Gtx 670 Discussion

[josephmorgan]

Hello all. Ive had an account for awhile and often just browse for info. But id like to start something. And it doesnt necessarily have to revolve around just THIS gpu.

Basically i will be graduating after next semester and will be moving. After the move will be getting a job, and i will be upgrading the powersupply and GPU of my rig. And possibly an ssd.

What i have now is

500watt psu (gonna upgrade to 850+)
3570k 3.4ghz
gtx 460 OC edition, and a 9800gt, used solely for physx (it was my old one, so why not?)
I use a 1600 by 900 monitor, so not 1080p but a nice screen i will say.
8gb 1600mhz ram.
asus p8v77-LK
Nvidia cooler master case.
250gb hardrive(OS)
1tb storage.

So now that that is out of the way. I will continue. You are probably wondering, "is he going to get to the 670?" and yes i am. Basically my motherboard supports 2 way sli and still has another pci express slot. Which i might use for a sound card, cause im a big audiophile, and i will be purchasing a buttkicker gamer 2. Also along with that i will be purchasing 3 1920 by 1080p monitors, and a logitech g27 racing wheel, as i am a huge racing sim fan aswell.

Now that all my new stuff is out of the way of what i will have, the last thing comes down to my new gpu.
As of now i am very accustomed to 60fps on all games. Skyrim,Metro 2033, BF3, Dirt 3, Iracing, etc. Obviously in metro and bf3, i am not running at complete ultra, but only a few settings turn down and bam 60fps. (i dont even notice a worthy difference to turn them up for the fps loss)

NOW, when it comes to the 670's , i plan 2 buy 2. Cause hell ill be running 3 monitors. I would be even more if i could afford it.(which is another question). But do you guys think this setup will work for what im wanting. to run games at 50-70fps cleanly at such a huge resolution?(i dont care about UBER max settings, just Pretty up there) with these 2 gpu's in sli?

Another thing is do you guys suspect a worthy price drop of the 670s come around june time? I am not to informed on what nvidia is planning and maybe some of you fellas have some better insight of what i should be doing.

thanks in advance guys. Im sorry for the very informal Post. but i tried to make it understandable.

Tackle this in anyway you like. and if there is something i forgot to point out, lemme know.

 

[sam_p_lay]

That's actually a good opening post - lots of detail so people know what's important to you! Firstly, yes - that setup would deliver excellent framerates. However, it wouldn't do at max. What you'd have with dual GTX670s is equivalent to a single GTX690, which delivers high (but not sky-high) performance on max across three displays. Metro 2033 will actually bring a GTX690 to its knees on three 1080p screens and max. So you would need to drop some settings. I know for the money you're spending that sucks, but 5760x1080 gaming is very demanding.

As for the June price drops, I'd say it's highly likely, but not guaranteed. If you look at some of their previous gen prices (GTX560 Ti, GTX570, GTX580), they've not dropped very well as a result of the newer models (at least not where I am). So no guarantees, but I think it's likely. And at the very least you'll probably get similar results for less money from a GTX760 when it launches.

 

[josephmorgan]

Thankyou sam_p_lay for your input. Very good first reply aswell. And it is most likely what i thought. But its mainly the very horrible optimization on the dx11 that kills metro. i notice no difference. if there is tesselation it doesnt make itself very known. i get 30fps with high settings and dx11, i get 70-80 just turning dx11 off.. on a 460. so i wouldnt run dx11 on my triple screen either, ha. But as for bf3, 670 offers 120+ frames on some of the highest settings from the benchmarks i have seen. and that is 1 670, i wouldnt see why i couldnt get 60fps on 3 screens with 2.

also. this, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kl5Dk9kK14 , really assures me on my racing titles atleast. 3 screens, 1 670, 60fps locked basically.

 

[sam_p_lay]

This might come in handy:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/radeon-hd-7990-devil13-7970-x2,review-32563-7.html

It shows the impact triple screen gaming has. Look at the GTX690 on Metro 2033!

I had understood that it was mostly optimisation (of lack of) in Metro that really drags down performance. Apparently awesome lighting though? I've not played it - considered it but I played Stalker (I think it's the same bunch) and it seemed a bit cheap and buggy, poor translation etc... pretty cool game (scary in places) and some excellent guns actually, but just not really my kind of thing.

Taking dual GTX670s over a single GTX690 I think is a really good idea by the way - same performance for massively less money, plus the ability to disable SLI in games that don't work well with it. When you've got a dual-GPU card, you're kinda screwed in situations where one works better. I played Rage on a 5970 and performed worse than a GTX550 Ti. Not impressed!

 

[sam_p_lay]

By the way, sound card is not gonna be a smart option I'm afraid - you don't have enough PCI-E lanes to play with. With a single card it would be fine, but two graphics cards plus a sound card means one of your graphics cards will drop to x4. Performance hit dropping from x16 to x8 is negligible, but to x4 is gonna hurt. It's a benefit of the LGA2011 platform. I actually got an X58 board (and original Core i7) so that I'd be able to have two cards at full x16 plus a bit extra left over for anything else. Ended up never using it, but that's what you want really if you're gonna use SLI plus a sound card.

EDIT: I mean you want >16 PCI-E lanes - not that you want X58 I didn't buy it recently by the way, I just mean I chose that at the time over a socket 1156 mobo and i5 750.

 

[josephmorgan]

Okay okay. I got you. Okay so what about 2 in sli. But would a USB sound device be a good alternative? i do produce music, and i have a 200 dollar tascam audio interface. Or is there something about usb thats not as good as pci? or just preference.

 

[josephmorgan]

Also, ALL of those results are MAXED out, in any case i would turn any of those 8xaa down to 4-2, cause i really would rather have that 20fps push. and turn down from maybe ultra to high, and as i said, they had dx11 on in metro. I think ive gladly made my decision though. these 2 cards will suit me fine for what i need and expect. And also i dont always have to run in 3 monitors, sometimes i like to play on one, and skype on the other xD.
One day when im in a good IT position making good money, sure ill fork out the 2grand on video cards alone, and the same for extreme edition boards and processors. but until then. ill be satisfied. Thankyou.

 

[badtaylorx]

worst case scenario you'd hafta ditch your soundcard and toss in a third 670.....

\oops sorry....no three way sli only three way cfx.....(really wish nvidia would support pcix4)

 

[josephmorgan]

Not even a x1 sound card? it would really suck up all that bandwidth from the pci-e slot? also im guessing i wouldnt have room to put it in the pci slot? or would it not matter and it still suck up the remaining too?

 

[sam_p_lay]

I think you've made an excellent decision - should keep you gaming for a long time. As for USB and PCI, I'm not expert on sound cards but I know they're not dependent on massive bandwidth - USB3 certainly should be ample and PCI (as opposed to PCI-E) is the interface that was always used in the past, so I think that's your best solution. Save your 16 PCI-E lanes for graphics (8 per card).