3x 30" Portrait Crossfire Eyefinity vs SLI Surround Showdown

Final8y · 12 Mar 2011 at 20:03

Klo said:
Tbh for me that looks awful. I'd hate that and wouldn't get it, even if I did have the money.

Most computer games don't scale that well, especially when you start hitting higher resolutions that the raw textures are at.

I Think your confusing upscaled image which most PC games are not, unlike consoles.

More pixels can only give an Equal for better image it will not degrade textures as higher res does not zoom in on textures, don't confuse screen size with resolution.

Vega · 12 Mar 2011 at 21:31

Final8y said:
i7 920 D0 @ 4.55 GHz
6GB DDR3
Intel SSD
Asus Xonar Essence STX Sound
3x 30" HP ZR30w's in Portrait

My system has changed a little since then. Now:

GPU: Quad-SLI Palit 3GB GTX 580s
CPU: Intel Core i7 990X
Cooling: Sub-Zero liquid build under construction
MB: Gigabyte X58A-UD9
RAM: 6GB A-Data XPG Plus Ver 2.0 - 2200+ Elpida Hypers
PSU: Antec High Current Pro 1200
Displays: 3x HP ZR30w 30" Portrait Surround

Fanatic · 12 Mar 2011 at 21:40

1200 seems a little low for quad SLI 580s? Each one must take 300W on it's own. Think I would want a 1500W

Vega · 12 Mar 2011 at 22:55

Fanatic said:
1200 seems a little low for quad SLI 580s? Each one must take 300W on it's own. Think I would want a 1500W

Anterc HCP-1200 is hugely under-rated, some reviewers say its a 1600w PSU:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtZdg3PvSQU

dan1903 · 12 Mar 2011 at 23:14

Oh god, that is just ridiculous! Fair play, I would love to have a system that extravagant, thats a proper Man-Cave you have there.

One question though, how on earth do you find wallpapers for such crazy resolutions?

Vega · 13 Mar 2011 at 02:55

dan1903 said:
Oh god, that is just ridiculous! Fair play, I would love to have a system that extravagant, thats a proper Man-Cave you have there.

One question though, how on earth do you find wallpapers for such crazy resolutions?

I have to create my own out of super high resolution images from the Hubble space telescope.

I like astronomy so it works out well.

trisp · 13 Mar 2011 at 04:00

kablooey said:
Looks like the chair from '40-year-old virgin', just saying...

100% this post

xsistor · 13 Mar 2011 at 05:48

Vega are those monitors rotated by 90?

Vega · 13 Mar 2011 at 17:47

xsistor said:
Vega are those monitors rotated by 90?

Yes, on stock stands.

cammy5477 · 13 Mar 2011 at 18:34

vega...what you have done there is outstanding.....i didnt even notice the bezels i was to busy being blown away by crysis......i plan on building a super rig end of this year but most likely next and im so tempted to to go 3x30" now..... unfortunatley ive had to scale my rig down for the time being due to the economy but things are starting to get alittle better for me and hopefully will continue..... that chair is something else also...looks like a fine piece of engineering...can you show us more on your cooling system

cammy5477 · 13 Mar 2011 at 18:35

Vega said:
My system has changed a little since then. Now:

GPU: Quad-SLI Palit 3GB GTX 580s
CPU: Intel Core i7 990X
Cooling: Sub-Zero liquid build under construction
MB: Gigabyte X58A-UD9
RAM: 6GB A-Data XPG Plus Ver 2.0 - 2200+ Elpida Hypers
PSU: Antec High Current Pro 1200
Displays: 3x HP ZR30w 30" Portrait Surround

my god....that would beat anyone at chess

Bizarre · 13 Mar 2011 at 19:25

Mighty fine set up you've got there mate. Thanks for sharing with us.

kablooey said:
Looks like the chair from '40-year-old virgin', just saying...

trisp said:
100% this post

Jealousy is unflattering and makes you look needy, just saying...

cammy5477 · 13 Mar 2011 at 19:35

Bizarre said:
Jealousy is unflattering and makes you look needy, just saying...

100% agree with this

that chair is freeking awesome as is the rig

MoodyB · 13 Mar 2011 at 19:50

That's some setup Vega.

Have you considered setting up fresnel lenses to help remove the border between screens, or does it not bother you that much ?

Vega · 14 Mar 2011 at 01:06

cammy5477 said:
vega...what you have done there is outstanding.....i didnt even notice the bezels i was to busy being blown away by crysis......i plan on building a super rig end of this year but most likely next and im so tempted to to go 3x30" now..... unfortunatley ive had to scale my rig down for the time being due to the economy but things are starting to get alittle better for me and hopefully will continue..... that chair is something else also...looks like a fine piece of engineering...can you show us more on your cooling system

Waiting for the new non-reference PCB GPU water blocks to come in from EK and then I'll post some pics.

MoodyB said:
That's some setup Vega.

Have you considered setting up fresnel lenses to help remove the border between screens, or does it not bother you that much ?

From what I know of Fresnel lenses, they have to be custom made for your application. Custom stuff = super expensive. Plus I believe Fresnel lenses are very deep and bulky. Although I am sure if you had unlimited funds you could get quite creative.

If they ever get projector/blending software to work properly with multi-GPU and Eyefinity/Surround, something like this would be cool:

ScalableDesktop%20-%20trade%20station.preview.jpg

You would need six 1080p projectors to equal my resolution but its a cool idea none the less. I think the next big leap in displays will be large high resolution OLED but that has been progressing slower than expected. Hopefully within five years.

rIcK · 14 Mar 2011 at 06:03

Final8y said:
It would great to have a single panel that size.

Well Windows has no problem & nether does softHT
Its just that they have not thought of implementing it & having the ability for Crossfire in windowed mode would help seeing as SLI works in windowed mode.

You seem to have pictured my setup in my old house! Still using the same monitors, but it isnt using Soft TH!

Found a way to rid the borders now and upgraded to a single 6970 so performance is much better

Final8y · 14 Mar 2011 at 09:42

rIcK said:
You seem to have pictured my setup in my old house! Still using the same monitors, but it isnt using Soft TH!

Found a way to rid the borders now and upgraded to a single 6970 so performance is much better

The examples in the videos are not SoftTH as there running in windowed mode. The point is that both methods support PLP & that mixed resolution & orientation is purely a matter of programming the drivers as the hardware is not aware or care of which way up things are, its job is to render pixels.

rIcK · 14 Mar 2011 at 17:03

It is rather annoying they will simply not add it to the drivers, since it already works just fine as you say in windowed mode surely it cannot be a massive step up to full screen PLP....

darkblade · 19 Mar 2011 at 11:09

You’ve clearly had a lot of patience to get where you are now! I have a similar setup as you (although not as sexy as yours), running my computers in a separate room, it's great for removing all the heat and noise issues.

How long did it take Nvidia to get the 580 drivers working properly in tri & quad SLI? Due to the sheer costs, I’m going to wait and see if AMD ever get round to fixing their drivers so that tri 6970 actually works. With the 6990 out, hopefully maturing the crossfire drivers on the 6900 chipset will be the priority.

kalvindeane · 19 Mar 2011 at 11:58

Vega said:
Anyone who buys a 1080P TV for computer use is clueless to begin with so I am not surprised.

I think that depends entirely on your financial situation. For someone who can afford a rig like yours, then sure. But if you have a smaller budget then I don't see why buying a 1080P TV isn't a viable option? I bought one at a time when I was unable to get internet in my house, I could use it for watching tv, playing my consoles and using my pc for gaming. With a low budget it's a no-brainer imo. Why buy a TV and a monitor when you can just buy a TV that suits all your needs?