Video Card, Triple Display and Diablo 3

[shenberry]

The last time I checked Nvidia they ran cooler than AMD, so i would prefer Nvidia.

I have an old rig Rampage Formula Board, Q9550 CPU, SyncMaster 940Be Monitors. KiloWatt of Power.
4GB of Ram.

I want to spend 250 - 400 on the card

Let me know if you need more info. Thanks.

 

[eddieroolz]

I think you should hold off if you wanted to spend $400. GTX 670 is supposed to arrive sometime in the next few months and if GTX 570 is anything to go by, it will be somewhere in the $400 range. It would have better load power use than AMD and will probably run quieter and cooler.

 

[imonlymyself]

Get this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161407

Nvidia require 2 cards in SLi(all series below 600), and the GTX 680 is far too expensive.

nothing against the 7950, but he said diablo 3. Blizzard games run better with Nvidia chipsets so since your playing D3 for certain stick with Nvidia. the 680 is pricy so id really run 1 monitor till the 670 comes out which should run in the price range you suggested.

 

[shenberry]

GTX 680 looks to be $450 before tax

It not really a heat issue I just got tired of my old card being 90C when I would play a game. The cooler the card the longer it will last

D3 comes out on the 15 I don't plan to get it until June 15 when I get again
As Well I never liked MSI so what other company will release the 670 and is there a date. I have waited eons for D3 I could just save more money and get the 680 instead of waiting for the 670.

What is the best 680 for 475 before tax.

 

[shenberry]

As well would I need more ram for the 680 or 670

 

[bryonhowley]

nothing against the 7950, but he said diablo 3. Blizzard games run better with Nvidia chipsets

I have no idea were you got that info but my Sapphire 6950>6970 has no problems with any Blizzard game and nether did my 5850 4850 or 3850(AGP). And if the Diablo 3 Beta is any indication my 6950 will have no problem with it.
As far as heat my Nvidia 560ti runs hotter under load than my AMD 6950 OC'ed to 6970!

If the OP wants to stick with Nvidia that is fine but to spit out crap about a game not running on AMD with out any facts at all is crap! The fact is AMD would be his best bet for running 3 monitors and do you really think running one AMD is going to be hotter than having to run 2 Nvidia cards just to run 3 monitors no it is not.

 

[imonlymyself]

no, 4gb ram is fine for D3. 8 gb would just give you more freeplay room is all. anything over 8 isnt needed tho.

in my opinion id spend a tad more and grab the 680, but i suggested the 670 for that it should be more in the budget you mentioned is all.

as far as manufactures & release dates for the 670, i havent looked into them to be able to tell ya.

 

[imonlymyself]

I have no idea were you got that info but my Sapphire 6950>6970 has no problems with any Blizzard game and nether did my 5850 4850 or 3850(AGP). And if the Diablo 3 Beta is any indication my 6950 will have no problem with it.
As far as heat my Nvidia 560ti runs hotter under load than my AMD 6950 OC'ed to 6970!

If the OP wants to stick with Nvidia that is fine but to spit out crap about a game not running on AMD with out any facts at all is crap! The fact is AMD would be his best bet for running 3 monitors and do you really think running one AMD is going to be hotter than having to run 2 Nvidia cards just to run 3 monitors no it is not.

i never said radeons dont work with blizz games, im also using radeon and play blizz games. but if you knew blizzard any and you knew the difference in chipsets used between radeon & Nvidia you'd know that blizz games support the Nvidia chipset better. BUT since he's going to play D3 (blizz game) and since radeon & Nvidia cards are close in performance in there respected series, it makes far more sense to go Nvidia.

BTW, please tell me where i stated it wont run on AMD? i never said that, only you twisting my words
and where did i suggest 2 680's? your really twisting my words alot

 

[imonlymyself]

GTX 680 looks to be $450 before tax

It not really a heat issue I just got tired of my old card being 90C when I would play a game. The cooler the card the longer it will last

D3 comes out on the 15 I don't plan to get it until June 15 when I get again
As Well I never liked MSI so what other company will release the 670 and is there a date. I have waited eons for D3 I could just save more money and get the 680 instead of waiting for the 670.

What is the best 680 for 475 before tax.

the Palit GeForce GTX 680 JetStream is a really nice card. if your gunna go to that price range
http://www.guru3d.com/article/palit-geforce-gtx-680-jetstream-review/

also rerad this conclusion page
http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-680-review/26

 

[shenberry]

Confused to get Triple display with Nvidia I would need to use SLI
But to get it with AMD I would need only one GPU

The AMD 6950 is around 300 with tax, how much better will the 680 or 670 be with a old rig running on a Quad Processor?

No point in over killing with superior graphics that I will never see.

 

[vrumor]

I think people just like to try and sound smart, ive seen several people say that Blizz games run better on nvidia. Only time ive EVER had an issue running Blizzard games was with nvidia GPUs. So keep preaching the nonsense and carry on.

 

[imonlymyself]

Confused to get Triple display with Nvidia I would need to use SLI
But to get it with AMD I would need only one GPU

The AMD 6950 is around 300 with tax, how much better will the 680 or 670 be with a old rig running on a Quad Processor?

No point in over killing with superior graphics that I will never see.

he said he's using the 6950 but he never mentioned how many monitors he's using. id be guessing 1 or 2. even if hes using 2 screens he still may not be linking them together into 1 for the game. idk what his set up is since he didnt say exactly in that regards.

and 1 - 680 supports triple monitoring. so you only need 1 680

on which card you choose is up to what you feel you want to pay. when you give a budget then he-ha around it makes it hard for us to suggest for ya. which your current top budget price was $400. yes the 680 is a bit over ur top budget you gave but it is also new. a 680 will take longer than a 6950 to become useless down the road and as ive stated b4 Nvidia chips support blizzard games better than amd

 

[bryonhowley]

i never said radeons dont work with blizz games, im also using radeon and play blizz games. but if you knew blizzard any and you knew the difference in chipsets used between radeon & Nvidia you'd know that blizz games support the Nvidia chipset better. BUT since he's going to play D3 (blizz game) and since radeon & Nvidia cards are close in performance in there respected series, it makes far more sense to go Nvidia.

BTW, please tell me where i stated it wont run on AMD? i never said that, only you twisting my words
and where did i suggest 2 680's? your really twisting my words alot

I think if you re-read what I wrote you would see I never said anything about to 680! Since the only cards from Nvidia that can run more than 2 monitors is the 680 it should have been a no brainer that I was not talking about them! Plus there is nothing at all wrong with any Blizzard game running on AMD hardware and never has been and since I have most every game that Blizzard has made I know that for a fact. The point I was making is that unless he goes for a 680 he will need 2 Nvidia cards just to run 3 monitors. If he is was lower heat then Nvidia is not the way to go. Next time actually read the post before you quote it will save a lot of time.

 

[bryonhowley]

he said he's using the 6950 but he never mentioned how many monitors he's using. id be guessing 1 or 2. even if hes using 2 screens he still may not be linking them together into 1 for the game. idk what his set up is since he didnt say exactly in that regards.

and 1 - 680 supports triple monitoring. so you only need 1 680

on which card you choose is up to what you feel you want to pay. when you give a budget then he-ha around it makes it hard for us to suggest for ya. which your current top budget price was $400. yes the 680 is a bit over ur top budget you gave but it is also new. a 680 will take longer than a 6950 to become useless down the road and as ive stated b4 Nvidia chips support blizzard games better than amd

Not sure if the first part of that quote was about me but if it was I am running 3 Asus 27" monitors in Eyefinity. And the nonsense about Nvidia having better support for Blizzerd games is just nonsense and has no fact to it at all. And good luck even getting a 680 as everyplace I have seen they are completely out of stock. As far as getting a Amd at this time I would go for a 7870 or 7950 witch would be more future prof than a 6950 at this time.

OS: Windows 7 x64
CPU: AMD FX-8120 8-Core Black Edition
Motherboard: MSI 890FXA-GD70
Case: In Win Dragon Rider
Video Card: 2x SAPPHIRE HD 6950 (flash to 6970) 2GB
Monitors: 3x Asus VK278Q Black 27
Memory: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB DDR3 1600
SSD: OCZ Vertex 2 3.5\" 90GB
HDD: 5x Western Digital Caviar Green 3TB 64MB Cache
Optical Drive: LG WH10LS30K 10X Blu-ray Burner
Mouse: Logitech Performance Mouse MX
Keyboard: Logitech G19 Gaming Keyboard
Water Cooler: XSPC Rasa 750 RS240

 

[shenberry]

I understand with the flip flop but I can work OT to cover the extra cost as well I don't plan to buy the card and the game until next month, so the price might come down. As well Newegg seems to be sold out of every 680, so I would still have to wait. I really dont want to hold off pass June, so what ever you feel is the best GPU at the lowest price, coolest temp and can run triple monitor with D3 and the coolest card inside of Antec 900 let me know.

And sorry for the confusion on my part, I thought that was a sufficient price range.

 

[shenberry]

For the price will the 680 be better in specs than an AMD GPU

 

[imonlymyself]

Not sure if the first part of that quote was about me but if it was I am running 3 Asus 27" monitors in Eyefinity. And the nonsense about Nvidia having better support for Blizzerd games is just nonsense and has no fact to it at all. And good luck even getting a 680 as everyplace I have seen they are completely out of stock. As far as getting a Amd at this time I would go for a 7870 or 7950 witch would be more future prof than a 6950 at this time.

yes the 1st part was cuz i didnt see you say if you had 1,2, or 3 monitor support in what you wrote is all. If your avid blizzard player you should know blizzard fully supports Nvidia. And in benchmarks you'll see Nvidia seems to out perform amd in blizz games. my first response in this thread was "nothing against radeon & so on" and your first response to me was like i just spat on your wife or child prior. Ease up some geesh.

 

[imonlymyself]

For the price will the 680 be better in specs than an AMD GPU

LIsten, bottom line here:
your not gunna be disappointed in either card you go with, both Nvidia & amd at that price range is going to be very nice. they both perform near the same. some text amd out does nvidia and some test nvidia does better than amd. its really more on what a person preference is over the performance of either chip. as you can see Bryonhowley is really set on amd. best thing you can do is look up benchmarks and pick what you feels best between nvidia. people on these forums are going to tell you nvidia or radeon based on there personal preference

 

[shenberry]

okay 7950 or 680.
What specs should I be more interest in for the 7950 and 680 to choose the best one.
The game should be out for a month I could just wait for some D3 bencemarks

 

[photonboy]

microstutter warning:
All SLI and Crossfire configurations have microstutter issues.

The ONLY solution which I am aware of that solves this is the new GTX690 ($1000). However, my advice would be to get a GTX670/680 or similar HD7000 series and run the game VSYNC'd to 30FPS. The new NVidia drivers support HALF VSYNC (30 instead of 60) if Diablo 3 doesn't support it.

It will be interesting to see how well Diablo 3 runs on three monitors. It's not 3D (it is "2.5D" so you don't rotate the entire screen which requires much less memory and processing. Still, wait for the benchmarks (I know it's hard to wait).

GTX690 and micro-stutter:
see "Improved Frame Rate Metering"
http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/article-keynote/

(I'm 95% certain that this only exists on the GTX690 and does NOT exist for SLI of single-GPU cards like the GTX680)

 

[photonboy]

microstutter update:
Sorry, this issue is not "solved" with the GTX690. The situation is better but still exists. I found a few German websites and translated them (thankfully the graphs are easy to read).

I had planned on getting a GTX690 because price was no object but I'm sticking with a single GTX680 for my single 2560x1440 monitor.

I've seen microstutter in action and it annoys me a lot. Others may disagree and that's their right. The problem is 100% fixable and I'm amazed we aren't there yet. I wonder if new drivers in combination with the new GTX690 metering hardware will fix things but it seems likely that they won't completely.

The microstutter was almost completely gone in certain seens where the scenery didn't change as much, but once it did and each successive frame was quite different the microstutter is bad again.

Example:
Diablo 3 - microstutter probably would not be very noticeable since the overall scene calculations don't vary as much as most games from one frame to the next.

Crysis 2 - microstutter would be very bad at times since the times to calculate each successive frame varies. For example, you jump out of a room into an open area, then turn around to look at new buildings etc. The GPU has to calculate all the light, shadows textures etc and that will vary a lot as you are moving.

 

[shenberry]

Waiting is bad, but I will find something to ease my one for a month, while I hope the prices of the GPUs go down. As well hopefully NVidia releases its new chipset

 

[Sunius]

GTX 670 should be out soon (3 weeks, my guess). It should be a solid buy. GTX 680 would be a very solid buy as well, driving your diablo 3 at maximum settings on 3 monitors with 60-70 fps. Weaker cards could drop you to 40-50 range.

 

[uruloki43]

It seems that Tom's just came out with a D3 benchmark list. From their data, it seems like anything over 7870 is overkill even at 2560x1600 (which is 2/3 as many pixels as 3x1080) and a 6850 1GB even gets past 30fps at 1600 resolution with max across the board settings.

I'm curious how a 6950 for $200 would fair at triple 1080, though I'm pretty sure it would do pretty well and could save you a couple hundred dollars and buy some loot off the cash auction house (he said jokingly).

And in case you haven't looked into it, my understanding is that Blizzard does not natively support triple monitor resolution for D3 since the server spawns mobs and the map features just outside of your field of view on a single monitor. Because of this, expanding the screen size beyond 1 monitor causes mobs and the map just to 'pop' onto the screen out of thin air.

If that's an immersion killer, it's something to think about. But being able to keep your inventory and/or expanded mini-map open at all times may come in handy.

Unless Tom's benchmarks were from the beta and the finished product actually has much higher graphics settings that have been withheld until release, it seems D3 wont need a $400 GPU to say the least.

 

[Tavo_Nova]

no actually blizzard just like Nvidia

but I say nvidia or amd you can play any blizz games you want no difference at least to what I can see.