What Video card for 3 monitor gaming... AMD OR NVIDEA?

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dudeguzman

dudeguzman

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Well I built my pc,


i7, 2600k, 16gb sniper 1833 mem, gigabyte mother board, 120 gb ssd drive, 2tb western digital hard drive, dvd player, hag932 case, Thermaltake Toughpower Grand TPG-850M 850W ATX, COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 EVO


3 acer 23" 1080p monitors.


Video card ---------NONE YET!!! I have $800 bucks right now to purchases one card or two cards. Kind of want to go with Nvidea 580's 3gb for $1200 but dam, thats alot of moola!!!


Other choice, 2 6970 2bg crossfire, under $800.


Seems like another columbrum I have is that it seems that amd is better with Eyefinity multi monitor setups that Nvidea, but Nvidea is better with Drivers...


What to do?
 
Solution
ilysaml
1- Microstuttering appear with low end GPUs, barely noticeable with high end GPUs.
2- It disappears with 3-way CF/SLI setups. 2 HD 6990s are Quad CF.
3- I have HD 6950, OCing ability is easy to achieve, just the difference between HD 6950/70 is the number of shaders "stream processors".
4- HD 6990 is a dual GPU in one PCB, it outperforms the HD 6970/50.
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suteck

suteck

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But he missed columbrum which I believe should be "conundrum" - meaning a paradoxical, insoluble, or difficult problem; a dilemma. Unless the OP meant A vault with niches for urns containing ashes of the dead. And I've been looking for a "hag932 case, where did you find one?

Just kidding. Couldn't help myself - nutcase started it :pfff:

But to answer your question about video cards, My first choice would be the 6990 - Pick one for UNDER $800 RIGHT HERE all day long. Second choice, I would go with the 2 6970 2GB crossfire, under $800. If you start with the 6990 you can always add a second card later, but will probably need to upgrade your psu to do this. This is already like having 2 cards installed. AMD has the upper hand right now concerning multi-monitor video cards.
The rest of your build looks solid. Nice choices.
 
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ilysaml

ilysaml

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A single high end GPU from AMD can drive up to 4 monitors and it's called "Eyefinity", you need to have 2 GPUs fron nVidia in SLi to run 3 monitors and it's called "nVidia 2D/3D Surround"

What you should be concerned about 3 monitor setup is the VRAM size,The higher the resolution in games, the more VRAM there should be since more textures need to be loaded. And dealing with 5760x resolution is really high so if you're going nVidia route make sure you get 2 GTX 580s 3 GB version.

For AMD, HD 69xx are equipped with 2GB VRAM so no need to worry, but for a smoother gameplay @ high quality you need to consider 2-way/3-way CF.
And i go with iam2thecrowe advice to get 2 HD 6970s as they will give you close/better performance than the HD 6990, besides they will run cooler and less noise than HD 6990.
 
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suteck

suteck

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@ iam2thecrowe
Have you ever run the 6990 or had a system with it in the setup? I do and very rarely are they "loud". I know some people and some reviews say they are. If you are benching the shops out of it running it full tilt and overclocked yes, you will hear the sound of air rushing out of the cooling cover. It's not even the sound of the fan, it's the sound of air being pushed out of the cover. I am running one now and even when I game I don't notice the sound coming off the card. Mine is even sitting on an open breadboard type case and it's literally 2 feet from me and I don't notice it and it's no where near distracting. While the 6970 might have a slightly higher clock speed than a stock 6990, when you throw the switch their close and then AMD does facilitate clocks of up to 1200 MHz core and 1500 MHz memory through Overdrive. Plus, you get twice the processor and ram. - -1 6990 is slower than 2 6970's??? LOL, What kind of comparison is that? :sol:
 
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suteck

suteck

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Maybe the powercolor is that bad but my Sapphire isn't like that, Maybe I don't use it to it's potential enough so it doesn't get that bad or my case setup provides maximum cooling conditions but mine doesn't scream at me while I'm playing games. And I"m playing BF3, Unreal Tournament 3 and modern warfare and all I get is every now and then I hear it spin up to push some hot air around and then it goes back to unnoticeable. Shoot, I run the OCCT gpu test and the vantage 3D mark and every now and then it spins up. I just ran them again to make sure it's not because I block it out or something but I don't have those sound issues. What in the world could you possibly be doing to loud those cards out?
Loud??? You outta try putting 2 Panaflo fans on a heatsink while overclocking a 1366 - Jet plane in my room lol. Of course 2 are going to be better than 1. But if the OP goes that route he has already maxed out his machine. With 1 6990 he can have all he needs for now and in the future he can add a second one and he's back to top dog :bounce:
 
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N

Nigelfrost

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I agree. And, in theory, the 6990 has the potential to be faster due to the 6970s because it does not have the x8/x8 restriction as it is a single card. He can also run Quad Xfire in the future. So in my opinion it is a win/win situation- the same performance now (and possibly better) and far better performance later if he adds a second one for Xfire.
 
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dudeguzman

dudeguzman

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By the way, there running a special on HAG932 cases at Newegg.. LMAO.. Dam, im horrible.

Ok, every thing that I've read up on with these cards you guys have commented on here. 2 x 6970 max out my board, correct. One 6990 doesnt but its slower than a 6990 BUT my future looks good adding another 6990.

My main concern now. 3 monitors bf3, 1920 x 1080 will it handle it to play at medium to high levels. I would hate to know that I spend $2000 on a system to play a game and I will need to spend another $800 (6990) for me to play it smoothly.

Heres another "conundrum", today in the mail i have a used 5779 1gb card coming in via ups that I purchased from ebay. Why not put that card in and wait for the new cards to come out and buy one of those.. hmmmmmm
 
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ilysaml

ilysaml

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That's really wise choice, but the upcoming HD 7k series from AMD (79xx) series will be available in Q1/2 2012, they will push the HD 78xx series in December which will be no much difference than the current HD 69xx series.

HD 79xx series are equipped with XDR2 rambus memory which is twice faster than GDDR5 in transfer rates, they are 28nm prcoess, 1 GHz GPU frequency. A high end single HD 79xx is said to be faster than the Current HD 6990.

In short, you'll be happy if you buy now and enjoy your games. If you're not that desperate just wait for the 7K series to come out.
 
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dudeguzman

dudeguzman

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Well I built my pc,


i7, 2600k, 16gb sniper 1833 mem, gigabyte mother board, 120 gb ssd drive, 2tb western digital hard drive, dvd player, hag932 case, Thermaltake Toughpower Grand TPG-850M 850W ATX, COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 EVO


3 acer 23" 1080p monitors.
 
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dudeguzman

dudeguzman

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You know whats funny I was looking at gpu coolers right now too.. lol

Awesome. a bit pricey but probably worth the investment to protect the card and noise levels.

Hmm, i think i may have just decided on buying a new card.. :)
 
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