Is GTX 680 Classified best way to go ?

[Marty721]

Hey, so right now i am picking a GPU for under 600$ for my 3-monitors setup... they are all 1080p. My processor is 3770K, cuz i heard that FX-8350 is not enough for editing + playing/recording. So is GTX 680 Classified best way to go ? Or should i better get some dual SLI ? I was considering two Asus GTX 680 TOP or R7970 Lightning, but i never saw a review that would satisfy me, so i dont know. I am willing to spend 1000$, if it will be big boom instead of Classified. I want to make it futureproof for atleast 5 years.

 

[bigcyco1]

I would be all over that Asus TOP for its high factory overclock, cool temps, and really, really quiet fans,heavily modified PCB, with an efficient VRM design to produce low temperatures, improved voltage regulation circuitry, much better Chil controller , specially binned chip and voltage control and monitoring support that you won't find on most other non-reference cards.The thing a straight beast!If you prefer to spend less i would go for AMD's HD 7970 and its more powerful brother HD 7970 GHz Edition have been on the market for a while now. MSI has also launched their HD 7970 Lightning in June. Now ASUS has released the HD 7970 Matrix - a card that will directly compete with MSI's HD 7970 Lightning.ASUS has increased clock speeds to 1100 MHz. That is 50 MHz more than the GHz Edition and higher than any other HD 7970 card, including the MSI Lightning. Memory clock is, with 1650 MHz, also higher than any other AMD card.




The card comes with a powerful triple slot cooling solution and adds many features for hardcore overclockers like support for VGA Hotwire, voltage control, and three buttons for direct GPU voltage control. You will also find voltage measuring points and a Turbo-fan button to set fan speed to 100% on the card.


Price-wise, the HD 7970 Matrix comes at $480, which is quite a price increase given AMD's recent price drops for the HD 7970.The other cards i would recommend are two Sapphire's HD 7950 Vapor-X comes with a large dual-fan cooler that uses the company's famous vapor-chamber technology. On the Vapor-X you will also find a "Lethal Boost" button which switches to a second BIOS with higher clock speeds. With this BIOS, clocks are increased to 950 MHz GPU and 1250 MHz memory.
Pricing of the Sapphire HD 7950 Vapor-X is $330 which is a 10% premium. Also, two MSI's GTX 670 Power Edition uses the famous Twin Frozr IV cooler from the MSI Lightning and comes with a large clock speed boost out of the box, making its default clock speed even higher than GTX 680 stock clocks.That would be a solid choice for the price imo they currently are going for $389.99 a piece that doesn't look unreasonable, given the improved cooling and higher clocks but it's up to you.
P.S. I suggest buying two of any of these cards. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202003#top

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121634

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121671#top

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127685

 

[babernet_1]

For that demanding application, 3 monitors AND future proofing, you need some real processing power and some VRAM. With a $1,000 budget get either three of the babies on this page, 7950's

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007709%20600286767%20600286739&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&Order=RATING&PageSize=20

They have 3GB ram which you will need.

Alternately,

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007709%20600315498%20600311820%20600007787&IsNodeId=1&name=4GB

These are 4GB 670's. Unfortunately, the normal 2GB 670 or 680's won't do because of their limited 2GB VRAM.

There is a 680 at 4G that is just over $500:

GIGABYTE GV-N680OC-4GD GeForce GTX 680 4GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125448

If you could spring and extra $15 per card you may want a pair of these under the hood.

 

[JJ1217]

You would definitely need more than 2GB of video ram unfortunately.

The R7970 Lightning is pretty bad imo, no dual link DVI. >.>

 

[Tom Burnqest]

Sapphire Toxic 7970 6GB

 

[Marty721]

What about two of these ? Sapphire Radeon Vapor-X HD 7970 GHZ OC 6GB...
Amazon 549 $... overkill 12GB of memory ?

 

[uninfallible]

You won't have 12GB of usable memory as both cards must load the same data into vRAM to share graphics processing duties. You will have 6GB of vRAM total, this is why thehy say the 2GB cards are not enough.

The 6GB Ghz 7970's are great cards but unless you have some ridiculous post processing effects or something going on all 3 screens I doubt you would need even 6GB on 3 1080 screens.

I would say try to go dual 7970 3GB Ghz Edition if you absolutely need to maintain the $1000 price limit.(2 of these http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125439 Gigagyte Cards is what I would get. Mid range for 7970Ghz price wize and close to the best clock speeds)

For a single card I would definitely go with the EVGA GTX 680 Classified you have been looking it. Everything the ASUS fan up top points out about the 680 TOP is also true of the 680 Classified and then some. Obviously 2 of these would be great but cannot be had for less than $1000.