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New 27" screen, few GPU options....

snedie

snedie

snedie

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Joined
26 Aug 2009
Posts
1,299
So, here is my list of current GPU's:

2x 5970's
2x GTX280's

Now, the 5970's don't work with BF3 so I'm currently rocking a single GTX280 (cannot be bothered to go in my loft to find the second :D), which is just or so running BF3 on medium/high/auto settings at 1080p.

However, the new dell screen which arrives Monday is 2560*1440 and I seriously doubt that a GTX280, or even two of them is going to power that resolution, and this is where my problem lies. The 5970's would be great at this resolution (it's why I bought the screen), but not been able to play BF3 is annoying seen as it's currently the only game I really play.

Sooo....assuming that I couldn't get either pair of cards running at this resolution, what would be a good step up from the 5970's? I was thinking dual 6970's, or even an nvidia SLi set-up (I'm no fan boy, I know both of them provide some awesome cards).

Any info anyone has, especially for getting BF3 running with quadfire, is greatly appreciated.
 
If the 5970s are 1GB they wouldn't run 2560x1440 in BF3 very well even if they did work. I am hoping that a single 7970 with 2gb will do a nice job of 1440p in a couple of months time.
 
Ste said:
If the 5970s are 1GB they wouldn't run 2560x1440 in BF3 very well even if they did work. I am hoping that a single 7970 with 2gb will do a nice job of 1440p in a couple of months time.
Click to expand...

2GB per card, 1GB per core. With the CAP's applied all 4GB should be available to the games which use quad/crossfire. If not, just 1GB.

As an update, I did a vanilla install of windows now that the 11.10 drivers have been officially released, the game works with quad fire amazingly. Well, all 4 minutes of game play that I tried did (lan party awaits).
 
Is it the Dell U2711 that your getting?
If so I have had one for around 18 months, with a GTX470 1248MB & it struggled at that res. As far as I understand it's due to the lack of RAM the card had.
It was a silly move on my part as I could not afford a better card at the time & that screen does not scale down well at all.
I have only just got a card that can run at max res now.
 
snedie said:
2GB per card, 1GB per core. With the CAP's applied all 4GB should be available to the games which use quad/crossfire. If not, just 1GB.

As an update, I did a vanilla install of windows now that the 11.10 drivers have been officially released, the game works with quad fire amazingly. Well, all 4 minutes of game play that I tried did (lan party awaits).
Click to expand...

There's always only 1GB available to each of the cards - the ram is always mirrored.
 
Troezar said:
Interesting that a clean install sorted all his quadfire issues...
Click to expand...

Only reason I went for a clean install was because upgrading from 11.9 to 11.10 caused a BSOD on windows load, and installing from a partition on my ssd array only takes 6 minutes.

Garsands, which card are you currently running for that resolution?
 
I am now using a GTX580 3GB.
I have a chance of keeping a 2nd one next week but not made my mind up yet.
But one is fine as my CPU is holding it back at the moment anyway.
 
What cpu are you running?

I'm only on an i5 @ stock 2.4Ghz and I get exactly the same benchmarks as the reviewers get. I have decent 2000Mhz ram which made quite an impact from 1200Mhz in regards to performance.
 
snedie said:
What cpu are you running?

I'm only on an i5 @ stock 2.4Ghz and I get exactly the same benchmarks as the reviewers get. I have decent 2000Mhz ram which made quite an impact from 1200Mhz in regards to performance.
Click to expand...

Overclocking your cpu should give you more performance in pretty much every game. 4 gpu's need a lot of cpu grunt so i am pretty sure you will not be seeing anywhere near your full potential at your current clock even though your resolution is pretty gpu dependant.
 
snedie said:
What cpu are you running?

I'm only on an i5 @ stock 2.4Ghz and I get exactly the same benchmarks as the reviewers get. I have decent 2000Mhz ram which made quite an impact from 1200Mhz in regards to performance.
Click to expand...

Sorry snedie I lied, well not meaning to.
Yesterday I wanted to test the card I have installed at the moment as it's waiting to be RMA as it has a fault, I needed to see if the fault affected the cards performance luckly the card is up to speed. So I may keep the faulty card & it's replacement as they are now hard to get.

So I run the Heaven bench mark using this thread
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18249292
to see where my PC came so at 1680x1050 res my PC had no problem with the test.
I then OC my GPU to 925/2200 & I got the same score so that's why I thought my CPU was bottle necking the GPU.
I then ran the test at max settings & max res at stock clock & then OC & the OC test had a higher score.

So at 1680x1050 the CPU is holding the card back but as max settings & max res the GPU is working at 100% load & the CPU is not holding it back.

My CPU is i7 920 @ 4Ghz.
 
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I achieve higher benchmark results in certain areas with an overclocked cpu, but in game it's not noticeable. Well, not right now: I just got my new dell 27" screen which I have a funny feeling with its 2650*1440 res is going to mix things up a little (Looks at bank for money for an amd 8 core...)
 
lay-z-boy said:
I hope you're joking.
Click to expand...

My pc isn't just for gaming. I run network simulations (GNS3) for my studies, this requires a lot of cpu power. I rock 3 servers with dual quad cores in each, plus my i5 gaming rig to run these simulations. If I could get a 8 core cpu, thats one less server I need to run, saving a lot on power bills.

I was even considering a dual socket board to load with 8 core cpu's once I find a job so I can jump my studies up a gear.

[ninja edit] RAM is also a major issue, a dual socket board could rock me 32GB easily.
 
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