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2 570 or 2 6950
- Thread starter RickST
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iii) Eyefinity also works with dual cards so it certainly doesnt get pushed out of the running.
iv) Most modern (2009+) games support ultra widescreen in menu albeit with different levels of stretching. I played COD4, BC2, AVP, Metro 2033, Dirt2, Crysis all at
5348x1050 (5040 with bezel management applied) fine. The only time 5870s struggled was when applying AA, although i understand the 69** series handle AA much better.
I never said Eyefinity would not work for dual cards. Currently most AMD cards support 3 monitor output (some can even do 6) versus NVidia's limitation of just 2. For anyone who owns 3 monitirs and only wants to run a single graphics card AMD is the only choice and Eyefinity is a clear winner.
However, dual card configs from AMD and NVidia support 6 and 4 outputs respectively. Not many people run more that 3 monitors, so I stand by my argument that for multi card setups AMD's Eyefinity selling point is largely irrelevant.
Metro brings my 580 SLI to it's knees at 1920x1200 (max settings / 32xAA) and I doubt anyone can realistically play this game on a 3 monitor setup, even with low AA. At max settings it is my GPU's that are oveloaded, Afterburner shows plenty of unused memory.
NVidia really do need to sort out the single card 2 output limitation.
However, dual card configs from AMD and NVidia support 6 and 4 outputs respectively. Not many people run more that 3 monitors, so I stand by my argument that for multi card setups AMD's Eyefinity selling point is largely irrelevant.
Metro brings my 580 SLI to it's knees at 1920x1200 (max settings / 32xAA) and I doubt anyone can realistically play this game on a 3 monitor setup, even with low AA. At max settings it is my GPU's that are oveloaded, Afterburner shows plenty of unused memory.
NVidia really do need to sort out the single card 2 output limitation.
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Interesting article:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/01/11/amd_69706950_cfx_nvidia_580570_sli_review
I know its HardOCP but they are one of the few sites that actually frequently do Eyefinity / Surround reviews with the cards in question.
It looks like the performance is comparable as long as the 570's don't run out of memory. It is quite telling though when they do (F1 2010).
Given the price difference it's easy to see why HD6950 should get the nod in this instance.
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/01/11/amd_69706950_cfx_nvidia_580570_sli_review
I know its HardOCP but they are one of the few sites that actually frequently do Eyefinity / Surround reviews with the cards in question.
It looks like the performance is comparable as long as the 570's don't run out of memory. It is quite telling though when they do (F1 2010).
Given the price difference it's easy to see why HD6950 should get the nod in this instance.
Indeed. It seems F1 2010 is to NVidia cards what HAWX is to AMD. Even the GTX580 takes an almighty pasting from the 6950 in this game. I actually like F1 2010 and play it quite a bit but no way should it's mediocre graphics consume over 1.5GB of VRAM. It's either poorly coded or there's an NVidia driver bug. HOCP do say that dropping 4xAA fixes the problem but in this game AMD's 2GB buffer rules.
Its not just a driver issue from nvidia.
Look here at farcry2 and crysis warhead to see the difference between 460 1gb vs 2gb
http://en.expreview.com/2010/08/08/exclusive-review-of-zotac-geforce-gtx-460-2gb-edition/9041.html/9
You can see my score in farcry 2 with 2x6950 at defaults.
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+1 for 2 x 6950 flashed to 6970
Not quite fair comparing GTX460's with 6950's, but I see your point.
Ok, after testing a few games with 3 monitors, I'll give my memory usage run-down:
Dirt 2 (and F1) - excellent looking for Eyefinity/Surround, bit of a memory hog. For some reason I kept getting stutters at times, even though V-Sync was enabled and GPU usage was around 50-60%. I'll get rid of V-Sync and try again. Memory usage was nearly 1500MB with no AA, everything else on Ultra. I expect that turning the DX11 settings off will reduce memory usage by a fair bit. I tested on the London track - where there are most of the DX11 effects.
Call Of Duty Black Ops - stretches the side panels, so it looks a bit weird. COD WAW is meant to be better for this (makes no sense...). Memory usage was around 1250MB with full AA and so on. Decent frame rates (IE: never dropped below 90fps - where COD is limited to 90).
Crysis - looks ace on 3 monitors, scales really well. I removed AA and set all settings to high - this resulted in approx 50-60 fps constant. Memory usage was 1341MB at most (though I suspect the later levels might be worse).
In conclusion I'd go with the 2 6950s. Especially as you're buying for 3 monitors, so why sacrifice due to memory limitations?
In fact, I reckon that all high end cards will now have at least 2GB memory standard, as surround eats memory (though not as much as I originally thought, besides Dirt 2).
Dirt 2 (and F1) - excellent looking for Eyefinity/Surround, bit of a memory hog. For some reason I kept getting stutters at times, even though V-Sync was enabled and GPU usage was around 50-60%. I'll get rid of V-Sync and try again. Memory usage was nearly 1500MB with no AA, everything else on Ultra. I expect that turning the DX11 settings off will reduce memory usage by a fair bit. I tested on the London track - where there are most of the DX11 effects.
Call Of Duty Black Ops - stretches the side panels, so it looks a bit weird. COD WAW is meant to be better for this (makes no sense...). Memory usage was around 1250MB with full AA and so on. Decent frame rates (IE: never dropped below 90fps - where COD is limited to 90).
Crysis - looks ace on 3 monitors, scales really well. I removed AA and set all settings to high - this resulted in approx 50-60 fps constant. Memory usage was 1341MB at most (though I suspect the later levels might be worse).
In conclusion I'd go with the 2 6950s. Especially as you're buying for 3 monitors, so why sacrifice due to memory limitations?
In fact, I reckon that all high end cards will now have at least 2GB memory standard, as surround eats memory (though not as much as I originally thought, besides Dirt 2).
Interesting thread regarding vram and thanks Marvin for your own findings.
Certainly seems that going for an AMD card/cards is the right choice for anybody going over 2 monitors.
Even with Nvidia in SLI so that 3 monitors can be used they don't seem suited for the job like AMD cards do.
This does make GFX card choosing much easier for those with 3 or more monitors though. Well it does to me.
Certainly seems that going for an AMD card/cards is the right choice for anybody going over 2 monitors.
Even with Nvidia in SLI so that 3 monitors can be used they don't seem suited for the job like AMD cards do.
This does make GFX card choosing much easier for those with 3 or more monitors though. Well it does to me.
Why not stick with the 1200? i saw some good logs of people sticking their 360/480 rads out the back
Iv'e had a rethink and now think that not only is a 3 monitor set-up an easy choise but i'd say that if you had 2 large (27"+ native 2,560 x 1,440 resolution) monitors that AMD cards are prolly the better bet also.
2x 24" or below then Nvidia will be great. RAM on the Nvidia cards really is a limiting factor when using multi monitor set-ups.
2x 24" or below then Nvidia will be great. RAM on the Nvidia cards really is a limiting factor when using multi monitor set-ups.
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Is that statement not a bit sweeping?
No game I've played forced me to lower settings due to memory, and GTX480s can be picked up for around the same cost as 6950s, but are faster.
I don't like way it looks with a rad out the back, pure and simple. With the 800D everything is nicely contained + epic cable tidying.
I am pretty sure now I will go for the 6950 + flashing, however it looks like i might be moving to london shortly so I need to hold off and stock pile my peanuts just in case.
Final interview is tomorrow so I will know more then!!!
Oh, just so's you know, I'm returning the two extra monitors, feels like a waste of time/money/energy/real estate with 3 monitors of such width. Dirt 2 is great, but other games are not so - (COD:BO looks silly as the outside monitors are stretched, DOW: II is just stupid with 3 monitors, as most RTS games would be, Crysis works well, but I've played it too much, and it's not the sort of game that requires peripheral vision (that's a hilarious pun...)). I reckon games like Arma II and more serious racing games benefit, but arcadey shooters/racers do not, and I tend towards the COD style shooter, and there are not enough decent racing games on the PC that I like to justify it otherwise.
I can certainly see your point, the primary reason for me having 3 monitors is work. I find it extremely useful to have my code on my centre monitor and the other two are used for live preview, documents, movies, gimp etc.
Oh, for work absolutely agree, but for gaming it's not that brilliant I feel. Thus I'd get one 6950 for now, and have a play around.
