Got around £1000 to send on GPU power

Judgeneo · 20 Apr 2011 at 19:53

No kids, and no boozing, and only 5 hours a week PC time?

What?

JasonKnights · 20 Apr 2011 at 20:10

I leave house at 6.30am and dont get home till gone 7-8pm after been gym for an hour after work, so I basically get to go on it Sunday afternoons. Unless I need to do something I usually just don't even turn it on weekdays.

Tediore · 20 Apr 2011 at 21:09

Why not get a single 580, and then wait until you do get more time on the PC before deciding whether you need another? I can almost guarantee you won't need it, and then you can get the next big thing when it comes out with all the money we saved you

trisp · 20 Apr 2011 at 21:19

2 x 580 nuff said i would buy http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-249-AS&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1812
if u have the room or
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-116-MS&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1812
if you dont they will be quiet and you will have around 200-300 pounds left to spend on lolly pops and ice cream.

JasonKnights · 20 Apr 2011 at 21:21

Yeah il take your advice and try 1 580 out. Can always get another If I need more power! That super clocked 480 looks identical to the specs on 580? But I think the 580 is much quieter.

JasonKnights · 20 Apr 2011 at 21:24

The twin frozr option would work but with the direct cu option the cards would be touching and no air getting in the top card.

Dervious · 20 Apr 2011 at 21:34

If you really want top notch performance, buy a £500 card, then save the other £500 for another top notch card in 12 - 18 months time.

Other than that, £500 on a top notch card, £500 to charity.

Dervious · 20 Apr 2011 at 21:37

JasonKnights said:
Yeah I see what you mean, think 2 gtx580s should be powerful enough. And there quiet too

I find it hard to correlate someone who types "And there quiet too" with someone who can afford £1000 for graphics card. Are you a Lotto winner, or a criminal ?

RedvGreen · 20 Apr 2011 at 21:43

JasonKnights said:
It's just the noise with the ATI cards n no Physx that why I was going nvidia route.if price was no option would gtx590 in quad sli be better than 2 gtx 580s in sli?

The HD6990 that I bought to replace my noisy + overheating 6970s is quieter and cooler.

It is only audible in the most demanding stress tests - in typical gameplay my case fans are louder @ 25dB.

I was in the same boat as yourself, I essentially have no restrictions on my purchase amount for GPU upgrades, and I settled on the 6990. I weighed up 580SLI and 590 and the 6990 won it.

The only negative for the 6990 in my thought process was the noise;
590 was construction quality + slow driver support;
580 was heat, power and overall cost.

6990 all the way.

JasonKnights · 20 Apr 2011 at 21:55

Ive had a gtx295 for the last few years and it's been a great card even though when released it kept getting slated. The problem is the noise drives me mad! I think it's around 48 db in games. Il look into the 6990 option now

Number_25 · 20 Apr 2011 at 22:05

Two 580s or a 6990/xFired 6970s

Boge · 20 Apr 2011 at 22:09

A single 570 / 580 and a decent monitor at 2560 and forget the 3d gimmick

Trusty · 21 Apr 2011 at 00:02

xsistor said:
Get two 480 SOC for £440 http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-079-GI&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1750

And then buy yourself a nice top end card in about 1-2 years.

Kepler will be about 2x the performance of the current gen. Very unlikely to be 3x-4x graphics perf. But that's still formidable. Imagine the power of two GTX 580s in a GTX 680

No way is Kepler going to be 2x the performance either, sorry to burst your bubble. It's called drip feed!

On topic, one 580 is more than ample at 1080p, even with all the eye candy on!

Don't think you be able to tell the difference between 4AA/8AA anyway, especially as your not going to be sitting within a metre of 55inch tv, hope not anyway.

Trusty · 21 Apr 2011 at 00:04

double post

chrisarm · 21 Apr 2011 at 08:45

surely even a 580 is overkill if all you are using is 1080p

.Max. · 21 Apr 2011 at 15:40

Atleast you're spending your money on something decent rather than

http://shop.adidas.co.uk/product/ZW...selectedProductViewIndex=0&selectedQuantity=1

Also... Have you decided?

xsistor · 21 Apr 2011 at 16:29

Trusty said:
No way is Kepler going to be 2x the performance either, sorry to burst your bubble. It's called drip feed!

Yeah. Probably not. But 2x performance would be an upperbound. I'm hoping it will be at least 180% of the current gen, but it could very well be lower. 150% perhaps.

Trusty · 21 Apr 2011 at 17:42

Yeah, hopefully it will be a 60% performance increase, 80% is still pushing it i reckon, we'll see though. Hopefully the latter!

Atavist · 21 Apr 2011 at 18:43

As others have said @1080p you don't need more than a single GPU.

But: are there things you can do to make a even a GTX580 struggle @1080p?

Hell yes, there are. When people talk about "max settings" very often they don't mean the absolute maximum eye candy possible that can be achieved. Decent websites should tell you what AA level they use for their reviews, but they won't tell about about all the settings.

With max AA, DoF etc games like Metro 2033 are brutal. Some engines/games are also not terribly optimised (for example, my two OCed 580s produce less-than-stellar performance in Rift with all settings maxed).

If you don't have an issue turning off options that have only little impact on visual quality (I obviously do

) then something more powerful than a single GTX580 really is overkill. A single GTX580 will give you great performance and I'm sure you'll be happy with the upgrade. But there are valid reasons to look at multi-GPU options. If want to go all-out in terms of quality options and graphical mods etc then you may want more power. Even if that's not the case, two HD6950s outperform a GTX580 and cost about the same.

coupe69 · 21 Apr 2011 at 18:53

JasonKnights said:
Ive had a gtx295 for the last few years and it's been a great card even though when released it kept getting slated. The problem is the noise drives me mad! I think it's around 48 db in games. Il look into the 6990 option now

This just doesn't make sense, you're annoyed with the noise your 295 makes and yet you're considering the even noisier 6990 :confused: