Which 580 is future proof for SLi

OndaGo

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Im planning on getting a new rig and am not sure which 580 to go for, as in what company and best cooling.
plus maybe down the road like 1-1.5 years to get another to boost the system instead of putting alot of money
at what will be the current high end card. so what brand is best in 2 way sli.

cheers

other components im getting are

i7 2600k with a corsair h100
asus p8p67 pro
8 GB G.skill ripjaws
already got a 750W TX corsair
 

ewood

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ll should perform the same at stock speed so pick one with a decent cooler and you should be good to go. just a heads up though, cards with exotic coolers and factory overclocks tend to be hard to find in 1-1.5 years once a new generation of cards are released. if you stick with a reference design card you can be certain you will be able to find a card with the same specs down the road. also both cards do have to be from the same manufacturer so sticking with a reference card gives you lots of options when looking for a card with the same specs down the road as unique designs often are specific to one manufacturer.
 

blade061188

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Regardless of which design/manufacturer you choose, you will be able to SLI so long as both cards are GTX 580s. If you get one in the future with different clock speeds, or a different cooler, it will be very easy to synchronize your clock speeds between the two cards with software (like MSI Afterburner)

The most important factor is VRAM size. If you pair a 3Gb 580 with a 1.5Gb 580, both cards will be limited to 1.5 gb, wasting the extra 1.5 Gb on the 3Gb card. So, you will want to either get two 3Gb cards, or 2 1.5 Gb cards.
 

OndaGo

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ok thanks, do you guys reckon that down the road getting another 580 will give better performence then having 1 of the new line of gpus that will come out ?
 

blade061188

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Can't say for sure about future GPUs. But I'd wager that two 580s will contend with or beat any single card configuration of the next generation.

Two 480s in an SLI trounce a single 580 for example. And it will certainly be cheaper than whatever top of the line GPUs are out
 

Warmacblu

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The new high end cards may perform in the same ballpark as 2 GTX 580's. If I were you, I would purchase a single GTX 580 3GB, especially if you play at higher resolutions.

I am debating 1.5GB vs 3GB myself. I game at 1900x1200 so the 3GB may be a waste for the current generation of games but it's only 50 dollars more for double the VRAM and I can afford it, so why not?
 

x Heavy

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I run two 580's each with 3 Gb/ vram. BF3 has consumed a total of 5 gb/ vram at times. Other times not so much.


I chose the MSI Cards to go with the MSI board to ease the OC Genie feature. I ended up OC'ing the SLI cards closer to the one gig barrier once I realized just how well they were being cooled.

Heat is the enemy, cooling is everything.

It is nice to have the capability there when called upon in the heat of battle.


In the past I crossfired two cards to beat one big card at a equal or less cost. Now I go the other way, Buy two biggest possible and hang on to them as long as possible. And they happen to be 580 SLI instead of two 6990 crossfired. I remembered EA having trouble with BFBC2 and ATI drivers and did not want to be caught in that trap again.

BFG was one of the great card makers, but they quit making them when the prices fell so far in a year or so on the cards that there was no more profit in them/ A shame really, they were very good cards for me.

Regarding availability, I stayed with AGP for years until games quit working with it then moved up in technology with a new motherboard with the PCI e interface and so on.

How long will my system last? Easily at least a year. 5 years? Well... probably with the 2600K CPU but that would be pushing it. I can see myself building or rebuilding this one with new cards and parts within 18-36 months.

The computer that was built around the SLI 580's is quite powerful, the only possible upgrade will be the new X79 boards and the 6xx series cards into the future and possibly some Xeon class Server CPUs or two on the same board.