I have An CPU and a GPU Question

Gary Brigman

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Feb 3, 2014
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I have an I5 4670k on an Asus Gene Z87 Motherboard, 8 1600mb ram, with a GTX 980. My question is with an I5 4670k OC 4.6GH could I use dual GPU setup such as dual 1070,1080 in SLI or when Vega come out could i run Crossfire?
 
Solution
with any cpu you can use a dual gpu

now, the question is, do you want to spend lots of money on a very big psu, on two video cards, hear lots of noise from two gpus and getting lots of heat from two gpus while you use lots of watts that will be seen on you power bill?

most users will buy one powerfull gpu and forget sli, in fact nvidia itself is abandoning the concept in general, only dual sli setups work now and possibly that could change in the future thanks to the fact that most games doesn't support well enough that setup and that the second gpu mostly works at half speed, so is half wasted

buy a gtx1080 to have it wasted, is a bad idea for me

atljsf

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with any cpu you can use a dual gpu

now, the question is, do you want to spend lots of money on a very big psu, on two video cards, hear lots of noise from two gpus and getting lots of heat from two gpus while you use lots of watts that will be seen on you power bill?

most users will buy one powerfull gpu and forget sli, in fact nvidia itself is abandoning the concept in general, only dual sli setups work now and possibly that could change in the future thanks to the fact that most games doesn't support well enough that setup and that the second gpu mostly works at half speed, so is half wasted

buy a gtx1080 to have it wasted, is a bad idea for me
 
Solution

Karadjgne

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The Asus maximus VI Gene accepts either sli or crossfire setups. The biggest issue will be the cards themselves. Many of these new fangled gpus have huge shrouds that'll interfere with the tighter spacing of the pcie x16 slots on that board. Best bet would be barrel fan designs that exit heat out the rear of the case instead of the normal case vented designs.

For Rx480 CF you'd be looking at a 650w+ psu, for 1070/1080 sli a 750w+ psu. Take into account OC etc and a good solid 850w psu would cover anything pascal or Vega.

The question not asked yet is resolution? For 1440p /60Hz a 1070 is good, same for 1080p /144Hz, for a 1440p /144Hz a 1080 is better, for 4k you could suffer with a 1080 or sli 1070, but for ultra 4k, many games require sli 1080 for 60fps. There's also the matter of multiple monitors run by eyefinity or nvidia surround. Sli will definitely help there in more than a few games, crossfire lacking some support in optimization.

IN 1080p /60Hz, using multiple monitors, but not surround, so only a single primary, a gtx1060 6Gb is plenty, a gtx1070 might be considered overkill except for a few very badly optimized games.

So what's the resolution?
 

atljsf

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gaming on triple monitor?

it is simpler to buy one 29" widescreen monitor with gsync, a better experience and a bit cheaper

if you plan on using all those monitors, you will need the dual gpu you mention but still all the problems i mentioned before applies like power consumption, noise, cost in general

a single gtx1080 and a widescreen monitor at 4k could be what you want, but you need to see one working for yourself to see if you like it or not

personally i think that 3 monitors is a pita, not to mention space and power cables, cables to the gpu, space, well, a nightmare
 

Karadjgne

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Gaming on 3x monitors is a trip. It's a whole different experience. If it's setup right. You'll need frame less monitors or you'll end up with large blank spaces between the monitors which ruin the whole viewing experience.
Personally, the 29" UW is too small. It's great in tighter spaces, but is not tall at all, just wide. If you are going to go ultra-wide, 34" is the best compromise, it's basically the same height as a 24" wide screen. So 2x 1080p 24" with a 34" UW primary, and only game on the primary is the way to go. If using different frequency, like 60hz on the secondaries and 144Hz on the primary, expect some lag, that's hard for the gpu to do, so try to match the frequency on all 3