6990/6970 instead of GTX580s?

[ewarwoowar]

I currently have a GTX580 1.5gb card and I am moving up to surround gaming with 3 120hz monitors, totalling 5760x1080. I was intending to move up to SLI 580s with the 3gb cards but been looking at the comparisons against the 6990/6970 xfire.

I actually moved away from ATI/AMD to the 580 because I got so many problems xfiring 5850s.

My Current board only supports SLI but it supports TRI-fire becuase obviously you can use the 6990/6970 combo.
The ATI combo comes out a lot cheaper than sli 580s and even tri-sli580s which match its performance but would need a Mobo upgrade to support.

The only comparison between the 580s and ati combo was back when the 3gb 580s weren't about so I Can't find a comparison now.
1 other good thing about the 580s is I can get the EVGA 3gb models and when I water cool them I still keep the warranty as long as the old cooler is putback on. No EVGA 6990s or 6970s = bye bye warranty when they get water cooled

3 questions I have are.

1)The 6990 has 4gb VRAM but that's 2gb per GPU right? so therefore trifire with the 6970 would be a max of 2gb vram? would that not limit eyefinity resolutions?
2)How loud is this 6990? I was intending to add the SLI 580s to my water cooling loop as I like my pc quiet. I hate the noise of GPU fans and prefer to have 120mm fans running at medium RPM.
3)What would you do?


*edit* Thought of another question!
4)For anyone with the 6990 combo. What are you experiences?

 

[Phase]

6950s one will do but get 2. Thats what i use at that res. Runs spot on and only cost £400.

It will give you 40s/50s in crysis2, 130+portal2. One will run Dirt3 full up on 5760x1080 without any problems at all.

 

[Rroff]

My thoughts are... 120Hz doesn't have the smoothest track record with ATI/AMD and it becomes even more of a potential problem with multiple 120Hz panels.

 

[ewarwoowar]

6950s one will do but get 2. Thats what i use at that res. Runs spot on and only cost £400.

It will give you 40s/50s in crysis2, 130+portal2. One will run Dirt3 full up on 5760x1080 without any problems at all.

? 6950s weren't even mentioned.

And Rroff, thanks for that. I will look into that.
I didn't even take into consideration that I do 3D, facepalm! I'm probably just going to go for 580s.

just 6990/6970 offers quite a bit over 580s even in tri sli

 

[Phase]

Ye sorry i know it wasnt in the list but they are worth the weight in mer!

 

[Xelene]

? 6950s weren't even mentioned.

That's mainly because you spend £50-£100 extra adding that 20 on the graphics card number. If you are trifiring then 6950 is irrelevant.

 

[ewarwoowar]

Ye sorry i know it wasnt in the list but they are worth the weight in mer!

Understood


By looking at the benchs against the ATI combo and the gtx 580s at high eyefinity/surround benchmarks you notice that it is infact the low amount of 1.5gb VRAM the 580s have that causes it to slack back a lot. But when comparing them together on a single monitor resolution that you notice that they are very close together.

Tbh looking back on benchs on 5760x1200 and a single monitor resolution with tri-sli vs trifire NV come out top most of the time.
The big problem is the fact you can get the tri sli performance in 2 PCI-E slots and for less money.
But both come with their advantages and disadvantages

 

[DeadMan]

I went with a 6990 and water cooled it.

The 6990 is an insanely fast card that will last you a long time, but you need to water cool it as the standard air cooling is insufficient and ridiculously loud.

Was tempted by the GTX590 but was put off by the steep prices and cooling woes with the standard cooler.

 

[ewarwoowar]

590 is definitely a no go, even though the 2nd revision are estimated for release this month. With no news on whether there will actually be and performance increases which I highly doubt.

If NV could do 590/580 tri sli i'd probably look into that, but they don't so I can't
It seems the only reason i'm leaning towards the ATI combo is the price/performance ratio and the fact it'll only take 2 slots.

 

[schnipps]

6990's have gone from ocuk?

im totally miffed as to what to get i have 2 5870s and im having loads of issues but nothing seems a proper step up.

 

[gareth170]

1 6990 would be enough, or even 2 6950/70.

tri-fire has some issues tbh, abut when the game/profile supports it, it performances well.

 

[ewarwoowar]

It indeed does look like it schnipps! didn't know that.

You also seem to be just like I was. I was running 2 5850s and just kept getting problem after problem so I just sold them and moved over to a single 580 just to get rid of the dual card woes in the 58xx series.
I sacrificed just a teeny bit of a performance to be gone with the problems and i'm happy I did!

 

[ewarwoowar]

1 6990 would be enough, or even 2 6950/70.

tri-fire has some issues tbh, abut when the game/profile supports it, it performances well.

Amen to the trifire statement. In the bench comparisons. The games used are games that support multi gpus, Metro for example. Obviously in older games that nowhere support even dual GPUs then it becomes a bit of a slump.

 

[Kouba]

So the 69XX series is less prone to the whole xfire driver issues .etc?

 

[ewarwoowar]

Well their 69xx series scaling has been said to be miles better than their pervious 58xx scaling

 

[gareth170]

the scaling is well better....

 

[gareth170]

Amen to the trifire statement. In the bench comparisons. The games used are games that support multi gpus, Metro for example. Obviously in older games that nowhere support even dual GPUs then it becomes a bit of a slump.

Metro is good with tri-fire. if u gonna play dirt 3 it will crash with tri-fire but ok with dual gpu.