Will this system work well for a 3 monitor gaming system?

[mazen94122]

I'm building a 3 monitor gaming system and wanted to know if this setup is going to be good enough. I'm not sure how the cpu affects a 3 monitor setup so please let me know if I should maybe go up to i7? Would I benefit in this situation for the larger L3 cache (6MB vs 8MB)? Notice that I'm not overclocking as of yet but trying to leave myself the option to do so down the road if needed. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Intel® Core™ i5-3570K Processor (4x 3.40GHz/6MB L3 Cache)
Asetek 550LC Liquid CPU Cooling System
8 GB DDR3-1600 Corsair Vengeance
AMD Radeon HD 7950 - 3GB - HIS IceQ
ASRock Z77 Extreme4
750 Watt Corsair CMPSU-750TXV2
256GB ADATA SP900 SSD

$1335 (after tax and free shiping) from iBuyPower

 

[luciferano]

I don't think that you'll have an improvement in most games (nor an improvement worth paying more than a good LGA 1155 i5 for in any current games) going from an LGA 1155 i5 to an i7. There is no game available today that I recommend getting an i7 to play because there's no game today that an i5 can't handle excellently in realistic settings. Few games benefit from going beyond an i5 anyway because going past four cores tends to not help most games too much (although there are a few noteworthy examples).

Your graphics card should support three displays, but you might want something more powerful if you're doing three 1080p displays. Overclocking it to aroune 1150-1200MHz GPU clock and 1500MHz to 1700MHz memory clock might make it very good, but I don't know you and don't know what you'd be happier with, an overclocked 7950 or something more like a Radeon 7870 Crossfire setup that has superior performance, but other trade-offs.

Just keep in mind that you could easily save a lot of money by making your own computer. However, if you want a prebuilt, then that seems like a decent buy.

 

[slicedtoad]

Overclocking would help at 3x1920x1080 but getting an i7 wouldn't since hyper threading is the only difference and it's fairly useless in games (it's made for productivity programs like adobe's suite). L3 cache does zippo for games.

That said, with a 7950, your system will be mostly limited by the GPU so overclicking won't make too much of a difference in most games. The 7950 is a great card but three full res screens are very demanding (expect to play most games on medium-ish).

What games do you play?

edit: and I agree with luciferano's idea of building your own. Cheaper, more control and way more fun.

 

[killerhurtalot]

I'm building a 3 monitor gaming system and wanted to know if this setup is going to be good enough. I'm not sure how the cpu affects a 3 monitor setup so please let me know if I should maybe go up to i7? Would I benefit in this situation for the larger L3 cache (6MB vs 8MB)? Notice that I'm not overclocking as of yet but trying to leave myself the option to do so down the road if needed. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Intel® Core™ i5-3570K Processor (4x 3.40GHz/6MB L3 Cache)
Asetek 550LC Liquid CPU Cooling System
8 GB DDR3-1600 Corsair Vengeance
AMD Radeon HD 7950 - 3GB - HIS IceQ
ASRock Z77 Extreme4
750 Watt Corsair CMPSU-750TXV2
256GB ADATA SP900 SSD

$1335 (after tax and free shiping) from iBuyPower

To run games at a decent pace with a triple monitor set-up (assuming you're using 1080p monitors) you're gonna need a better GPU. and at that resolution, Vram might become an issue if you get 2 GB cards... (on very few games)

Best solution is probably either crossfire that 7950 or get a 7970/ghz edition.

and you should really try to build your own PC. it'll save you a hundred bucks to spend on the GPU...

 

[luciferano]

To run games at a decent pace with a triple monitor set-up (assuming you're using 1080p monitors) you're gonna need a better GPU.

What better GPU is there than Tahiti? I don't know of any that are better for gaming at 5760x1080. OP could go for more GPUs, but they don't get any better per GPU than Tahiti for this usage. The 7970's full Tahiti is really hardly any different than the 7950's slightly crippled Tahiti and only seems to be because of the large clock frequency difference.

 

[mazen94122]

I don't think that you'll have an improvement in most games (nor an improvement worth paying more than a good LGA 1155 i5 for in any current games) going from an LGA 1155 i5 to an i7. There is no game available today that I recommend getting an i7 to play because there's no game today that an i5 can't handle excellently in realistic settings. Few games benefit from going beyond an i5 anyway because going past four cores tends to not help most games too much (although there are a few noteworthy examples).

Your graphics card should support three displays, but you might want something more powerful if you're doing three 1080p displays. Overclocking it to aroune 1150-1200MHz GPU clock and 1500MHz to 1700MHz memory clock might make it very good, but I don't know you and don't know what you'd be happier with, an overclocked 7950 or something more like a Radeon 7870 Crossfire setup that has superior performance, but other trade-offs.

Just keep in mind that you could easily save a lot of money by making your own computer. However, if you want a prebuilt, then that seems like a decent buy.

Thanks for clearing that up! What GPU setup would you suggest then? I plan on utilizing 3 1080p monitors for planet side 2, lots of racing games and maybe flight sims.

 

[killerhurtalot]

What better GPU is there than Tahiti? I don't know of any that are better for gaming at 5760x1080. OP could go for more GPUs, but they don't get any better per GPU than Tahiti for this usage. The 7970's full Tahiti is really hardly any different than the 7950's slightly crippled Tahiti and only seems to be because of the large clock frequency difference.

regardless, even a overclocked 7950 can barely run games at a decent clip with triple monitor set-ups...
I guarantee you that he will barely hit 30 fps or get mid 20s range with a overclocked 7950 on the newer games.

He'll need at least need to CFX that 7950 or get a 7970 and OC...

Well, he said planetside 2 + racing/flight sims.

Planetside 2 would probably be sufficient with a 7950 OCed on triple monitor... it's more cpu dependent imo when there's too many players on screen... (and in the closed beta, there's a serious draw distance issue. even with a GTX 670, it seems like i can't see enemies humans past 300-400m, vehicles i can see fine though. I assume these are server glitches though.

but racing games he's gonna be in the low 30s fps easy...

flight sims aren't that demanding...

 

[luciferano]

regardless, even a overclocked 7950 can barely run games at a decent clip with triple monitor set-ups...
I guarantee you that he will barely hit 30 fps or get mid 20s range with a overclocked 7950 on the newer games.

He'll need at least need to CFX that 7950 or get a 7970 and OC...

A good 7950 can overclock as far as a good 7970 with a similar cooler. The 7970's win is at stock, not when overclocked unless you stick with stock voltage for both cards or get a very premium 7970 that probably reaches into 7970 GHz pricing. The 7970 GHz Edition is a different story because its binning is superior to a point where the 7950 can't keep up.

Thanks for clearing that up! What GPU setup would you suggest then? I plan on utilizing 3 1080p monitors for planet side 2, lots of racing games and maybe flight sims.

I'm not sure of exactly how intensive any of those are except for the flight sim that I'm sure is very light, but if they're anything like some modern FPS games, then two 7870s or two 7950s would probably be ideal for you. If they're more like as graphically intensive as Diablo 3, then a single 7870 or 7950 would probably be fine.

 

[killerhurtalot]

A good 7950 can overclock as far as a good 7970 with a similar cooler. The 7970's win is at stock, not when overclocked unless you stick with stock voltage for both cards or get a very premium 7970 that probably reaches into 7970 GHz pricing. The 7970 GHz Edition is a different story because its binning is superior to a point where the 7950 can't keep up.

you're saying that a overclocked 7950 will perform just as well as a overclocked 7970?

 

[luciferano]

you're saying that a overclocked 7950 will perform just as well as a overclocked 7970?

It depends on how much you overclock it and if you overvolt, but good 7950 models such as the XFX Black Edition, Gigabyte WindForce, and Sapphire's models as well as a few others generally overclock as well as 7970s with the same coolers while consuming a little less power. It takes premium 7970s such as the MSI Lightning or the Sapphire Vapor-X Radeon 7970 GHz Edition to get a good lead over the 7950 and even then, it is usually at the cost of value.

 

[mazen94122]

should i be considering gtx cards instead? I really want high fps at 1080p on 3 monitors for good racing games.

 

[luciferano]

should i be considering gtx cards instead? I really want high fps at 1080p on 3 monitors for good racing games.

Some of the racing games favor Nvidia, but AMD scales better at higher resolutions and only the GTX 670 and 680 scale well consistently in SLI, not the GTX 660 and 660 Ti that are priced similarly to the 7870 and 7950. There's nothing wrong with considering a Nvidia card, but I wouldn't for your usage unless you don't mind paying more money to get a 670 (cheapest 670 that I know of today, $350 right now, cheapest 7950 that I know of today, $270).

 

[mastrom101]

should i be considering gtx cards instead? I really want high fps at 1080p on 3 monitors for good racing games.

Sitck with AMD.

I would suggest either a 7970 GHZ edition OR Xfire 7950/70's. You're going to want 3-4GB of VRAM.

 

[slicedtoad]

Most racing games are capped at 30fps and are fairly easy to run. If you get a single card, make it amd. If you get sli, it doesn't matter.

 

[mazen94122]

Some of the racing games favor Nvidia, but AMD scales better at higher resolutions and only the GTX 670 and 680 scale well consistently in SLI, not the GTX 660 and 660 Ti that are priced similarly to the 7870 and 7950. There's nothing wrong with considering a Nvidia card, but I wouldn't for your usage unless you don't mind paying more money to get a 670 (cheapest 670 that I know of today, $350 right now, cheapest 7950 that I know of today, $270).

By scale well, do you mean bridging a second card?

 

[slicedtoad]

Sitck with AMD.

I would suggest either a 7970 GHZ edition OR Xfire 7950/70's. You're going to want 3-4GB of VRAM.

3-4GB of vram for what?

BF3 uses the most vram and it still doesn't go over 2GB. And you run out of juice before you run out of vram unless you have something like 3x1600p with tri or quad sli. Anything 2GB+ is fine.

 

[slicedtoad]

By scale well, do you mean bridging a second card?

when you cf or sli two cards, the performance gain is always less than a 100% increase in performance. How well the cards scale is how close the performance is to double that of a single card.

 

[luciferano]

By scale well, do you mean bridging a second card?

I mean that a single AMD card scales better with increase resolution and MSAA and two cards also scale more consistently close to 100% for AMD than they do for Nvidia with the similarly priced GTX 660 and GTX 660 Ti. The only Nvidia card that can truly compete with the 7950 for this usage is the GTX 670 and that's significantly more expensive. If you want a Nvidia card, then the 670 is the best solution, but for you, an AMD solution would probably be superior. I recommend getting two 7870s for ultimiate value with excellent performance, two 7950s for ultimate performance, one 7950 for a mix of performance and low price, or a singel 7870 for the lowest price. There are better configurations, but these are msot ideal for you AFAIK.

7870<7950<<7870 CF< 7950 CF

 

[killerhurtalot]

3-4GB of vram for what?

BF3 uses the most vram and it still doesn't go over 2GB. And you run out of juice before you run out of vram unless you have something like 3x1600p with tri or quad sli. Anything 2GB+ is fine.

Metro 2033 and crysis 2 both use over 2GB of vram with a triple monitor set-up. with max settings and high AA. But that's it lol. no other games need over 2GB at that resolution,

 

[killerhurtalot]

I mean that a single AMD card scales better with increase resolution and MSAA and two cards also scale more consistently close to 100% for AMD than they do for Nvidia with the similarly priced GTX 660 and GTX 660 Ti. The only Nvidia card that can truly compete with the 7950 for this usage is the GTX 670 and that's significantly more expensive. If you want a Nvidia card, then the 670 is the best solution, but for you, an AMD solution would probably be superior. I recommend getting two 7870s for ultimiate value with excellent performance, two 7950s for ultimate performance, one 7950 for a mix of performance and low price, or a singel 7870 for the lowest price. There are better configurations, but these are msot ideal for you AFAIK.

7870<7950<<7870 CF< 7950 CF

you're pretty wrong about the SLI vs CFX... until the last patch, CFX has scaled terribly... even with the patch, both now average around 80-85%... ATI's CFX has traditionally always scaled worse than Nvidia's SLI.

 

[mazen94122]

Alright, I bit the bullet and went ahead with my original posted configuration. Wish me luck! Thanks for all your guys' help!

 

[luciferano]

you're pretty wrong about the SLI vs CFX... until the last patch, CFX has scaled terribly... even with the patch, both now average around 80-85%... ATI's CFX has traditionally always scaled worse than Nvidia's SLI.

I recommend doing more research. Radeon 69xx Crossfire scaled so much better than Fermi SLI that two Radeon 6950s could compete with two GTX 570s and three 6950s generally beat three GTX 570s. SLI on the GTX 660 and the GTX 660 Ti is far more inconsistent than AMD's CFX scaling with current drivers (older drivers are irrelevant), presumably due to their memory bandwidth bottle-neck that gets worse as you increase the workload such as you would with high resolutions such as triple 1080p.

Generalizing like you're doing is extremely inaccurate.

 

[nstiver]

Dude if you are running 3 monitors I would personally go for a faster card, or try to run SLI.

I would consider spending your money on one very nice monitor and one very nice GPU rather than 3 monitors and having games look like a slide-show. If you want smoothness go for a highly regarded 120hz monitor, if you prefer sharpness and image quality over FPS then go with one of those IPS monitors you can get from Korea.

 

[nstiver]

It's amazing that this has devolved into a red vs green thread when all the OP wanted was a little help...lol

 

[chase3567]

I'm building a 3 monitor gaming system and wanted to know if this setup is going to be good enough. I'm not sure how the cpu affects a 3 monitor setup so please let me know if I should maybe go up to i7? Would I benefit in this situation for the larger L3 cache (6MB vs 8MB)? Notice that I'm not overclocking as of yet but trying to leave myself the option to do so down the road if needed. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Intel® Core™ i5-3570K Processor (4x 3.40GHz/6MB L3 Cache)
Asetek 550LC Liquid CPU Cooling System
8 GB DDR3-1600 Corsair Vengeance
AMD Radeon HD 7950 - 3GB - HIS IceQ
ASRock Z77 Extreme4
750 Watt Corsair CMPSU-750TXV2
256GB ADATA SP900 SSD

$1335 (after tax and free shiping) from iBuyPower

Everything is fine with your build except the graphics card which you can add another 7950 for crossfire or get one 7970 vapor x oc edition. Any gpu should be over 2gb vram for multi monitor gaming. Your good tho, I game with two 560's in Sli with three monitors in 1080p.