyefinity and if I want to play in one LCD mode at 1920x1200 at like 500fps with all options on with no vsync then I will and if you want to do the same on one LCD then you freaking ROCK!
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Why not you can get triple for the price of GTX 580 SLi LOL No I'm with you, if your running eyefinity I see the need for all that horsepower but double is doing fine for me and I'm in eyefinity. Triple is overkill for 2560x1600 unless you litterally want to play everything at 16x Super Sample EDGE detect AA along with 16X HQ anisotropic Filtering at over 90FPS (except Crysis and Metro)
 
Maybe I like the highest possible settings :p - I'm still strongly considering it.
 
I would suggest looking for reviews that cover tri-CF with the 6970....I can't remember where but I think I recall there being poor scaling at 3 or more cards.

If thats NOT the case....then why the hell not lol.
 
Some folks at Xtremesystems say that at 2560 is when you really start to see it shine, scaling wise.

I think I'll stick with 2 for now, until I get my 30
 
nobody_here said:
i assume you have two or three large monitors.....because if its for a single monitor running 1080 or lower it's a bad move
Click to expand...

I'm a bit underwhelmed with an unlocked 6950 at 1680x1050 and was thinking of grabbing a second. I'd say two 6970s at 1080 or higher is a good move.
 
USMCGrunt said:
I would suggest looking for reviews that cover tri-CF with the 6970....I can't remember where but I think I recall there being poor scaling at 3 or more cards.

If thats NOT the case....then why the hell not lol.
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Trifire scales very well for the 6 series. To add Crossfire > sli this round. Fact. Look no further than the reviews on this very site.
 
jimbean21 said:
Some folks at Xtremesystems say that at 2560 is when you really start to see it shine, scaling wise.

I think I'll stick with 2 for now, until I get my 30
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Good move! :D I'm sure you will enjoy the cards. Like mtbus said, put some space between the cards to avoid excess heat (and noise). BTW, There ain't no such thing as overkill! :D
 
magictoaster said:
Good move! :D I'm sure you will enjoy the cards. Like mtbus said, put some space between the cards to avoid excess heat (and noise). BTW, There ain't no such thing as overkill! :D
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I'm fortunate that this is extremely easy for me because my motherboard is A) freakin huge B) comes with the extended length CrossFire bridge.

Space between them will be no issue, unless of course I go TRI.
 
I used to SLI @ 1680 x 1050. I would SLI now if I could. Don't let anybody tell you that Xfire is a bad idea @ your res...16xAA and butter smooth framerates are wonderful. :D
 
You know I thought about this too... I mean really, top quality graphics at my res. with exceptional frame rates... what else could I ask for?
 
Bankie said:
I'm a bit underwhelmed with an unlocked 6950 at 1680x1050 and was thinking of grabbing a second. I'd say two 6970s at 1080 or higher is a good move.
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I am not at all underwhelmed with a single 460GTX 1Gb at 1920x1080......and I have seen evidence that in the games I play SLI at this resolution would provide little to no payback. I can, for instance, run Crysis Warhead wide open on details even with CCC Screenshot setting with 16xAA .

Perhaps the 6950 is a different story?
 
I wouldn't say trifire is overkill for 2560x1600, a game like Crysis definitely needds more than 2x 6970's if you want 60fps at highest settings.
 
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