Widescreen Gaming Forum

I really am starting to get irritated at this thread.

Let me put in my two cents.

nVidia has shown a very good offering on it Multi-Monitor Setups and has added yet another way to get 3D and Surround Working. Kudos for the consumer. More options are good.

When it comes to price and features of both companies, they are catering to the enthusiast, though I must say that only ATI (at least atm) is catering to the emerging Surround users, who may or may not want to break the bank to get surround.

Gamers come in many form, bowenac, you are obviously the Hyper Hardcore Super Enthusiast and I respect that. But instead of looking at the new information and taking it at face value, think a minute. I wont debate that there aren't that many monitors with DP, so yes you need an adapter to use monitor without it. Though since Eyefinity has emerged even the DP->DVI adapters have gone down in cost. You can get one from monoprice for $60, also there's always been the option of using VGA on monitors or 1920x1200 and smaller resolution. So, That further cuts the chart of expenses on ATI's side.

Now sure nVidia cards are more powerful, I cant remember a time when they weren't (Comparing like generations). But now that both players are playing, that means that there is even more options the end user to choose from. The 5770 is still more than enough for someone who is running 3840x1024 or 4320x900 and the 5850 is more than enough for 5040x1050. Not everyone went out and bought new monitors.

I'm not trying to sound like a fanboy, I'd just rather kill the debate where it stands, because nothing is being accomplished here besides you want to convert everyone to nVidia and you harping about how much it's better than ATI. Honestly this is still a good day for gamers. It making Surround more and more prevalent and more and more games will support the extreme aspect ratios we have come to love.

So which is better? That all depends on what the user wants to do. nVidia still every strict on what monitor setups you have have. ATI is much more flexible there. ATI can support more monitors. Both can do 3D. 3D is still expensive on both sides if you want to get the best feature set both have to offer. ATI allows laptops on normal size to have surround. Let's end this debate, because you'll never be able to have an apples to apple comparison. ATI has more features, and nVidia has more Performance.

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System Core: | Intel Core i5-2500K + ASUS P8Z68-V + 16GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1333 MHz | Win7 x64 | MSI R7970 Lightning 3GB [1105/1400] |
Display: | 3 x Dell Ultrasharp 3007WFP-HC @ 7680x1600 | Dell u3011 |

The only way pricing arguments can have any relevance is if each individual buyer crunches the numbers that apply to HIS situation. There are too many factors (budget, preferences, upgrade vs new system) for one generalization to apply for everyone. I often find it annoying when someone decides to become the spokesman for the entire gaming market. What i do find great is that there are now more options for triple-screen gaming.

While I agree with you on some of the debate, you overlook that you can do surround with 2 series cards which can now be picked up for cheap. So that could be compared to ATI low end offerings as well.

And I am honestly not trying to convert anyone to Nvidia, I could care less, but in reality the cards and performance speak for themselves and anyone should see that but instead, people keep making up excuses and other nonsense. And Nvidia is not strict at all on what monitors you can have, all you need is DVI monitor which every monitor on the market has. So with that I think you got it mixed up ATI is the one that is strict on what monitors you can use without adapters.

Also Nvidia clearly has more feature list on there cards. And they also have more performance apples to apples they do there is no denying it.

The only way pricing arguments can have any relevance is if each individual buyer crunches the numbers that apply to HIS situation. There are too many factors (budget, preferences, upgrade vs new system) for one generalization to apply for everyone. I often find it annoying when someone decides to become the spokesman for the entire gaming market. What i do find great is that there are now more options for triple-screen gaming.

I hope your not talking about me because I am no spokesperson. I was just saying that Nvidia's Surround kills ATI offerings. And then someone started talking about how he didn't like how they mentioned the need for $100 adapter. I am not the one that brought price into this. But the truth is most people that are doing this will need an adapter, most people that are going to do this are going to get the same monitors they already have.

And again this surround and eyefinity is targeted to the core gamer. There is no way I would run Eyefinity on a 5770 to game. And while you mention that, someone could also get some 260's for the same price, and again cheaper if they need an adapter. Every way you look at it from a performance point, Nvidia is cheaper. I now want to see a review of 465's in surround. The 470's beat crossfire 5870's so I would not doubt that two 465's will beat one 5870 for around the same cost with adapter.

And to clear everything up I am no fanboy, I would not own two 5870's if I was an Nvidia fanboy... I was impressed with Eyefinity so I got the cards, now Nvidia made it better clearly by the bench's but it is clear some people on this forum don't like to see that picture and or admit it. But clearly I am the fanboy.

While I agree with you on some of the debate, you overlook that you can do surround with 2 series cards which can now be picked up for cheap. So that could be compared to ATI low end offerings as well.

And I am honestly not trying to convert anyone to Nvidia, I could care less, but in reality the cards and performance speak for themselves and anyone should see that but instead, people keep making up excuses and other nonsense. And Nvidia is not strict at all on what monitors you can have, all you need is DVI monitor which every monitor on the market has. So with that I think you got it mixed up ATI is the one that is strict on what monitors you can use without adapters.

Also Nvidia clearly has more feature list on there cards. And they also have more performance apples to apples they do there is no denying it.

While normally I'd agree that the 200 series cards can be bought for cheap, it's actually trying to find them that's the issue. It's buy them used or not at all atm. And you are incorrect, nVidia does [EDIT: not] allow for 3x2, 4x1 (actually spanned), or even 3D in a 3x1 Portrait setup. If I'm correct all the monitors have to be the same model to work in 3D and for normal surround they all have to have the same resolution (not just use the same resolution like in eyefinity). And I wasn't trying to short sight the obvious gap in performance. I even mentioned it.

_________________
System Core: | Intel Core i5-2500K + ASUS P8Z68-V + 16GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1333 MHz | Win7 x64 | MSI R7970 Lightning 3GB [1105/1400] |
Display: | 3 x Dell Ultrasharp 3007WFP-HC @ 7680x1600 | Dell u3011 |

[quote]While I agree with you on some of the debate, you overlook that you can do surround with 2 series cards which can now be picked up for cheap. So that could be compared to ATI low end offerings as well.

And I am honestly not trying to convert anyone to Nvidia, I could care less, but in reality the cards and performance speak for themselves and anyone should see that but instead, people keep making up excuses and other nonsense. And Nvidia is not strict at all on what monitors you can have, all you need is DVI monitor which every monitor on the market has. So with that I think you got it mixed up ATI is the one that is strict on what monitors you can use without adapters.

Also Nvidia clearly has more feature list on there cards. And they also have more performance apples to apples they do there is no denying it.

While normally I'd agree that the 200 series cards can be bought for cheap, it's actually trying to find them that's the issue. It's buy them used or not at all atm. And you are incorrect, nVidia does allow for 3x2, 4x1 (actually spanned), or even 3D in a 3x1 Portrait setup. If I'm correct all the monitors have to be the same model to work in 3D and for normal surround they all have to have the same resolution (not just use the same resolution like in eyefinity). And I wasn't trying to short sight the obvious gap in performance. I even mentioned it.

HUH? What am I incorrect about? I didn't mention anything about 3X2 but you are incorrect Nvidia can't do 3X2 only 3X1 and 1 extended. And yes your are correct for 3D you need all the same monitors, but for 2D just need monitors with the same res. So yea just the same resolution like eyefinity.

The thread's title is unnecessarily bombastic and antagonistic, for one thing. Let's not turn this place into Hardforum.com.

The gist of things is this: SLI scales better than CF, and since CF scales more poorly and might cause stuttering issues in Eyefinity mode in particular, people who want the best triple-monitor gaming experience should probably go with Nvidia.

Note that "best" does not mean "cheapest." Even if GTX 470 SLI performs better than ATI 5870 CF and costs less, the setup is pretty loud under load. By "loud" I do not mean like a vacuum cleaner or leafblower or any of that nonsense, but still loud. I found it obtrusive and spent $350 to tame the cards with water cooling.

I had a full long reply but I lost it to IE (I should have known to stick to FF)

So I'll just say this : I'm just not impressed with a couple of higher scores in a couple of selected titles
"480 GTX SLI surround" advantage over "HD5870 CF eyefinity": 87% in batman, 44% in DiRT 2, 49% in L4D2, 36% in Metro 2033
Those are nice indeed but in the past I saw scores like that in a couple of games for upcoming products but then the product came around and the overall picture on dozens of games didn't really look like that anymore ...

therefore I learned my lesson: always wait for the bigger trend, have a look at the bigger picture

[quote]
While normally I'd agree that the 200 series cards can be bought for cheap, it's actually trying to find them that's the issue. It's buy them used or not at all atm. And you are incorrect, nVidia does [EDIT: not] allow for 3x2, 4x1 (actually spanned), or even 3D in a 3x1 Portrait setup. If I'm correct all the monitors have to be the same model to work in 3D and for normal surround they all have to have the same resolution (not just use the same resolution like in eyefinity). And I wasn't trying to short sight the obvious gap in performance. I even mentioned it.

HUH? What am I incorrect about? I didn't mention anything about 3X2 but you are incorrect Nvidia can't do 3X2 only 3X1 and 1 extended. And yes your are correct for 3D you need all the same monitors, but for 2D just need monitors with the same res. So yea just the same resolution like eyefinity.
Sorry about that, I was typing too fast and forgot the "not." Anyways, as far as I can tell, from what I've read, the "monitors" have to be the same resolution for nVidia surround. Not the "card" must out put the same resolution to each panel like with eyefinity.

_________________
System Core: | Intel Core i5-2500K + ASUS P8Z68-V + 16GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1333 MHz | Win7 x64 | MSI R7970 Lightning 3GB [1105/1400] |
Display: | 3 x Dell Ultrasharp 3007WFP-HC @ 7680x1600 | Dell u3011 |

suiken_2mieu:
"5850 is more than enough for 5040x1050"

Riiiiiight. So i can max out bfbc2, mw2, fc2, crysis, crysis 2, avp, etc... with just 1 5850 at that resolution? I find that a bit hard to believe... Also, 30fps or dropping quality settings != maxed out. I like my games to run well and I definately like the ability to up settings on my older games.

I've been using the surround drivers for a bit and so far they're amazing. They just 'work'. No stuffing about or anything. All i did was install em, reboot, enable it, done. it's as simple as that. Not even my TH2Go was that easy - especially not with Windows 7 x64.

And this is with my 'old' tri-sli gtx 260s... and considering it's just a beta driver it can only improve from here.

I watercool my cpu currently, and am looking into video card watercooling for the performance and sound benefits. As a result heat and power isn't a problem. The whole watercooling process has been incredibly painless and fun to work on.

So although the thread title is overdramatic, it's true. nvidia surround performance DOES kill eyefinity. And not only that, they've 'backported' it to an entire previous generation of cards. AND done it using software... that alone is impressive.

I find it funny that people are suddenly concerned about power draw and noise. Cause after all, the FX series, and the HD 2xxx series were super quiet and didn't use much power :P

The adapter issue... in my case it would be an extra cost. I just got 3 new monitors, which only have DVI and VGA. They were however $100 or more cheaper than DP monitors, and the screen quality is fantastic. Plus they have a great warranty. Also, cause I want good performance, dual cards is more or less required, so the SLI requirement is also not an issue.

If I was on a budget, I could get 2 460, or 2 465, and get similar/more performance than a 5870. Probably won't have to watercool those either.