7970 CF or Single GTX 690?

[ImFakeFiction]

Hi, just wondering which I should go for. I'll put my specs below if that helps. I've been looking at benchmarks for the past week straight for hours at a time and I really don't know if it's worth getting a GTX 690. I have the money for a 690 and I don't have anything else I plan on buying at the moment. I've looked around for benchmarks comparing the two set-ups in question and I can't find anything which helps me. I'm going to be recording, rendering, etc but using my 6970 as an example render times are fine without CUDA so that's not an issue. Will I be missing out without true PhysX? (I tried it with my 6970 on borderlands and as expected it didn't look as good as it should).

I really don't know which one I should go for. At the moment I think the deciding factor is that if I buy two 7970's from Scan I get Crysis 3, Bioshock Infinite, Tomb Raider, Hitman Absolution, Sleeping Dogs and Far Cry 3. Pretty cool offer if I do say so myself.

If you suggest that I get the 7970 CF can you suggest what would be the best brand card to get?
I've been looking at this one: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/3gb-msi-radeon-hd-7970-lightning-be-6000mhz-gddr5-28nm-gpu-1070mhz-2048-cores-2x-dvi-4x-mini-display

Thank you.

Kingston HyperX 120GB SSD
2TB Seagate SATA III HDD
MSI Radeon 6970 Lightning 2GB
16GB Corsair Vengeance RAM 1600MHz
Intel i7 2700k @ 4.7GHz
Asus P67 Sabertooth Motherboard
Corsair TX850w PSU

 

[neon neophyte]

borderlands 2 is the biggest deal for physx, everything else is minor and in most cases, non-existent.

the 7970s are better 2/3rds of the time. more so with high resolutions or multiple displays. everyone says 2gb is good enough but there are cases where you can use more. with the longevity of a crossfire or sli system like you are getting i would personally want more than 2gb for the future.

 

[ImFakeFiction]

borderlands 2 is the biggest deal for physx, everything else is minor and in most cases, non-existent.

the 7970s are better 2/3rds of the time. more so with high resolutions or multiple displays. everyone says 2gb is good enough but there are cases where you can use more. with the longevity of a crossfire or sli system like you are getting i would personally want more than 2gb for the future.

The 7970 is 3GB? I've got 3 24" Acer monitors @1080p so I suppose that also leans towards the 7970 CF also.

 

[neon neophyte]

theyre also cheaper and come with a buttload of free games right now ;p

 

[ImFakeFiction]

any more opinions on this please?

 

[JJ1217]

The 7970 is 3GB? I've got 3 24" Acer monitors @1080p so I suppose that also leans towards the 7970 CF also.

Oh yes, then definitely you'll need more than two gigs. I occasionally hit more than 2GB in Skyrim and C2 in 1440p, three 1080p would use even more.

another thing to consider is two 670 4GB's, but 7970's will beat the 670's overall and in multi monitor configs.

 

[maestro0428]

I would go with Sapphire Toxic 6GB model vgas in crossfire. They will be faster than a 690 (even the 3GB models will be better), although they will use quite a bit more juice.

 

[ImFakeFiction]

The toxic cards are horrendously overpriced and there's been no benefit shown to 6GB cards over 3GB ones.

Anyways, a pair of those Lightning BE 7970s in CF will be substantially faster than a 690 at resolutions above 1080p, just be aware that crossfire needs a little more TLC from the end user to get it working smoothly (i.e. get yourself Radeon Pro, use MSI Afterburner's framerate limiter, bookmark this link, and keep ULPS disabled)

So will the 690 at 1080p be faster than the two 7970's in question?

 

[bigshootr8]

I agree it is very overkill with the current state of games. The 690 I don't care much for because its not really 4 GB its shared 2 GB. If you are running on a single 1920x1080 display you would be just fine with the single card you linked in your initial post however you said that you are doing a multi screen display if you intend on spanning a game over those screens then yes I would say getting of the card you linked would be more then sufficient.
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/3gb-msi-radeon-hd-7970-lightning-be-6000mhz-gddr5-28nm-gpu-1070mhz-2048-cores-2x-dvi-4x-mini-display

 

[ImFakeFiction]

I agree it is very overkill with the current state of games. The 690 I don't care much for because its not really 4 GB its shared 2 GB. If you are running on a single 1920x1080 display you would be just fine with the single card you linked in your initial post however you said that you are doing a multi screen display if you intend on spanning a game over those screens then yes I would say getting of the card you linked would be more then sufficient.
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/3gb-msi-radeon-hd-7970-lightning-be-6000mhz-gddr5-28nm-gpu-1070mhz-2048-cores-2x-dvi-4x-mini-display

Alright, thank you!

 

[bigshootr8]

Typo I meant to say at the end getting 2 of the card you linked would be more then sufficient.... However, keep in mind that normally AMD handles multi monitoring a little bit better then Nvidia its one of there trademarks with Eyefinity so you could also throw in the mix 2x 7970's keep or sell the games that come with it and be happy richer or with a more complete library for the year.