Widescreen Gaming Forum

Hey all!

I will be making an "introduction thread" soon, if necessary, but I'm one for skipping formality and getting to the issue at hand.

I'm in the military, and currently on deployment in Afghanistan. I'll be returning to the states in a couple short months, and I've been planning. A lot. I've based a lot of this build on information that I've dug up around the net, mainly here and Tom's Hardware. So far, my build looks like this:


ASRock Z68 EXTREME4 GEN3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

PowerColor AX6870X2 2GBD5-2DHG Radeon HD 6870 x2 2GB 2 X 256bit (256bit) GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX ...

XFX HD-687X-CNFC Radeon HD 6870 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor

G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2133 (PC3 17000)

The monitors I'm still scoping out, but I may have just decided to bite the bullet and get three 24" Dell IPS monitors, due to them being 1980x1200, and being over 23". Added bonus: excellent color reproduction.

My need for help is this: I'm trying to rid myself of microstutter, and have nice frame rates. My eyes are extremely sensitive to dipping frame rates, and I'm pushing some very big resolutions here. I do want to play games at nearly max. I know that I'm asking a lot, but, in the end, I'm willing to pay a lot. I'm looking at spending around $700 in video cards alone.

Has anyone else run the video card setup discussed here and if so, what are the resolutions and settings you're getting out of it?

Has anyone run a different multi-GPU setup? What is it and how much would it cost in today's money?

Thanks in advance for any advice, and to the moderators; if this is the wrong forum, I sincerely apologize.

Hi there.

If I'm not wrong the HD 6870X2 only has 1GP Per GPU and is written as 2GB total. So it might *not* work with a 6870 2GB in Crossfire. or the 6870 2gb will only use 1GB VRAM.

You meant this article at Toms Hardware!
Well, i have no idea how this graph looks in 5760*1200 ! But i would suggest 2x HD 6970. should also be around 650$ and you have 2GB of VRAM.
Oh, and if you wait for 2-3 months... (6. December was said to be release date, the might come in December, January or February.) The new HD7970 will/should launch.

Like you've seen in the Graphs on Toms Benchs, Nvidia SLI works way better in suppressing micro stutter than AMD. Nvidia's GTX600 series should also launch something around 1Q /2012

_________________
We gonna send it to outa space!

I'm aware of the 1GB per core with the x2, however, with Crossfire, I was under the impression that the memory between all cards was shared; therefore getting the other 6870 with 2GB would bring the total up to 1.3 GB a core. Is this not the case?



I'm not averse to SLI, but the 590 i thought was just two chips internally set to SLI, and seems to have worse microstutter over three GPU solutions.

And as an aside, this system won't be built until January, but the internet is pretty slow out here, so finding out info about upcoming systems here takes a looong time to browse to find.

Also this:

In both categories, however, CrossFire and SLI fall victim to micro-stuttering. At higher resolutions, Nvidia seems worse than AMD. The three-way CrossFire setup is the overall winner if you want to keep stuttering to a minimum.

Nope it doesnt share the memory! If you have HD6870X2 with 2GB V-RAM, that means that every GPU has 1GB V-Ram on the PCB. Thats why i think Crossfire wont work with a extra HD6870 2gb.

Terribly sorry, i dont own a GTX 590, nor a CF, neither a Trifire. Cant realy tell how much this micro stuttering is a problem.
Even though i used a HD3870X2 CF card for 3 years.... never realised something like micro stuttering. maybe just didnt pay attention to it.



Maybe some CF / Tri fire / SLI users can comment anything on this part ;)

BTW: GTX590 is SLI: so can you add 3 Monitors? Or do you need 2 Graphic Cards in SLI ? Some1 knows ?

_________________
We gonna send it to outa space!