GTX 580 1.5gb sli for Dell Ultrasharp U3011 30"

booterboy

booterboy

booterboy

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Hi guys,
Looking to upgrade monitor to Dell Ultrasharp U3011 30".
Mainly for gaming,have one gtx 580 for my current dell 27'' which runs
well at 1900x1220.
Will another gtx 580 in sli max out games at 2560 x 1600 on 30''dell?
Would love to hear from anybody with a similar set up.
Only bought my gtx580 last month,so buying another one for sli is my
only option when i can afford it.
Hope i can sell my 27''dell to fund this upgrade.
Thanks in advance for your help/advice.
 
Well high res = high vram usage and sli will not increase vram. I have just gotten a 2560x1440 27" screen, I haven't yet played any really intensive games but I haven't seen any slow down in the few games I have tried on my 1.5gb 480.
 
Boozebeard said:
Well high res = high vram usage and sli will not increase vram. I have just gotten a 2560x1440 27" screen, I haven't yet played any really intensive games but I haven't seen any slow down in the few games I have tried on my 1.5gb 480.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the reply Booze.
So that means i will struggle with vram at 1.5gb on the highest res.
Damn that means i will have to sell my gtx 580 and get the 3gb one.
If i go that route it will take me a few more months to buy a 2nd gtx580 3gb
for sli.
Have wanted a 30'' monitor for the past 2 years(thought they would have dropped in price)i thought wrong.
 
Well, maybe buy the monitor and see how it runs with your single 580, then you can decide if it is worth getting a card with more vram, you might find that 1.5gb is ok.
 
[WU-TANG]GZA;19366485 said:
Have a look at this:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/308?vs=298

Depends what games you play. I chose the 6970CF for comparison as you could get that and due to the 2GB Vram and for less money but not much worse performance. 6970CF can be had for about £500 which I am sure would perform much better than the 580 3GB and cost a lot less than 580 3GB SLI.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info and link WU.
Will be sticking to Nvidia(had lots of trouble with ati/amd drivers in the past).
Have the money for monitor but no extra cash for the gpus to run it lol.
 
I run a similar pixel monitor on 2x6950s flashed to 6970 shaders.. pretty much every game plays fine, metro needs an overclock tho
 
al4x said:
I run a similar pixel monitor on 2x6950s flashed to 6970 shaders.. pretty much every game plays fine, metro needs an overclock tho
Click to expand...

Any chance you have tried running any games on your screen with single card?
Thinking about 695(7)0 and 2560*1400
Thanks
 
I've never used SLI before, but the frame buffer is pretty small compared with the amount of memory used for texture, even at high res. Also, although the textures are duplicated on both cards, isn't the frame buffer split is SLI?
 
Thanks for the help guys,
One more(maybe stupid)question.I already have a 1.5gb 580,if i buy a 3gb 580
can i sli the two of them,putting the 3gb in the 1st gpu slot.
Would that give me 3gb of vram?
Would bust my nuts if i had to sell my 1.5gb.
 
booterboy said:
Thanks for the help guys,
One more(maybe stupid)question.I already have a 1.5gb 580,if i buy a 3gb 580
can i sli the two of them,putting the 3gb in the 1st gpu slot.
Would that give me 3gb of vram?
Would bust my nuts if i had to sell my 1.5gb.
Click to expand...

if it works similar to Xfire, you would have only 1,5GB but as I said, maybe it works different to Xfire
 
bastic said:
Any chance you have tried running any games on your screen with single card?
Thinking about 695(7)0 and 2560*1400
Thanks
Click to expand...

Only game I have that really benifited from that in xx fire was metro at max, no way could that cope on one card.. I think crysis struggled in places
 
al4x said:
Only game I have that really benifited from that in xx fire was metro at max, no way could that cope on one card.. I think crysis struggled in places
Click to expand...

good to know as Ive ordered 6950 in the end ;) will have to cope ;D
 
booterboy said:
Thanks for the help guys,
One more(maybe stupid)question.I already have a 1.5gb 580,if i buy a 3gb 580
can i sli the two of them,putting the 3gb in the 1st gpu slot.
Would that give me 3gb of vram?
Would bust my nuts if i had to sell my 1.5gb.
Click to expand...

U would still only have 1.5Gb so would be a waste, also i know with the evga reference models u can't actually sli a 1.5Gb with a 3Gb so i would assume the same for any reference 580, looking at getting a U3011 myself and i also have a single 1.5Gb 580 atm, i have just ordered a pair of 3Gb ones as in some games at that res 1.5Gb is not enough.
 
This review compares the GTX 580 1.5GB and 3GB models at 2560x1600 in a range of games.

In most games there isn't really a need for 3GB VRAM. Personally I would keep what you have, and if you want to go for a card with more VRAM - wait for the shiny new 28nm cards to arrive before the end of the year. The best of these cards will not only offer more VRAM, but also significantly faster general gaming performance at the same price points.
 
I have dell U2711 at 2560 x 1440 and a single GTX580 1.5Gb. All (except one or two odd games) max out. Two in SLi would be definitely ok.

I would suggest getting the screen first, seeing how a single card will cope and then get a second one if needed.
 
I have the u3011 and have used 2 5870's 1 gig models with it, they run things quite well, you cant run full pelt and the main issue youwill have is over 2x AA is starts to struggle with vram, im hoping 2 6970's 2gig which i have here for new build will stop that a bit. I have also ran stuff on 1 5870 at 2560x1600 and things run ok but you have to be realistic with settings and drop them a bit, no af or aa and medium on some game settigns should see you ok so i would say 1 580 would be fine but i would be looking to add another.
 
At 2560x1440 my 480gtx sli @ 890 core (which i believe is very similar to 580sli speed) manages to play nearly all games maxed out with atleast 4xaa at 60+ fps 99% of the time.
There are two exceptions, Metro 2033. I play this with all settings on the highest except have to use the aaa option rather than 4xmsaa. The framerate gets pretty choppy at times below 20fps (i use a 360 pad to play this so can grin and bear it). The other being witcher 2 with ubersampling enabled, this is the only game where i feel the need to turn off an option. With uber turned off the framerate is good all the way through the game, seeing the framerate hover around 40fps on the most demanding scenes.

Phil.
 
cmndr_andi said:
This review compares the GTX 580 1.5GB and 3GB models at 2560x1600 in a range of games.

In most games there isn't really a need for 3GB VRAM. Personally I would keep what you have, and if you want to go for a card with more VRAM - wait for the shiny to arrive before the end of the year. The best of these cards will not only offer more VRAM, but also significantly faster general gaming performance at the same price points.
Click to expand...
Thanks again for the advice guys,
I think i will wait untill November/December before i buy the 30''.
Hopefully the new cards will be good for max resolution on the 30''. 991.436 GBP is a lot of money to pay for the Dell,so i want to make
sure i have the best gpu setup for it.
Looking at the new Deus Ex/BF3/Microsoft Flight to satisfy my gaming
for 2012.
Hopefully i might get 200 GBP for my 27''.
Again thanks guys.
 
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