Need a little guidance on whether or not to go down the triple monitor display road.

[mcfcdaniel]

Hi all, I have recently sought guidance on my next upgrade and had some good responses, it helped me a great deal. However since then I have got it into my head that I would like to upgrade further. I currently run games great at 1440p on my Asus Rog Swift PG278Q monitor, I love it, in fact I love it so much I was thinking about getting two more of them so I can run a triple monitor display. However I do not know enough about surround or eyefinity and pretty much every post I come across on the internet is from 2014 or 2015 and apparently there are difficulties and plenty to consider before parting money on a lavish display setup like that.

Here is my current system, the SLI 970's will be upgraded next year when the 1080 TI arrives, I was thinking of buying one, two if neccessary to make this triple monitor setup work at decent frames seeing that a multiple monitor setup is going to demand a lot more pixel pushing from the graphics hardware, provided the TI will have adequate display ports. From what I understand from the added demmands of running extra monitors is that more load will be put on the graphics cards and performance drops will happen, I'm just not sure by how much, perhaps someone here has some experience? I love playing games at 1440p on ultra (or as maxed out as my current rig allows) and would not want to sacrifice either resolution, detail settings or fluidity (to a point), this is the reason I wonder if going SLI 1080 may be more viable in terms of reducing the impact in performance. I have no idea here so any input is welcome.

Intel i7 4790k cpu
Asus Maximus VII Hero motherboard
16Gb Corsair Vengeance DDR3 CL10 1600Mhz RAM
2x MSI GTX 970 4G
Corsair RM1000 PSU

Obviosuly disregards the 970's as they will be replaced by one or possibly two 1080 TI depending on the feedback I get here.

Any help and guidance would be appreciated so that I can make my mind up on whether or not this is going to be feasible to do

 

[Jester Maroc]

2 Months ago I would have told you definitely! However, today I am going to say that there is an alternative, which is ultrawide. Almost everyone who has tried an ultrawide setup swear to never want to go back to either a single 16:9 display or even a triple monitor setup.

A lot of the gaming experience is hindered by the bezel and the split in your triple display setup. Ultrawide does not have this problem.

Ultrawide is not perfect, there are some games that are not fully supported (Dota2), so make sure that what you want to play is fully supported. I will say that basically all the newest titles fully support ultrawide and I am positive that this will continue to be the case.

 

[mcfcdaniel]

I had considered ultrawide but up to now have been unable to find anything close to the ROG Swift in terms of specs, at least here in Sweden on the component sites I often frequent. I appreciate the the reply and will look into it and do some research but if possible can we pretend that this post was made 2 months ago, I'd love to know what I would need to make a triple ROG Swift setup work, at least then I will be able to conclusively view both and the merits that both bring and judge from there what the next step should be.

 

[Jester Maroc]

What kind of FPS expectation do you have? I see you are currently on the GTX970 with SLI. Are you getting 100+ FPS in all your games? How important is that 144FPS benchmark for you?

If you are willing to settle for 100hz then this is a great option: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/asus-rog-pg348q-34-inch-curved-g-sync-monitor,4742.html

Here is a quick search which should help you understand the sort of performance you can expect to get with the GTX 1080 and triple displays: http://bit.ly/2fpEcLa

I am sure you are very familiar with Nvidia Control panel, so it will handle the multiple display setup seamlessly. To do the triple display setup there is not much you will need besides more desk space. A single GTX1080 has enough outputs (3* Display Port 1.4) to handle 3 monitors without a problem. So 2x 1080 Ti's will have many spare ports available.

 

[mcfcdaniel]

The fps is fine as long as it is above the 60fps mark running everything as ultra as possible, obviously this depends entirely on the optimization of any given game but I'd say 60 fps is the threshold I wouldn't want to cross. If I were running in 1080p then obviously I would demmand much higher but 1440p is always going to be the way forward for me. With a triple monitor display I'd say I would be happy to get 2k ultra running around 60 fps or so, higher is possible. From what I have seen so far from benchmarks I'd say my expectations are a little too high and at this point I am thinking an ultra wide will probably serve me best.

Thanks for the links, I will go through them now and do a little research on the matter.

That Asus Rog ultra wide does look very enticing actually, thanks for bringing that to my atention.

 

[Jester Maroc]

Glad to help. I am sure someone with 3x display vs UltraWide experience will provide input soon. It is not an easy decision.

I think it is very important to know that the games you want to play are definitely supported (by the resolution/triple displays/sli). My brother has 3x Ultrawide displays (2560x1080) connected to his GTX1070 and support for this resolution by many games is not always good.

 

[mcfcdaniel]

My usual games are Battlefield titles, Arma 3 etc, the former I know is supported and as for Arma 3 I would highly doubt it given how shockingly optimized it is. From what I gather from having trawled the internet today is that getting a triple 2k display is going to be such a hard hit performancewise in relation to gpu performance that it would make having a triple Rog Swift display setup pointless as I would have to sacrifice so much performance. It's unclear yet what the 1080TI could manage but I wouldn't think it will make much of a difference. This is of course if I have understood everything correctly.

I'm going to have a look at some ultra wide screens that are close performancewise to the one I currently have, that ultra wide ROG screen you linked me is very appealing at this point. Is there any other screen you could reccommend with comparable specs to that? I really appreciate the help.

 

[Jester Maroc]

I only know of one more: https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Predator-UltraWide-Widescreen-X34/dp/B016GNX4SE

It can also do 100hz. However, I personally prefer the ASUS.

EDIT: BTW, read the first review on amazon for this monitor. The guy had a triple display setup before upgrading to this.

Also a review: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/acer-predator-x34-34-inch-wqhd-curved-g-sync-monitor,review-33543.html

 

[mcfcdaniel]

I also really like that Asus ROG one, I think my mind is now leaning towards that as the better solution here and it is potentially on the shopping list plus the beauty of doing it this way is the fact I know that I will get away with just one 1080 TI. I think on the basis that I am very uncompromising when it comes to resolution, ultra detail and high frame rates that your solution is going to be the one that makes sense to me, it is actually cheaper also. You've convinced me and for that I am pleased, I'd say this is solved. Thank you very much for the input, it's been a massive help to me, kudos to you, sir.

 

[Jester Maroc]

Anytime!

I was actually also going to suggest only one GTX1080 Ti will be sufficient with this approach, but then I thought about Witcher 3, BF1, and The Division and I am not convinced you will get consistent 80+ FPS on ultra with this resolution.

However, you will be able to find out and if not you can always add the second GPU.

 

[mcfcdaniel]

I have the money burning a hole in my pocket so why the hell not go a little overkill A friend of mine is already interested in picking up my old Rog Swift screen so that will lessen the financial burden a little. I am a stickler for getting the max out of my games so adding an SLI 1080 TI would definitely be up my alley. Most people would argue that graphics aren't everything but the way I see it is that if I am paying a premium for my hardware then I better stretch the performance barrier as much as possible.

 

[Jester Maroc]

I love the way you are thinking!

However, if a single GTX1080ti can give you 80-90fps in the games you play I think getting a second GPU will simply be a waste of money as your monitor can only display 100fps.

Better to get the single card, and then look at how it performs. That way you can make an educated decision. I am sure you can think of something to spend what you saved...

A great set of headphones, a DAC, a mouse and keyboard upgrade...

 

[mcfcdaniel]

The extra 1080TI can wait until more demanding games come out in the future, that single one will rinse my current SLI 970's I'd imagine even though they have performed admirably over the past year or so they are now struggling.