Widescreen Gaming Forum

Ok guys..
need some help as Google really isn't finding what I want for benchmarking.

I have the following hardware..

i7 920 watercooled
EVGA Classified X58 FTW
Corsair 850 power
12gigs DDR3 1600

running right now 2x EVGA GTX 460EE 1G FTWs

I also own a EVGA GTX 580 1.5
and a MSI HD 6950 2G

My second system is a i7 2600K running at 4.7
also with 12gigs

Running a p67 crossfire/SLI capable board.

I'm trying to drive 3x 22s 3 Sammys Actually 21.5s but 1920x1200 res

I also have a DisplayPort capable true 22 HP that doesn't have as good as a res as the sammys but should be marginally OK if I want to put it as a center and run Eyefinity DP directly off it.

Now the issues are marginal performance with the SLI 1gig 460s in most games.. and they are working super hard 100% fans and still max safe temps 96-99C on the primary card.

Now I'm not opposed to getting a second 6950 2gig if ATI is the clear winner at super high res gaming...

not sure If I want to get a second 580 1.5 though.. super pricy and would prolly need a 1200PSU to run my system as I have quite a few other devices and drives in there..

Looking for some advice here.. I love that I dont have to mess with DisplayPort adapters or monitors with the Nvidia setup and have ALWAYS been true to Nvidia.. but not opposed to trying the dark side and using the 6950 I have and possibly getting another if crossfire on that card and super high res is worth it..

the problem is I cannot find ANY info on super large/multi screen gaming.. at normal res's on paper the 6950 in crossfire does not seem that much better than my 460 SLI setup according to Anandtech Bench..

anyway posted here to get advice on both Nvidia as well as AMD in super high res Eyefinity/Surround 2d setups.

Wow for the so called Eyefinity/Surround experts on the entire web sure not getting any info..

disappointing for sure.

Really, dude? Check how active the forum is. We don't live here to help out newbies like it's a job. Have a little patience and a little respect and someone will help you out in time. There's easily enough information floating out there in the mean time to help you come up with an answer.

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(imagination not allowed in signature)

patience? I didn't have DAYS to wait.. I needed an answer and there isn't enough info anywhere..
I was literally waiting for an answer to go buy what I needed.

I asked very specific questions and was pointed here by Anandtech as the ONLY place to get the info..
so far I have to say worst forum on the net.. no help at all. not even a sorry we don't have an answer just a smart ass reply from you.

I have now replaced all 3 monitors with true 22's for a 16:10 res but am still using the Nvidia 460s and I'm not impressed with performance at all.

There are two problems here.
1. Your question is not clear/specific. I have read you OP 3 times now and I am still not 100% sure that I understand what you are asking.
2. Your attitude is wrong, your second post 3hrs later is way off. This forum is obviously not as active as you may be used to so posting something and coming back 3hrs later and expecting an answer is not always going to happen. Any chance of one of the experts helping you was blown out the window by your second post 3hrs after your initial question.

What games do you play and intend to play?
How much do you want to spend on upgrades?

I also went with Nvidia because of the lack of the display port monitors and I didn't want to mess with adapters either.
Even after research right now I still see no benefit for display port for the average gamer.
AMD does eyfinity on one card while Nvidia cannot. AMD also builds all their cards with enough Vram for modern high res gaming while Nvidia does it at a premium price.
Depending on what you answer to the two questions above I can give you my "opinion."

Right, even though time has passed, the OP needs to have more than 3 hours patience. People get put off with attitudes like that. We all have lives to live, and right now a lot of the forum seems to be busy with life. Sorry to tell you that if you don't want to hear it, but it's true. ;)

That said...

If you can run with mixed-monitors or a DisplayPort->DVI adaptor, then EyeFinity presents you with a few advantages that nVidia Surround does not. It will also end up costing you a lot less money overall as going nVidia Surround isn't a cheap proposition.

Basically, if you want to stick to nVidia, you need to think about selling all the cards you don't want to use, and buying any one of three options:

2x 2GB GTX560Ti - this is the 'budget' option. You'll get a fair amount of raw grunt, but some games will just walk all over the 560, as it can't put enough raw power to bear.

2 (or 3) x 2.5GB GTX570 - mid-range option. This is what I'm thinking of moving to, as I've struggled to run stuff at framerates I'm happy with recently. It's a good balance of price, power and VRAM.

2 (or 3) x 3GB GTX580 - high-end option. Not for those afraid of making the wallet light. Essentially, you're paying anything upwards from a 30% premium compared to the GTX570 2.5GB per card for what amounts to approximately a 10-15% performance boost and an extra 512MB of VRAM.

Getting any card with less than 2GB of VRAM for Surround, and you'll wish you hadn't. The 1.5GB of the GTX480/580 will just about cut it, but for demanding games, you'll run into a VRAM wall and watch framerates nosedive as a result.

I know from experience with nVidia Surround (and as you, too, have discovered) that Surround hammers these cards hard. They hit temperatures in Surround that not even Furmark can make them hit in 1080p. Surround really seems to make the whole chip have a workout. If you were going tri-SLI for nVidia Surround, I wouldn't recommend anything less than high-end watercooling (or aiming an aircon unit at the side of your case...)

Not much experience of EyeFinity, but I keep telling myself I'm going to try it sooner or later.

wow

which games will i need to play to switch for that?

so far i can play Dead Island in NV Surround on 2x 1GB NV280GTX with 3x 24" dell monitors (5760x1080) without any problems, but true both cards are going above temp 86C and fans are quite noisy.

or maybe i'm just rookie (got that config for less than 2 months) and i need to just to it :)

Basically pick any game that uses more than 1GB of VRAM at high resolutions.

Crysis, Just Cause 2, DiRT2, Aliens vs. Predator, Metro 2033, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, The Witcher 2, Civilization V... about the only game I've played recently that hasn't broken the 1GB wall in Surround was Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which if nothing else says how poor the texture sizes are in that game, as it rarely deviates from 650MB.