which SLI or CFX cards for 4x 2560x1440 monitors?

[myomonitorz]

Hi,

Trying to decide which cards to get to run 4 monitors at 2560x1440. I have i4770@3.5, ASUS Z87-WS, 256GB SSD, and 32GB RAM.

My choices are...
a) 2 or 3 GTX 770 2G or 4G in SLI,
b) 2 GTX 780 in SLI,
c) 2 or 3HD 7970 GHz CFX.
d) or any other suggestions?

The prices for 3 GTX 770s 4G or 3 HD 7970 GHz is comparable to 2 GTX 780s and that's pretty much my max budget for video cards.

I have read in a few reviews where 3GB+ vRams are needed to run multiple monitors and a review where 7970 outperformed GTX in heavy financial calcs plus charting. I am not a big gamer but I would prefer the flexibility.

Thanks for your advices.

 

[myomonitorz]

The primary use for this system is to show live streamed financial charts and scans. Over 50 distinct charts and video streams across the 4 screens. This is my first build for this type of use and I am not too familiar with Quadro, Tesla, etc.

Do you have suggestions?

Thanks

 

[endeavour37a]

I am not sure how video intensive graphs and charts could possibly be relative to gaming. Thinking about it I would think a pair of 770's should handle it just fine. AMD has XFire issues so I could not recommend them. 2 770s would be 800, 3 would be 1200, 2 780s would be 1300, 3 770 should be more power than 2 780s................

I would do 2 770s in SLI, add a 3rd if necessary, it just may do a great job and save you a lot of money...

 

[myomonitorz]

With the 4 monitors at 2560x1440 that these cards need to run, how important are the 4GB of vRAMs when compared to 2GB versions in GTX 770 or 3GB in 780?

Thanks

 

[myomonitorz]

What tests other than games can I download to evaluate how the video cards perform? I have 2x770 in SLI right now, but seeing occasional lag in data stream while updating charts. Not sure if its system or data stream issue.

Thanks

 

[ko888]

What tests other than games can I download to evaluate how the video cards perform? I have 2x770 in SLI right now, but seeing occasional lag in data stream while updating charts. Not sure if its system or data stream issue.

Thanks

If this is a day trading system there is no way you need SLI or crossfire graphics cards.

Even a single GeForce GTX 760 will drive four monitors simultaneously.

 

[myomonitorz]

True, 1 GPU can run 4 monitors, but with over 50 live stream charts, I am definitely seeing significant delays. When I added 2nd GPU and another 16GB RAM, the charts and scans updated smoother, but still see lag in updates.

 

[myomonitorz]

What tests other than games can I download to evaluate how the video cards perform? Or is there a test to verify stream consistency?

I have 2x770 in SLI right now, but seeing occasional lag in data stream while updating charts. Not sure if its system or data stream issue.

Thanks

 

[bystander]

Lag doesn't have to come from the GPU. You may want to find out what software you are using, and if it even has GPU acceleration. It is likely your CPU being hammer and perhaps internet bandwidth. You upgrade both RAM and a 2nd GPU. Without taking out the 2nd GPU, you do not know if it helped at all. It may have been the RAM that helped before.

 

[ko888]

Have you monitored your CPU usage and network bandwidth usage? It may or may not show where the bottleneck is.

 

[myomonitorz]

Hi @bystander @ko888,

Both of your questions are what I am wondering too. When I run speedtest.net, my average down is 50+ and 5+ up. As for cpu, gpu, and memory utilization, I have both task manager/resource monitor and GPU-z up to monitor system loads. Are there other tests I can run?

Thanks

 

[ko888]

Did you monitor the number of threads in use while using your financial calc apps and while data streaming?

Running speedtest.net doesn't really prove anything about data streaming performance from the servers that you use for your charts.

Are you using both ethernet ports on the motherboard?

 

[bystander]

You could download MSI Afterburner and monitor the GPU usage while using your software. If the GPU usage is real low, then your GPU's are not doing much to help, if anything.

 

[myomonitorz]

@ko888, I am not an IT expert, what threads are you referring to? And how do I monitor that?

@bystander, I have downloaded MSI Afterburner and will see how it goes today.

Thanks

 

[ko888]

@ko888, I am not an IT expert, what threads are you referring to? And how do I monitor that?

@bystander, I have downloaded MSI Afterburner and will see how it goes today.

Thanks

Your Intel Core i7-4770 Processor has 4 cores and supports up to 8 concurrent threads using Hyper-Threading.

When you look in Windows Task Manager in the Performance tab page in the CPU Usage History group box you will see a graph for each thread that the i7-4770 is running.

Are all 8 threads always being used close to their maximum while you're using your financial calculation apps while streaming data? If the answer is yes then you've encountered a CPU bottleneck.