Would I be creating a bottleneck?

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BE4TNUT

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Jun 24, 2011
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So I am curious on the setup I would like to build out within the next couple months. If I had the following rig:

i5-2600K processor
8GB G.Skill 1600 RAM
ASRock Z68 Extreme 4 Mobo
1000 or 1200 watt power supply

Now I am thinking about running either a 590 (adding another later when quad SLI has better support) or a 6990 and 6970 together in crossfire.

Now this mobo when in SLI on the 16x lanes bumps them down to 8x/8x instead of 16x/16x or 16x/8x. Would I be facing any bottleneck issues anywhere? I want to be running a three monitor setup with eyefinity or nvidia surround. I am unsure yet what resolutions I would be running because I am trying to figure out the difference, or what would be better, with running 1080p full HD monitors or something with a higher resolution.
 
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rolli59

rolli59

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Oct 27, 2007
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Those dual GPU cards you list are the only cards on the market that will bottleneck somewhat from that speed drop. You are better of getting a motherboard that supports crossfire/SLI at X16 X16. A small price to pay when you buy GPU's over $1000!
 
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BE4TNUT

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Because 3 GPU's still scale well but 4 GPU's do not. There is issues running 4 GPU's together right now. This is my understanding, correct me if I am wrong.
 
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BE4TNUT

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Yes I will be overclocking as far as I can go with it. It's not a concern of one game one monitor, but the fact that eyefinity type of setup does make the card work a lot harder with more rendering for the extra screens.

I was thinking about running three of the same cards but I have hopes that the scalability will improve with new drivers in the near future and then running two dual GPU cards. That way when I go to upgrade I can just buy one card and not three new cards.
 
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BE4TNUT

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I assumed that you could mix NVIDIA cards liek you can with ATI cards, so knowing that NVIDIA doesn't allow it is good to know.
 
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mdd1963

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One major snag....

No one seems to have any 6990s left anyway, and, Newegg has completely delisted them.

However....a pair of 6950s comes close to/matches a 6990, and offers outstanding performance for it's $500 combined price.....

The OP mentioned combining GTX590/GTX580 SLI, which is viable, as is 6990/6970 combo.....
 
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The_One_and_Only

The_One_and_Only

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Dude go with 1 Gtx 580 now or 2 if you can afford it. The GTX 590 has a way to go for driver support. And ATI doesn't compare in this generation. As for the PCI Express lanes dropping down to 8x/8x that won't make a diff with single GPU cards as the bandwidth is increased over last generation ( see sandy bridge integrated pci express controller) and in some cases beats standard 16x/16x because of the improvements. One thing you will notice with NF-200 equipped sandy bridge boards is you actually lose a frame or 2 by using nvidias pci express controller, This is because it is using a broadcast algorithm that is emulating more lane with out actually having them. This increases latency, thus dropping frames a little bit. Not much but if you are only getting 2 cards it is a downgrade. Now I have noticed that the only situation you would want the nf-200 chip is if you are running 3 cards in sli (nvidia) The broadcasting actually is better at handling the increased load through intelligent managment. You say you want to run multi monitor set up? The best possible combo that I have seen is 3 gtx 580's with a sandy bridge CPU in a ASUS Maximus IV Extreme-Z LGA.
 
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legendkiller

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Wait until next week or when Nvidia released the Kepler because it's ganna perform better than the fermi... I Read a Article and i forgot where but Nvidia is releasing Kepler next week... I Dont really understand what these name like Fermi and Kepler means so IDK what it even improve over Fermi Video Cards LOL...
 
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Mousemonkey

Mousemonkey

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Next week? Are you sure? :heink:
 
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