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SLI 680's with 3*27" 3D monitors.

Gregster

Gregster

Gregster

Caporegime
Joined
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Essex innit!
Soooooo I finaly took the plunge and decided to go SLI. I have been wanting to go triple screens for a long time but never felt it was worth it. After lots of research and generally just reading of other posters, I decided to go for it.

So far I have set-up the SLI with ease and my biggest problem was the MSI Lightning has an angled piece of plastic (Part of the fans cover) that cuts across the SLI connector. Idealy I wanted to put my reference card at the bottom with the Lightning at the top but while I only have the solid SLI Bridge, this is a no no. So far on idle, the temps are very good (Top EVGA @ 36C and bottom MSI Lightning 30C). Obviously gaming will be the real test and I will keep a close eye on temps but if it is a problem, I can easily buy a flexi bridge and swap the GPU's over.

I can honestly say now that this set-up is HUGE. If you are thinking of going for a triple monitor set-up, my set-up spans 75" across. Take that as fair warning.

The MSI Lightning "Out the box" is very impressive. My EVGA reference 680 scored under 9K (3Dmark11) with no OC on it but the lightning scored over 10K with no OC. Also the Lightning has given me a massive score of well over 12K in 3Dmark11 whilst the EVGA (good clocker also) only scraped just over 11K. I will be benching 3Dmark11 as soon as I finish this post and will post the results in the 3Dmark11 thread.

After not playing any games as yet, I can honestly say how pleased with the looks but I can't wait for one of my Daughters to get Married so I can turn that bedroom into my computer room :)

I will post back on gaming for anybody who is interested in a while.

Here is a few pics. (sorry I am no David Bailey).

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(The Lightning is HUGE compared to the EVGA reference card)

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(Cables to be sorted in a couple of weeks)....Maybe :D

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I will repost again giving some performance results in a couple of games :)

Ohhh and just to add. I would buy B Grade items anytime. One of the monitors was brand new (Thanks 5UB), it was completely covered in all that clear film protector and the other has no marks at all anywhere (I gave it a good once over). It was the first time I have ever considered B grade but with buying 2 monitors working out at £200 pounds cheaper, I was happy to take a chance.
 
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I'm not jealous..... much!:eek:

680 SLi and 3*27inch 120Hz goodness. MMMMMM.:cool:

If i had the space i'd be there myself in a heartbeat.

Interested to see how you get on with 3D surround.
 
Cheers guys and man it does look good (to me anyway). I am not overly pleased with the SLI performance but I have realised, I am running at X8 on both (I should be X16 for both) but these are minor things that will easily be sorted. Also you will see I have had to put my computer on top of my subwoofer...This is to make the far left cable reach. I have ordered a 5M cable so that will soon be rectified (I would take a drive to get one at that well know place but I would be sure they will not have any).

I can see further investments coming (Ivy/Mobo) but these will have to wait till after Christmas as I would be strung up by the Mrs if I bought anything else :D

All in all I am very happy though and will have a play of some games now :)
 
gregster said:
Cheers guys and man it does look good (to me anyway). I am not overly pleased with the SLI performance but I have realised, I am running at X8 on both (I should be X16 for both) but these are minor things that will easily be sorted.
Click to expand...

Think you can only get PCI-E 2.0 x16/x16 on SB-E. PCI-E 2.0 8x/8x will only limit a teeny bit. Definitely not that noticeable.

I roll at PCI-E 3.0 8x/8x (effectively PCI-E 2.0 x16/x16) :cool:

What overclocks/drivers you running and what performance have you tested?
 
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Your closer to David Bailey than you are to Hilda Ogden, you lazy bitch!:D

Get that dust out of the case and tidy up those cables, you want that as dust free/best airflow as you can get with 2 gpus giving it full pelt in there mate.:)
 
Rusty0611 said:
Think you can only get PCI-E 2.0 x16/x16 on SB-E. PCI-E 2.0 8x/8x will only limit a teeny bit. Definitely not that noticeable.

I roll at PCI-E 3.0 8x/8x (effectively PCI-E 2.0 x16/x16) :cool:

What overclocks/drivers you running and what performance have you tested?
Click to expand...

man speaks the truth x16/x16 is not widely available, only on the x79 boards i believe.


that setup is niccceeeee!!!!!! i have the non-3D asus 27" and love it... but i've bought into the 3D bandwagon to give it ago. but i bought the benq 24"120Hz as seen what it can do....going to have the 24" as my main gaming monitor and the 27" monitor as my "junk" screen...e.g. mumble, live stream, desktop gadgets etc etc...really interested to see how these monitors are as i coullldddddd return the monitor and get another 27" :)
 
Rusty0611 said:
Think you can only get PCI-E 2.0 x16/x16 on SB-E. PCI-E 2.0 8x/8x will only limit a teeny bit. Definitely not that noticeable.

I roll at PCI-E 3.0 8x/8x (effectively PCI-E 2.0 x16/x16) :cool:

What overclocks/drivers you running and what performance have you tested?
Click to expand...

Yep, was my bad for not reading up prior. I was expecting 2X 3.0 PCI-E X16 slots to = X16 and not X8. All good though and very slight on the performance.

tommybhoy said:
Your closer to David Bailey than you are to Hilda Ogden, you lazy bitch!:D

Get that dust out of the case and tidy up those cables, you want that as dust free/best airflow as you can get with 2 gpus giving it full pelt in there mate.:)
Click to expand...

I couldn't agree more and will deffo be on the case. TBH, it is only untidy by the PSU with cables but I gave it a once over with the brush/hoover and it wasn't a proper job (before anybody picks me up, the hoover is well out of the way from touching anything and just collects the loose dust). I will be switching the GPU's over (Now I found the SLI bridge that comes with the Lightning) and will have a tidy up proper but for now I want to play :D
 
Just had a play on Black Ops. (my fav game at the mo) and it looks awful...everybody looks fat and everything looks pulled apart. I set the resoloution to 5760*1080 (in game) but am I doing something wrong?
 
wow... just wow. I need a bigger desk! Regarding your last comment, the FOV in most games in super wide resolutions tends to be a bit messed up, it could just be the games fault and nothing to do with your settings.
 
gregster said:
Just had a play on Black Ops. (my fav game at the mo) and it looks awful...everybody looks fat and everything looks pulled apart. I set the resoloution to 5760*1080 (in game) but am I doing something wrong?
Click to expand...

Only look directly at the middle monitor. If you look directly at the side monitors it will look awful. :).

Imagine it like the centre monitor is your direct focus and the mouse is your neck so to look to the left if you see something on the left screen you would turn your neck to the left to bring it into the centre of your vision. (i.e. move the mouse to the left).

Don't know specifically about that game though - it might not work in surround properly.

You should do bezel correction though to give you a custom resolution to make sure that the picture is aligned correctly.

You do it in the Surround set-up.
 
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Rusty0611 said:
Only look directly at the middle monitor. If you look directly at the side monitors it will look awful. :).

Imagine it like the centre monitor is your direct focus and the mouse is your neck so to look to the left if you see something on the left screen you would turn your neck to the left to bring it into the centre of your vision. (i.e. move the mouse to the left).

Don't know specifically about that game though - it might not work in surround properly.

You should do bezel correction though to give you a custom resolution to make sure that the picture is aligned correctly.

You do it in the Surround set-up.
Click to expand...

Cheers Rusty, I have had a fiddle with bezel correction and am happy with how that looks. I know what you mean with 3 screen gaming but I am struggling to not look lol. I can see this will take some getting used to but I will get used to it :)

whyscotty said:
Have a look on here for help for games that aren't native surround

https://www.flawlesswidescreen.org/index.php/Flawless_Widescreen

It works well for some, not so good for others.:)
Click to expand...

You, Sir Scotty are a Legend. I bow before you because now my most favourite game (of the moment) looks awsomes :)
 
Very nice,looking to buy the bits for my first gaming desktop in years,fed up with laptops and iPads,Xbox on nice tv but still miss pc racing sims and total war:(
Have £2,500 in my Ocuk basket and growing lol...
That does look nice tho m8,when I first looked I thought your wife might grumble having 75"'s of monitors in the kitchen:)But then realised its your office/playroom lol
 
I was just about to post what whyscotty posted. COD games don't work "out of the box" on 3 monitors, so the contents of 1x 1920x1080 display will be stretched over all 3 displays, making everything look awful.

Welcome to the world of tweaking for triple monitors!

I'm happy to see you've got a keyboard shelf too, when I first saw how deep the desk was, I thought "that's not gonna go very well". :P
 
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gregster said:
You, Sir Scotty are a Legend. I bow before you because now my most favourite game (of the moment) looks awsomes :)
Click to expand...

Glad to help,if your stuck just google wide screen gaming(lots of reading):mad:

Results though are impressive :D

Play about with FOV in game to improve even more(no more gold fish eyes for you) :)

You'll pick it up in no time,just becareful on some fixes messes drivers up.

now enjoy !!!!!:D
 
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