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Your thoughts please... 680 SLI and Surround or wait for GK110

Rusty0611

Rusty0611

Rusty0611

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I'm planning on getting a Surround set-up soon. I will be getting two more XL2420T's and I will also be going SLI to drive the 3 screens.

My motherboard does not support SLI. When I upgraded from some DDR2 and an E8500 @ 4 Ghz I didn't know what my end game was and chose a cheapish motherboard and stuck a 2500k in it. It's perfect for now but will need to change. I don't want to change processer from SB to IB as the difference is next to nothing. I've accepted this as part of the upgrade process :).

I'm caught in three minds:

a) buy a new motherboard and a new 680 and have this as my "end game" set-up
b) buy a new motherboard and monitors when the next generation of cards arrive and SLI the 780
c) same as option A but sell the 680's when next generation arrives and buy two 780's

As the performance of the 780's are unknown it makes it a little trickier. Option C is the least attractive to me as I would take a largeish hit on selling a 680 and this is multiplied by 2.

Your thoughts please. Just looking to get the feelers out and get some more opinions really....
 
Option A is your best bet imo.

The 680 will outlast through the 7XX gen, sure the performance won't be as good but it will still be a good setup. Get a new motherboard and another 680 and then hold out till the 8XX if you really want to upgrade further.
 
Yeah option A is appealing as it's 'now'. The only thing bothering me is that if I do not sell the 680's while they're newish the hit I'll take on them is large. Especially with the 670 being so close in performance to it.
 
Never had a red card so can't comment on them,
However tried all sorts to get mine working and what i found was

1- could not get it to be playable/enjoyable with any single card(for my liking)

2- found no performance benefit in Sli from 4gb over 2gb,4gb used more vram
but if anything the 2gb cards provided the smoother experience obviously had to knock the settings down a touch
Auto settings on BF3 provided a very enjoyable gameplay(if that makes sense)

As we have the same monitors I presume 3D surround comes into play,

Sli 2gb 3D on a single monitor awesome

3D surround - If I lowered the settings it was actually quite impressive as it was was very difficult to tell the difference between high/low settings

Bottom line which you already know

more eyecandy=more vram=more Gpu's

Also found PCI-E 3 over 2 was about 7-10% improvement game depending,as you mentioned not changing your Cpu thought you would like this info.

Hope this helps
 
Hmm. I'm in the same dilemma. If you're going three monitors, Tom's did a review/test thing on latency and stuff regarding 2 or more cards, I forget the specifics. Long story short 3 cards give less microstutter since the frames are usually ready in a more consistent balanced way as opposed to 2 cards. So if I were you I'd get 2 680's or a 690 and go tri-SLI.
 
chipachap said:
Hmm. I'm in the same dilemma. If you're going three monitors, Tom's did a review/test thing on latency and stuff regarding 2 or more cards, I forget the specifics. Long story short 3 cards give less microstutter since the frames are usually ready in a more consistent balanced way as opposed to 2 cards. So if I were you I'd get 2 680's or a 690 and go tri-SLI.
Click to expand...

I saw the same article. It was the level of microstutter.

Not an option -would need to change platform :(. Also the cost is astronomical.
 
I would say sell your 680 while you can get a good price for it and go for 670 sli, assuming you think you can live with 2gb of ram for 3 screens. Dont think it would cost too much to upgrade the mobo, assuming you could sell your current one. Sounds like it will be a nice setup:cool:
 
The VRAM fills with whatever is in the first card. The VRAM isn't used cumulatively.

670 SLI isn't an option either. Had I been in the market when they were released then definitely. I don't want to get rid of the 680 and get a 670.

Personally, I think 2GB of VRAM will become limiting in surround set-up's. It already is in some games.
 
If you do not want to go the GTX 670 sli route. Sell your GTX 680 keep your Mobo and get a GTX 690. Its one of the cheaper options.

When or if big Kepler GK110 turns up taking a guess performance wise its going to be about 50% faster than a GTX 680 so 2 of them in SLI will be the same as 3 x GTX 680 SLI. The downside is the GK110 will be expensive and run hot (Arise the true son of Fermi). I also do not think it will replace the GTX 680 it will sit at a price above it.
 
Way above it, there are even some doubts as to whether it will arrive as a consumer card at all, being targetted at the CUDA market as a Tesla beast. I think they will come out with a different chip for the 7xx series cards and continue to focus the feature set for each market.
 
fantasticCG said:
with a 670 sli setup is the other 2gb of ram just not used?
Click to expand...

Your sig is a line too big :)

Rusty, i'd go for B and see how well the single card handles it all, then if needs be add another 680, otherwise wait for the 780.

My 7970 is roughly the same as your 680 and it can just about handle 3 monitros in most games :)
 
Rusty0611 said:
Personally, I think 2GB of VRAM will become limiting in surround set-up's. It already is in some games.
Click to expand...

If your looking at an 'endgame' to your upgrades, 2Gb won't be enough.

d) Use your existing mb with your 680, buy the monitors, try it out with reduced candy if need be and wait for daddy Kepler or team reds next best thing.:)


The amount of cash you could lose on 2 680's will be considerable- £300+:(
 
tommybhoy said:
If your looking at an 'endgame' to your upgrades, 2Gb won't be enough.
Click to expand...

Agreed.

tommybhoy said:
d) Use your existing mb with your 680, buy the monitors, try it out with reduced candy if need be and wait for daddy Kepler or team reds next best thing.:)
Click to expand...

I'm a maximum settings snob. I would personally rather game maximum settings on one monitor than have a mish mash of settings across 3. OK for testing but not as a solution in the short to medium term.

tommybhoy said:
The amount of cash you could lose on 2 680's will be considerable- £300+:(
Click to expand...

I know :(
 
670 sli is enough for surround, 680 is a waste of money i sold mine and got 670 sli windforce, sure you can't run every game 100% max in surround but no cards out there right now will do that
 
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