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some advice needed!

Ashfield

Ashfield

Ashfield

Associate
Joined
25 Jun 2008
Posts
315
Im looking at replacing my 1gb 4870 and really not sure which way to go.

Quick rundown of current spec:

i7 920 2.6ghz (not oc)
12gb ddr3
Asus P6T deluxe
OCZ Vertex 2 SSD
Corsair HX 750W PSU (modular one if that makes any difference)

Gaming at 1920x1200 but considering getting a 3rd monitor for triple setup further down the line.

Reading through the forum of late the 480gtx seems to be a firm favourite. Is this the way to go or would I be wise considering other options?

Not really set a budget but dont want to spend a fortune. Want to play Crysis 2 etc with the full beans and the setup not be obsolete with the future games (battlefield 3 etc).

Many thanks :)
 
if you want to run 3 monitors you will need two 480's/470's/570's/580's in SLI (or 6950/6970's in crossfire) or you will need an NVIDIA 590GTX or an AMD 6990

Crysis 2 is not half as demanding on modern hardware as Crysis 1 was on launch

depending on how comfortable you are with flashing the bios you may be best of with two 6950's flashed to 6970's in crossfire as this will allow your to run three displays with good performance at a good price compared to the top end dual GPU cards from NVIDIA/ATI
 
wont be running 3 monitors for a good while so not too bothered about that for now

would 2 x 6950s give a big boost over 1 x 480gtx soc? how would they compare for noise? ideally didnt want to have to go down the cf/sli route straight away
 
After checking finances I can spend a fair bit here so leaning towards the 580.

Couple of questions if anyone could help:

1. Which is the best/quietest 580 to go for
2. Is the 6990 overkill at 1920x1200?

Cheers,
Ash
 
Ashfield said:
After checking finances I can spend a fair bit here so leaning towards the 580.

Couple of questions if anyone could help:

1. Which is the best/quietest 580 to go for
2. Is the 6990 overkill at 1920x1200?

Cheers,
Ash
Click to expand...

1) The stock cooler is a very good option. Nvidia actually did well this time out. However, the version with the quietest cooler is the ASUS DirectCu II.

2) It really is. It is also really quite loud (one of the loudest single graphics cards available for a long time). If you plan to do triple monitor gaming - then it is good - but imho there are better options due to the noise (also, since your board/PSU can do SLI and CF then you have lots of options).

Also, please bear in mind that if you do go for a GTX 580 - then one of these cards will not allow you to run three monitors. You need to add a second GTX 580 card in SLI to allow triple monitors. Also, with teh ASUS cooler being so massive (and awesome) you will have issues running two of these cards.

IMHO your best bet is Dual 6950 2GB, and try and unlock them to 6970s. You get loads of gaming power, OK noise and the ability to run triple monitors.
 
Hmm, always been bit wary of cf/sli hence looking at the single card solutions, those benchmarks are pretty impressive though...

Is it not a pain to set up crossfire and am i likely to run into any headaches? I use my pc for work a lot (web/graphic design) so need it to be stable. Will the 750w psu be enough?

Thanks for the suggestions, itching to order this week. Got crysis 2 sat waiting to be installed :D
 
last question....

What are the noise levels like for 2 flashed 6950s? Having never used crossfire before im a bit wary about the noise. The Asus 580 gtx appears to be very quiet
 
Ashfield said:
Is it not a pain to set up crossfire and am i likely to run into any headaches? I use my pc for work a lot (web/graphic design) so need it to be stable. Will the 750w psu be enough?
Click to expand...

Setting up crossfire is actually pretty simple. Just pop in the cards, connect up the crossfire bridge, load up the PC, ensure the drivers are current and go into the catalyst control centre and ensure that CrossfireX is enabled.

As for stability - crossfire won't make your PC unstable. However, if you are using your PC for work that needs GPU acceleration then often these apps do not work with SLI or Crossfire. The applications will work just fine, but the second card will not be able to add any of its computing power to the work being done- it will all be done by the primary card.

As for power consumption, at full load a 6970 CF system using an overclocked i7 draws 601W. A good quality 750W PSU like yours will be absolutely fine.

Ashfield said:
on the verge of buying 2 x 2gb 6950s over the 580gtx. are the 2gb ones the ones you can flash the bios on?
Click to expand...

Yes, it is the 2GB ones. What you really want is to make sure that the card you get has a physical BIOS switch and 2 BIOSs (this allows you to easily recover the card and bring it back to factory settings if anything goes wrong with the flash). You could send a webnote to OCUK to check which of the 2GB cards have this.

Ashfield said:
What are the noise levels like for 2 flashed 6950s? Having never used crossfire before im a bit wary about the noise. The Asus 580 gtx appears to be very quiet
Click to expand...

This review shows the noise levels of single and dual 6950 and 6970 cards. It shows that when run in crossfire - the 6970 and 6950 are about the same noise level. They are both also slightly noisier than a single GTX 580 - but at the same time they provide much more graphical power.

Ashfield said:
talking to myself a bit here hahaha but anyway, worth getting the more expensive http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-256-SP over http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-192-XF or the MSI?

any difference between fan noise etc?
Click to expand...

The coolers are the same (different stickers). So long as that XFX model has the dual BIOSs and the hardware switch then it is an excellent price and the one to get imho.
 
Last edited:
Your Order has been packed and is in the process of being shipped.
----------------------------------------------------------
Goods Shipped:
£166.66 x 2 - XFX ATI Radeon 6950 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card

:D:cool:
 
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