which card for 2560x1600 gaming

If you are willing to go CrossFire, the 6950 CF option pretty much kills the 580 for not much more money. Not sure whether CF 6950 is a better deal than CF 6870 or not.
 
Dual gpus generally drive that resolution better. But I don't think you'd go wrong with a GTX 580 either.
 
My GTX580 can't play Just Cause 2 or AvP smoothly. If it drops under 60 it's not smooth to me. I'm going to go SLI when I get my Sandy Bridge.
 
How much are you looking to spend?

If <= $700, GTX 570 SLI or 6950 CF. 6950s are a good deal cheaper too.

If ~$750, 6970 CF.

If $1000, GTX 580 SLI.

I'm more partial to the 6900 series because it has more VRAM compared to the 570, and the 580 is too expensive relative to its performance IMO. Either will be good.
 
I'm loving the 6970, perfect at that resolution. 30-40 fps in crysis warhead no AA 2560x1600, 45-60fps in bad company 2 8xAA 16xAF, but that's with the card oc'd to 950/1450.
 
I gotta say the 6950s in CF are a very good option. It feels more than twice as fast as my single GTX460, but I can enable 8xAA to boot (something the 460 struggles with).
 
GTX 580, GTX 570 SLI, HD6970, HD6950 CF, HD6870 CF(though i'd spend the extra money and just go with the 6950 CF instead)
 
No he doesn't. Stop throwing around FUD when you can easily check these things using MSI Afterburner to monitor vRAM usage.

You know you need more vRAM when everything starts stuttering and you can barely exit the game before you're forced to reboot.

If you're not using supersampling AA, there's almost no game that requires you to have "more vram" at 25x16 so long as you have 1.2GB or more. 99% of the time it's a horsepower issue way before it's a vRAM issue.

Crysis Warhead at 4x MSAA with all options maxed is the only game that's maxed out my vRAM at 25x16, and that's on 470s, not 580s.
 
I'm using a GTX 480 for 2560x1600 gaming. But i'm thinking of switching over to a 6870 due to more vram. Anyone think this upgrade is worth it?
 
omi said:
I'm using a GTX 480 for 2560x1600 gaming. But i'm thinking of switching over to a 6870 due to more vram. Anyone think this upgrade is worth it?
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Do you mean 6970?

No, since the value of the 480 is low at the moment and can be OC'd past a GTX 580.
The extra price you will pay for the 6970 will cancel out any satisfying gain.

As always, if you have the money, do what you want to do.
 
omi said:
I'm using a GTX 480 for 2560x1600 gaming. But i'm thinking of switching over to a 6870 due to more vram. Anyone think this upgrade is worth it?
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You mean 6970? I'd say no.. just OC the 480. Not even a 580 would be worth the upgrade IMO.
 
Ah yes sorry for the typo 6970 is what i meant. Thanks for the advice. Guess i'll keep the 480 for now =)
 
Mr Mean said:
We're in the same boat. Waiting for the HD 6990 :)
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Yeah, I am probably going to wait for the 6990 too. However, if I can sell off my 5850's I will probably get a 6950 or 6970 with the intent on having crossfire later on. The eventual plan to to get two more 30" monitors to match my 3090 (4800x2560 gaming FTW!!!!!!!) :)
 
Not enough VRAM on those Nvidia cards for high resolutions like 2560X1600 (or more) with high AA. That's why I'm not even considering getting 580 SLI. Top-of-the-lines cards are for top resolution + high AA. Not to play at 1600X1200 without AA. :)

I'm waiting for the 6990 to go Tri-Fire with a 6970. :) 2GB of VRAM will come handy with upcoming games. :)
 
Well here are some nice benches with my current setup. I may just stick with what I have for awhile.

Heaven at 1920x1200:
Unigine heaven 2.1 (960-1190) 51fps.jpg


Heaven at 2560x1600:
Unigine heaven 2.1 (960-1190) 2560x1600.jpg


3dMark11 (960/1190 clocks):
3d mark11 (960-1190).jpg


P6851
Graphics = 8130
Physics = 4883 (lol, bulldozer needs to come out already)
Combined = 4352
 
Unless you're planning on going quad CF later, or are using a mATX system so only one PCIe slot, I would say go with two HD6950s, or possibly two HD6970s.
Apart from being impossible to find, a GTX580 is considerably slower than two HD6950s, and again, is borderline enough video memory for the worst current games at 8xAA+.
SLI with GTX570s is all well and good, but you're using in excess of 500 watts to do what again, two HD6950s will do better for a lot less cost and wattage. ($600 vs $700, 340W vs 450-550W).
 
samuelmorris said:
Unless you're planning on going quad CF later, or are using a mATX system so only one PCIe slot, I would say go with two HD6950s, or possibly two HD6970s.
Apart from being impossible to find, a GTX580 is considerably slower than two HD6950s, and again, is borderline enough video memory for the worst current games at 8xAA+.
SLI with GTX570s is all well and good, but you're using in excess of 500 watts to do what again, two HD6950s will do better for a lot less cost and wattage. ($600 vs $700, 340W vs 450-550W).
Click to expand...

I agree with this sentiment - the 6950s offer by far the best return for your money. It's temping to wait around a while for the 6990 just to see how things shake out, however - 6950 prices won't be effected much, but by then you'll have a better set of Eyefinity benchmarks and aftermarket coolers.

-HD
 
I'll agree with you on the 6950's. To be honest, I was having such a hard time getting my 5850's setup the way I wanted I was initially going to stay away from crossfire until ATI got their crap together.

Since then I have had more time to tweak the cards and now everything is stable AND blazing fast. Effectively making me a very happy person. I am glad the new cards are coming with 2GB standard pretty much. Gaming at 2560x1600 is just too addictive to go back to 1920x1200 at this point :)
 
The 2GB would be a nice selling point if not for the ATI drivers. Just not enough control, given the weird inability to apply application-specific profiles out of the box, the absence of something like Nvidia Inspector, the CF profiles always being behind the ball, and Nvidia's greater ability to buy off developers.

And1.5GB is more than adequate for 25x16 with high AA. You will run out of GPU horsepower *long* before you run out of vRAM so the extra vRAM is a moot point, since the only things that will max out 1.5GB vRAM on Nvidia cards are fullscreen SSAA and transparency ordered grid SSAA.

Note that what I'm saying applies only to multi-GPU. If you're planning to play at 25x16 with just one GPU, then the 2GB cards are the way to go.
 
Don't discount the allure of Eyefinity, either. You never know... maybe that 25x16 is only temporary :p. In which case 4 gigs of memory might come in handy.

-HD
 
Matrices said:
No he doesn't. Stop throwing around FUD when you can easily check these things using MSI Afterburner to monitor vRAM usage.

You know you need more vRAM when everything starts stuttering and you can barely exit the game before you're forced to reboot.

If you're not using supersampling AA, there's almost no game that requires you to have "more vram" at 25x16 so long as you have 1.2GB or more. 99% of the time it's a horsepower issue way before it's a vRAM issue.

Crysis Warhead at 4x MSAA with all options maxed is the only game that's maxed out my vRAM at 25x16, and that's on 470s, not 580s.
Click to expand...

This. I play at 2560x1600 and 8x CSAA, generally only hit 1gb-1.1gb of VRAM usage in any game barring Crysis maxed, or Oblivion with obscene texture/parallax mods ;). Most take 800-900mb. Even BFBC2 takes about 1.1gb on me in DX11 maxed with 8x CSAA on any map.

HomelessDepot said:
Don't discount the allure of Eyefinity, either. You never know... maybe that 25x16 is only temporary :p. In which case 4 gigs of memory might come in handy.

-HD
Click to expand...

SLI/CF is going to be a requirement for solid non-turned-down-settings/non-no-AA gameplay anyway on any modern game... for 5760x1200 the nVidia solutions have shown far better multi-monitor gaming in various reviews.
 
HomelessDepot said:
Don't discount the allure of Eyefinity, either. You never know... maybe that 25x16 is only temporary :p. In which case 4 gigs of memory might come in handy.

-HD
Click to expand...

SLI/CF memory isn't additive. You still have only 2GB with two 2GB cards in CF.

And given the ridiculous cost of 30" monitors, only a tiny percentage of people with a single 30" are going to do Eyefinity or Surround.
 
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