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680 or not

Joshct

Joshct

Joshct

Associate
Joined
16 Mar 2012
Posts
1,087
Location
Hove
Ok so basically i'm still waiting to do my build... it was lack of funds, now it's IB.

My first spec was going to be:

i5-2500k
EVGA GeForce GTX 570
Gigabyte Z68xp-UD3P
8GB 1600MHz
Crucial m4 128GB
XFX 850W XXX Edition '80 plus silver' (For SLI in future)
Alpenfohn k2
Seagate Barracuda 500GB
In a 600T SE

When i finally got the money for this I decided to wait for Ivy, and as such thought i could splash out on a better graphics card, something to last me longer.
As such i decided on a 680, however i'm now considering, is that the best choice?

The previous build would have cost about £1200, with the wait and extra wages i can spend a bit more, 1.5 on the system (including an OS), then a bit more on a monitor.

But recently i've been reading threads and generally see this as the consensus:

680 2GB isn't enough for triple display 1920x1080.
As i can't afford SLI i'll be looking at single monitor gaming, (don't get have the monitor) however my assumption is that above 1920x1080 monitors get fairly pricey? (or at least hard to find, had a little look and couldn't see any on the OcUK store).
With this being said surely the 680 will be an overpriced overkill buy?

Im looking at the build lasting a few years, it doesn't need to be running at ultra in 3 years time but i don't want to be running medium or lower if im spending this kind of money now.

What i'm actually asking i guess is: 680 along with the price tag, or 580 cheaper? or other? or SLI 570s for example? (Sticking with the green team btw)

Where does the 680 fit in?

Thanks


P.S
I really don't mind not being able to play everything at its highest settings, i've been using my laptop for the last 3 years, integrated graphics ftl XD. I'll happily turn down the settings if need be for a playable game, but i wont want to be doing that for a while on this rig.
 
First thing is to decide for certain if you are going 3 monitors or not - you sound unsure still :p. The general consensus is actually different regarding 2GB VRAM - at present it's fine. You will probably need to turn MSAA off in a title like BF3 though with 1 680 at 3*1080.

You will hear otherwise regarding this but if you look at some benchmarks - performance in the 2GB 680 holds up well. In the future VRAM could become an issue though.

Personally, I think with 3 screens at 1080p it will become an issue at some point soon ish (1-2 years perhaps?). You only have one choice if you want a future proofed system and you're buying now (and you want a nVidia card) and that is the GTX 680. For 1080p, single screen gaming, the card is going to be fine for at least 2 years IMO at max settings. If not, you can have FXAA on and MSAA off and that will recoup loads of lost performance while barely touching the image quality.

SLI 580's (must be the 3GB version) are another consideration but you'd have to find a good second hand deal to make this worthwhile.
 
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Rusty0611 said:
First thing is to decide for certain if you are going 3 monitors or not - you sound unsure still :p.
Click to expand...

Trouble is i was looking at the samsung deal, the 120hz 23", whichever the tag number is.

The 3D doesn't interest me, but i've read that if you're on a 120hz screen and running lower FPS, as you would on triple display, it can look... wrong? (i forget the adjectives used).


What's the easiest way to disable monitors while gaming? i.e if i had triple display and then used the middle for gaming on the new releases in the future?

Simply a resolution option in the game or actually resorting to physically unplugging the screens?
 
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But I wouldn't worry about that anyway yet. A consideration for the future perhaps depending on where PC game development goes. Although if you're not sure you're going to use your 3 screens then I would really recommend you don't buy. Even though the deal is good it's a load of money to chuck at something you're not sure you're going to use the majority of the time.
 
Joshct said:
Ok so basically i'm still waiting to do my build... it was lack of funds, now it's IB.

My first spec was going to be:

i5-2500k
EVGA GeForce GTX 570
Gigabyte Z68xp-UD3P
8GB 1600MHz
Crucial m4 128GB
XFX 850W XXX Edition '80 plus silver' (For SLI in future)
Alpenfohn k2
Seagate Barracuda 500GB
In a 600T SE

When i finally got the money for this I decided to wait for Ivy, and as such thought i could splash out on a better graphics card, something to last me longer.
As such i decided on a 680, however i'm now considering, is that the best choice?

The previous build would have cost about £1200, with the wait and extra wages i can spend a bit more, 1.5 on the system (including an OS), then a bit more on a monitor.

But recently i've been reading threads and generally see this as the consensus:

680 2GB isn't enough for triple display 1920x1080.
As i can't afford SLI i'll be looking at single monitor gaming, (don't get have the monitor) however my assumption is that above 1920x1080 monitors get fairly pricey? (or at least hard to find, had a little look and couldn't see any on the OcUK store).
With this being said surely the 680 will be an overpriced overkill buy?

Im looking at the build lasting a few years, it doesn't need to be running at ultra in 3 years time but i don't want to be running medium or lower if im spending this kind of money now.

What i'm actually asking i guess is: 680 along with the price tag, or 580 cheaper? or other? or SLI 570s for example? (Sticking with the green team btw)

Where does the 680 fit in?

Thanks


P.S
I really don't mind not being able to play everything at its highest settings, i've been using my laptop for the last 3 years, integrated graphics ftl XD. I'll happily turn down the settings if need be for a playable game, but i wont want to be doing that for a while on this rig.
Click to expand...

No! leave the 680 and get a 7970.
 
Cleeecooo said:
If youre going 3 monitors, the 4gb version would be recommended, otherwise, a 7970
Click to expand...

Of course - if he can afford it :).

Otherwise 2GB 680 is just about fine for now... Although I still wouldn't recommend it so to speak - in BF3 you're going to need to turn MSAA off to run it at decent FPS so probably a sign that 1 680/7970 is going to not be enough sooner rather than later.

To be fair, 3 screens requires a serious amount of GPU grunt to play with decent frame rates. You shouldn't probably consider it unless you're seriously willing to go SLI/crossfire of top end graphics cards.
 
I did a spec for £1500 (ish) for you to consider which will give you considerably more GPU power and put to bed the VRAM issue. Have a look:


YOUR BASKET
2 x HIS HD 7950 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £323.99 (£647.98)
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £173.99
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT128M4SSD2) £119.99
1 x BitFenix Shinobi XL Full Tower Gaming Case - Black £112.98
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £99.98
1 x XFX Pro 850W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £94.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £79.98
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) £77.99
1 x Noctua NH-U12P SE2 Dual Fan Quiet CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1366/LGA1156/LGA1155/LGA775/AM2/AM2+/AM3) £57.98
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £29.99
1 x Asus Xonar DG 5.1 PCI Sound Card with built in Headphone Amp - OEM £18.98
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £17.99
Total : £1,549.32 (includes shipping : £13.75).

 
Can save money a number of ways. Here is a slimmer version:


YOUR BASKET
2 x HIS HD 7950 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £323.99 (£647.98)
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £173.99
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT128M4SSD2) £119.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £99.98
1 x Cooler Master CM-690 II Advanced USB3.0 Dominator Case - Black £84.98
1 x XFX Pro 750W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £82.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £79.98
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) £77.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £29.99
1 x Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £25.99
1 x Asus Xonar DG 5.1 PCI Sound Card with built in Headphone Amp - OEM £18.98
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £17.99
Total : £1,477.33 (includes shipping : £13.75).

 
Rusty0611 said:
I did a spec for £1500 (ish) for you to consider which will give you considerably more GPU power and put to bed the VRAM issue.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the build, under the impression IB will be at a similar pricepoint so ill wait and see/confirm that before buying.

Isn't there a number of driver issues for crossfire?
 
There can be. But for every person that has issues there's a whole lot more people without any issues. But it's fair to say that AMD do have a stigma attached to their drivers for crossfire, yes. And no smoke without a fire as they say! I think it's a lot better than it was when I had crossfire (4850's) but I'm not the best person to answer this really.

Also if you keep a lookout occasionally custom 7950's go on special. The custom fans can help with cooling while overclocking.
 
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I'm not gonna get into the VRAM debate but stick with the K2 in your original spec or change it to the Phanteks PH-TC14PE on sale this week.
 
The 680 is a great card but that ******* downclocking is a real pain, don't know if other 680 users have experienced it but the mother ******* card always downclocks at a time when I need the card to be running flat out, can the downclocking be turned off?

If I wanted a card to run at 300mhz then I'd have bought one, I don't care how much electricity the card uses, when I buy a top end card I want it to run flat out all of the time.
 
Rusty0611 said:
Of course - if he can afford it :).

Otherwise 2GB 680 is just about fine for now... Although I still wouldn't recommend it so to speak - in BF3 you're going to need to turn MSAA off to run it at decent FPS so probably a sign that 1 680/7970 is going to not be enough sooner rather than later.

To be fair, 3 screens requires a serious amount of GPU grunt to play with decent frame rates. You shouldn't probably consider it unless you're seriously willing to go SLI/crossfire of top end graphics cards.
Click to expand...

Now this is where the VRAM arguement may come into play.

This exact question came up on a othe forum I frequent. The general consensus is the following hierarchy:
680 4gb
7970
680 2gb

If you can afford the 4gb, go for it, but if you cant, then a 7970 would be the better option as it does still have plenty f GPU grunt and has 1gb VRAM more than the 680 which will help later on as the assumption is you will be plonking another card in for XSLI, as you said :)
 
or 7950 xfire? This would be close to the same price as the 4GB 680.

Just giving the OP another option.

This is also good if the OP wanted more monitors.
 
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gregster said:
or 7950 xfire? This would be close to the same price as the 4GB 680.

Just giving the OP another option.

This is also good if the OP wanted more monitors.
Click to expand...

I specced a 7950 crossfire build for the OP. I would probably go this if I were him but it's tough when you consider the issues with drivers which some people can have.
 
spankingtexan said:
The 680 is a great card but that ******* downclocking is a real pain, don't know if other 680 users have experienced it but the mother ******* card always downclocks at a time when I need the card to be running flat out, can the downclocking be turned off?

If I wanted a card to run at 300mhz then I'd have bought one, I don't care how much electricity the card uses, when I buy a top end card I want it to run flat out all of the time.
Click to expand...

It'll downclock or overclock depending on how gpu intensive the game is. Very clever, very useful and it can save on power.
 
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