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want a second card suggestions please

gt1-uk

gt1-uk

gt1-uk

Associate
Joined
2 Aug 2007
Posts
9
hi. bought all my current rig from o/c. great jobs guys and the chat to the people to help with the order was excellent.

been a while now since I built my rig (4years) or so now. still running like a dream but like all true gamers always want more :-)

due to running 3 screens for gaming (a must for every gamer) im now looking for another (2nd) card for my rig. money isnt a problem. looking about what I paid for my first card £500. preferably another dual gpu. was thinking of getting another 5970 and xfire them. but I have to admit im I bit of the ball when it comes to new cards these days. so my question is...
would I be better buying another 5970 to go with my current one or is there a better alternative that would give me much more graphical power?

my rig is:
asus rampage 3 extreme m/board
asus 5970 graphics card (looking at xfire/sli for another board as have 3 spare slots available. any suggestions welcome)
6G ddr 3 ram
i7 950 quad cpu o/c @ 4.5g
850g hard drive
200g ssd
850W psu

thanks for any suggestions. please state experience/level of knowledge

please also look at my other post for turning my desktop into a gaming server from home (my little project)
 
gt1-uk said:
please state experience/level of knowledge
Click to expand...

= Godlike.

Hi,

What sort of budget do you have?

What resolution do you game at?


If you hve £200 then a R9 290 card (currently on pre-prder) will be much faster than your current 5970 (already a dual gpu card).

It has support for newer technologies, more Vram, all on a single card package.
 
I game at 6000x1080 (3screens) eyefinity.

my budget is about £500 but can go a little more if it going to be worth it.

Yeah going to increase ram to at least 12 currently running 3x2
 
Get the best card you can afford.

GTX980 or R9 290X 8Gb etc.

Or wait for the 300 series from AMD to be released in a month or two. You could probably even get two £200 R9 290 cards and crossfire those.
 
please state experience/level of knowledge : :D
1. Benchmark hobby website.
2. Have run surround and eyefinity prior to current 4K monitor
3. Might go 12K (lol) when something can actually run it

Grab 2xGTX980s, 2xR9-290s or 2xR9-290x's theres also the R9-295X which is a watercooled dual R9-290x GPU. With 1 card it's going to be hard to get 60FPS on newer titles and extreme presets.

You could also wait for new GPU releases but I guess at 6.2 million pixels (vs my 8.2mill) you should get over 60FPS+ with all bells and whistles in the newest AAA titles with the above recommended GPUs.
 
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the thing is I can only get one more card and xfire it as I already have I dual gpu. apparently the m/board can only take 4 gpus and as I have a dual gpu already im looking for a second dual gpu to x/fire / sli.

also whats better x fire or sli? I know they are basically the same but from originally from the different brands. (one was nvidias (sli) and the other intel cards) as my m/board can do both. what the advantages and disadvantages of both. going into new territory here.
my mboard can support 4 cards all running at 16x or 2 dual gpus.

looking at about the £500 mark for a new card to add to my existing card (for gaming)
 
Am I getting the idea that you're thinking of adding a graphics card to use with your 5970? If so I'm sure that won't work. Let me know if I've misunderstood you.

SLI seems to have the slight edge on compatibility imo because NVIDIA seem to have got real cushy ($$$) with Ubisoft and implemented their Gameworks in many of the console ports recently.

In these cases where money is involved the NVIDIA SLI works pretty much on release and they almost seem to purposely make it difficult for AMD to make a working profile.

Downsides to Crossfire off the top of my head are no scaling in windowed mode only fullscreen and bad dx9 support which is obviously not a real big deal. When I've used SLI I've had no real problems of note.
 
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yeah that was the idea of adding another card to my existing set up. x-fire or sli it or even use it as the primary card with my current 5970 running with it. so looking for one more graphics card to add to my set up.

just looked at the gtx980... looks like the sort of price range im looking at.

thanks for the suggestions.

Ranxzy why wont adding another card work? is there something im missing?
 
gt1-uk said:
the thing is I can only get one more card and xfire it as I already have I dual gpu. apparently the m/board can only take 4 gpus and as I have a dual gpu already im looking for a second dual gpu to x/fire / sli.

also whats better x fire or sli? I know they are basically the same but from originally from the different brands. (one was nvidias (sli) and the other intel cards) as my m/board can do both. what the advantages and disadvantages of both. going into new territory here.
my mboard can support 4 cards all running at 16x or 2 dual gpus.

looking at about the £500 mark for a new card to add to my existing card (for gaming)
Click to expand...

With your £500 I would go for 2x R9-290s any model with aftermarket coolers (two single GPUs). Unless you can shell out an extra £59 for the R9-295X (2xR9-290X on a single PCB)

2 GPU's are the sweet spot, over that you are basically getting diminishing returns and they don't scale that well other than synthetic benchmarks.

You won't be able to add your current GPU with any newer ones as they have to have the same memory amount and interface or it won't work.

SLI and CFX are roughly the same, drivers are worthwhile from both camps. Sometimes CFX drivers for newer games are slightly delayed.

AMD put out slightly more heat but are on bigger bit buses (better for higher resolutions and AA)

AMD and Nvidia have different features but imo (as I own both Nvidia SLI GTX970s and AMD Crossfire R9-290s) they are roughly the same with different names.
 
ok thanks for you input guys. just popping out for a few pints now. will be back on tomorrow to check things out.
so far its looking like a gtx980 sli for my next purchase then?

please check out my other post about setting a desktop pc into a game server as ive had no luck in finding a way of doing this. if its even possible lol

play hard. game hard :-)
 
gt1-uk said:
ok thanks for you input guys. just popping out for a few pints now. will be back on tomorrow to check things out.
so far its looking like a gtx980 sli for my next purchase then?

please check out my other post about setting a desktop pc into a game server as ive had no luck in finding a way of doing this. if its even possible lol

play hard. game hard :-)
Click to expand...

GTX980 SLI will run you up 1K .... anyways let me check out and see if I can help on the other thread
 
gt1-uk said:
ok thanks for you input guys. just popping out for a few pints now. will be back on tomorrow to check things out.
so far its looking like a gtx980 sli for my next purchase then?

please check out my other post about setting a desktop pc into a game server as ive had no luck in finding a way of doing this. if its even possible lol

play hard. game hard :-)
Click to expand...

I would personally have 2 x 290x 8gb cards. More future proof and should be just as fast over 3 x monitors. They are also £200 cheaper to boot. As you are used to Amd and eyefinity it's probably best to stick with AMD.
 
gt1-uk said:
yeah that was the idea of adding another card to my existing set up. x-fire or sli it or even use it as the primary card with my current 5970 running with it. so looking for one more graphics card to add to my set up.

Ranxzy why wont adding another card work? is there something im missing?
Click to expand...

To have the cards work together in x fire they have to be from the same series/GPU family so for example a 7970 can crossfire with another 7970 or 7950. Or a 290X can x fire with another 290X or 290 but not a 280X.

This is because the 7970 and 7950 use the same GPU called Tahiti and the 290X and 290 use the Hawaii GPU.

With NVIDIA though the cards need to be an exact match so a 980 with only another 980.
 
gt1-uk said:
please state experience/level of knowledge
Click to expand...

I have very little experience/knowledge.:)

I would grab an 8gb non reference 290X and if needed later on another one.

Make sure your case has good airflow as the 290Xs produce a lot of heat.
 
Console gamer never used/dont know what a PC is :)

Grab a pair of reference 8gb 290x's and forget about gpu upgrades for another 2 years, Can probably space them out on a rampage 3, oh PS remove that 5970, was a good card but its day has passed, find a nice home for it as its served you well :)
 
Experience/level of knowledge = Mined Bitcoins with my HD 5870 for a month.

If I was in your position I'd wait for the 300 series as stulid suggested.
And what ever you get make sure it's at least a 4GB card.
 
For triple screens, you would benefit from the extra vram on an 8gb 290x crossfire setup, and you would see a strong boost in gpu performance. Or wait for the 3xx cards.
 
thanks for all you advise guys.

yes I know I would need 5970 to pair it up and know it would work with a new card.

what I was trying to find out if its worth getting another 5970 or a new card (2 new cards)


I have my answers thanks to everyones input.

cheers guy :-)
 
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