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NVIDIA Surround Technology Performance Review
- Thread starter FrgMstr
- Start date
This a great article. It's good to see that nvidia are back in the game with decent surround drivers. Developers will fall in line quickly now that both teams are pushing this. I'm eagerly awaiting nvidia's top end refresh and/or ATI's new architecture. Next year is going to be awesome for surround gaming.
martinmsj
[H]ard|Gawd
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I think you might be confused. This is concerning CFX in Eyefinity. In single monitor it's another story.
heatlesssun
Extremely [H]
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Congrats! Awesome indeed. Please don't go blind and/or hurl before you let us know what you think!
anthony256
Weaksauce
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480SLI requirement:
16/16x SLI board
1000W+ PSU
Case with cooling
5970 requirement:
ANY motherboard with PCI-e
~500 - 600W PSU
Any case long enough (Antec Two Hundred - personally used, works fine <$100AUD).
480SLI is far more expensive as your requirement from the get go is SLI. Yes you require it, but not everyone runs games in high detail, you could run things in medium detail on a single 5850 (which I do on my work demo) for Dirt 2 and get ~40 - 50fps.
That way it works out to $400 AUD compared to $1400AUD (just for GPU prices).
Also remember 3DVS (not 2DVS) requires 3 identical monitors - where Eyefinity does not.
16/16x SLI board
1000W+ PSU
Case with cooling
5970 requirement:
ANY motherboard with PCI-e
~500 - 600W PSU
Any case long enough (Antec Two Hundred - personally used, works fine <$100AUD).
480SLI is far more expensive as your requirement from the get go is SLI. Yes you require it, but not everyone runs games in high detail, you could run things in medium detail on a single 5850 (which I do on my work demo) for Dirt 2 and get ~40 - 50fps.
That way it works out to $400 AUD compared to $1400AUD (just for GPU prices).
Also remember 3DVS (not 2DVS) requires 3 identical monitors - where Eyefinity does not.
Agree with this. EF + CF is utterly broken in my experience. Not only is the scaling not good but many people (myself included) have found the experience to be horrendous (stuttery/jittery) even if the frames are reported as high enough.
I'm using a single 5870 now and that runs what I play very well so I'm more than happy with the single GPU experience. For future builds it's great that NV now provides multi screen gaming because there's no way I could go back to single screen.
Umm, you do realize you don't need dual x16 lanes. If anything the 5970 needs the x16 lane, as it is more bandwidth bottlenecked than a 480. Also I would love to see you run a decent system with a 5970 on a 500 watt PSU. I hope you have warranties on your stuff, because that PSU would blow and probably take some other parts with it.
I agree, if you want to game like it is 2006, you can turn down all the eye candy and play 3 monitors with a single 5850. But if you want good frame rates and high quality, you are buying 400 series, not 5000 series.
ATI won the single monitor crown this time around, as price/performance definitely resides with the 5000 series thanks to power and heat, but Fermi is the best multi monitor gaming you can get. Now with the 460's out, you can get a pair of the 1gb cards and get damned near double the power of a 5850 for a relatively cheap 3 monitor setup. After an adapter you would be paying $375 or so. Another $100 or so, maybe cheaper with a decent sale, really isn't that much extra when talking about that kind of difference in frames, especially the minimum frames, which is what I look at.
In US dollars, you can get 2 1gb 460's for about $460.
A 5850 + active DP adapter is about $375.
Is $90 worth almost double your graphics power for 3 monitors? I think so.
edit: Also you can buy 200 series cards cheap and get a surround gaming system comparable to the 5850 for less money. Probably as low as $200 for a pair of 260's.
Haha quoting this post for humor. The sad rationalizations are trickling in.
When eyefinity was launched the active DVI-DP adapter was pushed as the only adapter option. But in truth you don't need that $100 adapter because most VGA-DP adapters work fine up to 1920x1200 for a 5760x1200 setup and are far cheaper (probably up to USD$20). I used to have an active DVI-DP and ditched it for a cheap VGA-DP. To me the picture is just as clear and the Ati software plays a lot better with the cheaper adapter.
Yes the $20 DP-VGA adpaters are fine, up to 1920x1200. After that you need digital. But most 2560x1600 res monitors have a DP on them, so its kind of pointless to count.
Also, I grabbed two 470s in that last couple days, for $215+$250 and also got Just Cause 2 and a 24x SATA DVD-RW with them. Hell of a deal if you ask me.
Also, I grabbed two 470s in that last couple days, for $215+$250 and also got Just Cause 2 and a 24x SATA DVD-RW with them. Hell of a deal if you ask me.
Yeah of course and I said up to 1920x1200. It's still something to consider when pricing configurations because most triple screen setups will use monitors up to this resolution. Also I was just pointing out that the VGA route wasn't mentioned as a solution by AMD at the launch of eyefinity when it could have been and could have saved many people some cash and frustration (limited supply of active DVI adapters and issues with some of them).
QFT.
[H] calls it like it is. I love how some people seem to think this is politics and NV vs AMD is like Democrat vs Republican. If a piece of hardware is faster then that is a fact, and they report it as such. AMD was kicking ass for quite some time, which I doubt many of you will deny, yet so many are ready to label Kyle and crew as AMD fanboys...
If they were so biased towards AMD would you see that Intel's Core i7 is obviously their cpu of choice? Does that make them Intel fanboys? Of course not, thats ridiculous, we all know Core i7 walks all over the competition.
Summed up: Speaking the truth does not make you biased.
When I was researching it many of the vga adapters had flickering issues that would crop up when at 5760x1200, which is the res I use.
heatlesssun
Extremely [H]
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So all you're saying is that you can do multi-monitor for cheaper with the 5800s. Agreed, but everyone already knows this.
And your point about the requirement for 3 identical monitors for 3D VS is meaningless as AMD doesn't have a production 3D solution at the moment. And my guess is that when they do get on it will have the SAME requirement as it is more a QoS issue than a hard technical one. 3D rendering is much more demanding and having different monitors with different displays with slightly different characteristics would only serve to degrade the 3D experience. Honestly why would you NOT want 3 identical monitors in a 2D or 3D multi-monitor setup? That's only going to serve to make the experience better.
UtherLazarus
n00b
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I'm more surprised by the fact that most people here are shocked that SLI scaling is doing so well in multi-monitor setups. Why? Nvidia has been optimizing SLI for multiple monitors for years. Everyone said Nvidia was way behind in the multi-monitor world, but they've had SLI Mosaic for quite some time now, and I had been saying from the beginning that SLI scaling was going to be very good in NV Surround.
BAC4D00R SP1D0R
Limp Gawd
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- Mar 24, 2007
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just a quick question I just skimmed through the thread.. My friend has a GTX 460 and can you have 3 monitor support like eyefinity or is it required to have a 2nd one for SLI??
thanks
thanks
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You need two in SLI for nVidia Surround.
heatlesssun
Extremely [H]
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You can only drive two standalone monitors with any consumer nVidia card at the moment. However with two cards he could drive up to FOUR standalone monitors.
GoodBoy
2[H]4U
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Nice review guys, question tho. In the past sometimes with SLI (9800gx2) I have experienced a less than fluid feel to it. Even when frames were good, the game felt like it had micropauses or something. I'm not sure if it was the card, my old system (amd 4400x2), unoptimized drivers.. Since then I have tried to stick with single GPU cards. Now the sli is required for the multi monitor setup, in these or other games has the "feel" of sli improved?
I'm thinking it probably has since that was a couple years back and the cpu was a bit weak, I was running XP then, now it's 2 years later and the drivers should be better. Come to think of it I had to use the 9800gx2 again a few months ago for a few weeks to rma my gtx280, and it ran everything fine. (trying to remember what games I played while I used it).
I'm thinking it probably has since that was a couple years back and the cpu was a bit weak, I was running XP then, now it's 2 years later and the drivers should be better. Come to think of it I had to use the 9800gx2 again a few months ago for a few weeks to rma my gtx280, and it ran everything fine. (trying to remember what games I played while I used it).
heatlesssun
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There's a thread going on about that subject here: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1533932
I've seen it in the past but haven't with this setup, nothing that I would call microstutter, just stuff like when stuff is loading or saving. It's the type of thing when you see and have seen it before you tend to know what it is.
Honestly, everyone that has this setup is a please as punch over the performance. It's just awesome stuff. Every pro review, every owner, just gushing over 480 SLI. That should tell you all you need to know.
The only people that poo poo this stuff are people who don't have it or have not used it.
I've seen it in the past but haven't with this setup, nothing that I would call microstutter, just stuff like when stuff is loading or saving. It's the type of thing when you see and have seen it before you tend to know what it is.
Honestly, everyone that has this setup is a please as punch over the performance. It's just awesome stuff. Every pro review, every owner, just gushing over 480 SLI. That should tell you all you need to know.
The only people that poo poo this stuff are people who don't have it or have not used it.
Yeah I have heard of this. I think the HP VGA-DP works fine. I grabbed a no name one and luckily it works flawlessly. As long as you can find specs on a VGA-DP adapter that say it supports up to 1920x1200 you should be fine.
anthony256
Weaksauce
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I'm not saying NVIDIA or ATI have the best implentation.
SLI requirement is obviously better - and it scales shit loads better than CFX, that's simple.
ATI can do it from a single card, so for people who play WOW or Source based games - it's enough power to have 60fps+ from a 5850/5870. It also uses <200W for the single GPU.
To even enter multi screen tech with NVIDIA, you require an SLI mobo and 2 GPU's.
So for the PC market, unless you're talking BC2/Metro, etc - a single 5850/5870 is all you need for the popular games (TF2/CSS/WoW). The console ports (BC2/Metro) of course require much more power for their extra visual effects.
But graphics does not > gameplay.
SLI requirement is obviously better - and it scales shit loads better than CFX, that's simple.
ATI can do it from a single card, so for people who play WOW or Source based games - it's enough power to have 60fps+ from a 5850/5870. It also uses <200W for the single GPU.
To even enter multi screen tech with NVIDIA, you require an SLI mobo and 2 GPU's.
So for the PC market, unless you're talking BC2/Metro, etc - a single 5850/5870 is all you need for the popular games (TF2/CSS/WoW). The console ports (BC2/Metro) of course require much more power for their extra visual effects.
But graphics does not > gameplay.
NKDietrich
Supreme [H]ardness
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I'm not sure we're too concerned with performance in 6 year old games around these parts. That's all well and good but I don't think its appropriate to judge a new feature one way or the other based on older games.
anthony256
Weaksauce
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Why not? These days with newer games, they're all console ports... which, compared to the ~7800GTX-esque in the PS3 - a GTX480 blows it out of the water, what, 10 times faster?? Yet, at 720p (resolution to compare to 90% of PS3 games) do they games run 10 times faster?
No.
So, comparing them to a now, console dominating world (not just in sales, but ports) it's a moot point, but not many sites discuss this in detail, even though they all use the games to base the tests from.
I prefer the "older" games from Valve, who are a PC orientated dev. Their Source engine was PC exclusive when made, compared to the games out now (COD/BF/Metro) which are all console engines or extended ports of PC engines (MW/MW2 being highly modified Q3 engines).
Awesomedude
Weaksauce
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I wonder if Nvidia requiring SLI is helping them in this case.
In crossfire since the displays are attached to one card. Every other frame the second card has to send 3 "displays" worth of information across the CFX bridge, but with SLI your sending 2 displays worth of information 1 frame, and 1 displays worth of information the next. I wonder if needing to send 3 displays worth of information is choking the CFX bridge, and Nvidia spreading the information out is helping?
In crossfire since the displays are attached to one card. Every other frame the second card has to send 3 "displays" worth of information across the CFX bridge, but with SLI your sending 2 displays worth of information 1 frame, and 1 displays worth of information the next. I wonder if needing to send 3 displays worth of information is choking the CFX bridge, and Nvidia spreading the information out is helping?
Not really anymore. You'll notice when you play those games they don't have an id logo anywhere (unless I missed it somewhere), which means they're no longer using licensed code. IW pretty much completely overhauled the entire engine for COD4.
Edit: Kind of like how the RNA engine for modern CNC games is technically built from the old W3D engine, but its been completely overhauled and very little of it remains.
anthony256
Weaksauce
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That's why I said it's helping them - by requiring SLI by default.
At the end of the day, it's still the Q3 code underneath, heavily rewritten.
PC games are all but dead now, we simply receive console ports, my argument still stands.
thehybridfrog
Limp Gawd
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Metro? SC2? FF14? Stalker? JC2? I'm pretty sure there's more games that are either exclusive or graphics heavy.
Hell FF14 RECOMMENDS GTX460 and i7-2.66ghz!!!
http://www.ffxivcore.com/topic/8808-26-new-screenshots-rec-system-requirements/?
FF14 may be what finally pushes my E8400 and 2xG92s over the edge.
Brent_Justice
Moderator
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Dips below 30fps don't mean we can't call it playable, the phenomenon I was referring to was just an overall gameplay feel, SLI felt much smoother at every setting compared to the CFX setup in this game. We could not play at 2X AA because this feeling was exaggerated even more on the CFX setups, despite what the framerate says. Framerate is not a great measure for gameplay performance with multi-GPU setups actually, it can be misleading, and with multi-GPU cards you really need to maintain higher FPSs to smooth out the gameplay and get it feeling non laggy and non jittery.
avatar[djedi];1035969444 said:
I haven't done it yet, power is actually also an issue when you are moving beyond two GTX 480's, my UPS isn't rated high enough to take the load of my system past two GTX 480's
Thanks, it was indeed much work. The MSI Eclipse is actually new for me, first time I've used it in a review, I was having an issue with my previous mobo and had to switch to this one, I'll continue using it, no complaints with it.
I had both crossfire bridges connected and from what I'm told they have plenty of bandwidth.
Thanks for the kind words
Yes, we will be testing this, I haven't yet so can't comment on performance.
Yep
Interesting info, as I stated, they "should" have enough bandwidth between the two of them, but that is an interesting theory.
Well wondering if anyone hear of a X2 nivida card any time soon, aka the 295 version, as ati has X2 single card types in market already.
If nvidia can put out a X2 in single card they could do alot towards ati as their line up is more robust then nvidias currently.
The bad draw about nvidia is the extra power hogs the new stuff is, getting that power / heat issues to work in a X2 design will take some serious engineering talent to pull off correctly. But hope to see someone do it though soon.
If nvidia can put out a X2 in single card they could do alot towards ati as their line up is more robust then nvidias currently.
The bad draw about nvidia is the extra power hogs the new stuff is, getting that power / heat issues to work in a X2 design will take some serious engineering talent to pull off correctly. But hope to see someone do it though soon.
I really doubt you'll see that before a die shrink of Fermi is available.
heatlesssun
Extremely [H]
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Exactly! I've had this debate with others and made the same point. I think SLI is a more efficient solution to problem of rendering frames across screens with multuple cards if each card is hooked to a display, well at least in a case like mine with tri-SLI. It just seems a more natuaral and efficient solution.
I'm thinking that AMD will go this route with Crossfire and Eyefinity in the future with multi-GPU solutions. Do Eyefinity with one card as it is today and then rely on Crossfire to do Eyefinify with multiple GPUs. Just have a feelling...
For Eyefinity to perform this poorly in multi-GPU solutions I think is a design problem honestly. Just my uneducated guess, PLEASE don't hound me on it, just throwing out the idea, nothing more. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong.
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that's a good point.. I think mandatory SLI for surround does put some people off, but I personally kind of think requiring that extra power for such large resolutions is a good idea.. and it makes sense that letting the second card do some frame buffer work is a helping make the finished image a run lot smoother..