Widescreen Gaming Forum

EDIT: I've decided to go with AMD, since Asus just revealed their version of the 7970, which has 4 Displayports! No tearing! Thanks for the feedback anyway, couldn't have done it without you guys.

Okay people, please bear with me through this wall of text. English isn't my native language, so do not hesitate to ask questions of something is unclear.

Hi, I am Moose. I am new to multi-monitor gaming, so I was eager to try it out. I went straight for AMD Eyefinity and never thought of Nvidia Surround (yes, I was a fanboy). I've been spending a lot of time here on this forum and did a lot of research. I came to the conclusion that I had to buy an AMD 6950 Flex edition, so I could hook up my three DVI/HDMI monitors without having to worry about screen tearing. However, I came to a halt. The Flex edition cards could no longer be supplied. I had to find a new solution. Again a lot of research and realised I had just two choices in the end. These choices were found by making decisions time-wise and budget-wise. Also, I do not want any screen tearing issues. The following emerged:

1) Wait for an AMD 7-series card to be released with three similar ports (99% chance that's going to be mini-DP's)
Pros:
(Probably) 3GB memory
(Probably) within budget
Strong GPU
Cons:
Spending an extra €100 ($127) for three adapters

2) Buy three Nvidia cards (my motherboard has three PCI-e x16 slots. HOWEVER, one of the PCI-e x16 slots runs in x4 mode)
Pros:
No screen tearing
No extra money for adapters
One display connected to one card
Cons:
I might need a new PSU (the one I use now has 600 watts)

Now, if I choose option 2 (this will most likely happen), I have a few questions:

I can buy three GTX560 1 GB cards for €470 ($598). For three GTX560 2 GB cards I pay exactly €570 ($725)
1) Is it worth spending an extra €100 ($127) to go from 3GB to 6GB? The resolution I'll be playing on will be ~6000 x 1080 (with bezel adjustment)

2) Is it worth to put a third graphics card in the PCI-e x16 @ x4 (source, scroll down to expansion/connectivity) slot?
I've read some articles about this, and some say you will only get like 5% increase. However, since I'm planning to put each display to a different GPU, will it be worth putting in a ~€170 ($216) GPU in it?

The reason I'm asking this is: I'm worried that if one of the three GPU's runs in an x4 slot, one of the monitors might behave different than the others.
3) Is this assumption correct?

There is ofcourse another way out. I could hook up two monitors to the 1st GPU, one monitor to the the 2nd GPU and the third (x4 slot) has no monitors connected.
4) Does this increase/decrease the performance of your setup?


Information you should know about me:
-I know very little about Nvidia cards
-I do not know how well triple/dual SLI scales with Surround

Please take your time reading this and again, do not hesitate to ask any questions what so ever. I am completely relying on your help as experienced Nvidia users.

_________________
Music is my life. You are my music.

nVidia's Surround technology doesn't require 3 GPUs. It requires an SLI setup (or a GTX590 or a fancy version of the GTX 580 such as the Galaxy MDT GeForce GTX 580). Basically you can do Surround with 2 cards or even a single card. The 3rd monitor that's connected to the 2nd card isn't at a reduced performance level compared to the other two.

Multi-GPU setups use Alternate Frame Rendering so your idea of having 3 GPUs to drive 3 monitors isn't really how it works. Google it to learn more.

nVidia Surround is definitely a viable option for what you're looking to do. I'll probably end up with Team Green since I want to drive a 3D Surround setup and AMD has no way of running a HD3D Eyefinity projector setup right now.

Mike

nVidia's Surround technology doesn't require 3 GPUs. It requires an SLI setup (or a GTX590 or a fancy version of the GTX 580 such as the Galaxy MDT GeForce GTX 580). Basically you can do Surround with 2 cards or even a single card. The 3rd monitor that's connected to the 2nd card isn't at a reduced performance level compared to the other two.

I know it doesn't require three GPU's, but you need at least two. Let me visualize things.

Pay attention that one slot is x4 mode (question 2)

Can anyone give me some feedback on this?

Other questions are still open ;)

_________________
Music is my life. You are my music.

You would do better to get 2x 560 2gb than you would to get 3x 560 1gb.
Trust me when I say that VRAM goes a long way when multi-monitor gaming!

_________________
| Gigabyte X79S-UP5-WiFi Skt2011 | i7 4820k @4.4GHz Watercooled (Ivy Bridge-E) | Corsair Vengence 32GB @2133MHz 11-11-11-27 2T Quad-Channel (8x4GB) | AMD R9-Fury-X 4GB @1140/505MHz + EKWB Watercooled | 256GB Crucial MX200 SSD | 8x 1TB Samsung F3 SATA-II | Corsair 850W TX PSU | 3x Dell S2209W 22"wide TFT's (5760x1080res) | Logitech Z-5400 5.1ch speakers | Win7 Ultimate x64 |

You would do better to get 2x 560 2gb than you would to get 3x 560 1gb.

I now know that GTX560 TI's do not work in triple SLI. Does that also counts for regular GTX560 2GB cards?
If regular GTX560 2GB cards do work in Triple SLI, would it be worth the money considering one of the cards is in an x4 slot?
I mean, I'd be getting 6GB VRAM if Triple SLI works for regular GTX560 2GB cards.


Pay attention that one slot is x4 mode (question 2)

_________________
Music is my life. You are my music.

I mean, I'd be getting 6GB VRAM if Triple SLI works for regular GTX560 2GB cards.

Incorrect, the total amount of VRAM you will ever have is the max of the lowest card.
In this case 2gb of vram, not 6gb.

The same data needs to be replicated across all cards, thus you dont extend the total vram by adding another card, think of it as raid 1 where the data is mirrored on all cards not striped like raid 0.

_________________
| Gigabyte X79S-UP5-WiFi Skt2011 | i7 4820k @4.4GHz Watercooled (Ivy Bridge-E) | Corsair Vengence 32GB @2133MHz 11-11-11-27 2T Quad-Channel (8x4GB) | AMD R9-Fury-X 4GB @1140/505MHz + EKWB Watercooled | 256GB Crucial MX200 SSD | 8x 1TB Samsung F3 SATA-II | Corsair 850W TX PSU | 3x Dell S2209W 22"wide TFT's (5760x1080res) | Logitech Z-5400 5.1ch speakers | Win7 Ultimate x64 |

The same data needs to be replicated across all cards, thus you dont extend the total vram by adding another card, think of it as raid 1 where the data is mirrored on all cards not striped like raid 0.

Why did no one ever told me that? I've looked through hunderds of pages about Eyefinity and Surround, NEVER have I stumbled upon this fact. I presume CrossfireX does the same thing.

1) Getting a single GTX560 2GB card for a single monitor is exactly the same as getting three GTX560 2GB cards for three monitors?
And with CrossfireX this works exactly the same?

If this is correct, let's do some theorycrafting. Looking at computing power, I know that SLI nor CrossfireX scales 100% extra per card. Let's make an example.

I've bought three GTX560's. I start Battlefield 3. The two extra cards scale with 0.8. This means I'd get 2.6 times more computing power. 2) Does the 260% percent divide between the three monitors?
If yes, then that means I'd only be getting 87% performance from each card. Is this assumption correct?
If no, (I have no idea what would be happening then).

Please answer these two questions, I am very confused right now :tired:

_________________
Music is my life. You are my music.

1) Getting a single GTX560 2GB card for a single monitor is exactly the same as getting three GTX560 2GB cards for three monitors?
And with CrossfireX this works exactly the same?

No

It WOULD be exactly the same if you would run 1920x1080 on each Screen for his own! BUT you're running 5760x1080p! So every GPU calculate one 5760x1080p picture, then the next one does, then the third one does. and then the first starts again.

So if one GTX560 has problems calculating 5760x1080 with 8x AA (not performance wise but Vram!) even if you have 3 GTx560 you won't have any Performace increase at all! Thats what we calla V-ram Limit.
IF you don't have that and the GPU can't calculate fast enough then you get nearly double performance with SLI, or three Times as much in Tri-SLI.

So about Scaling.... well you COULD do a lot of theoretical thinking. But you never know if its true or not... so just go Google and enter "GTX 560 Tri-SLI". I'm sure Hardwareheaven, overcklockers.net or lot other sites have done lot of reviews! And when they Bench GTX560 in SLI or Tri-SLI they normaly also have a single Card for comparission.

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We gonna send it to outa space!

I've already worked out that you can't Tri-SLI with GTX 560's. That out of the way, let's ask (yet again) a question.

So if one GTX560 has problems calculating 5760x1080 with 8x AA (not performance wise but Vram!) even if you have 3 GTx560 you won't have any Performace increase at all! Thats what we calla V-ram Limit.
IF you don't have that and the GPU can't calculate fast enough then you get nearly double performance with SLI, or three Times as much in Tri-SLI.

I have two GTX 560 2GB cards installed. I play Battlefield 3 on ~6000*1080. My first card hits the VRAM limit. What exactly will happen next?
1) Will it dump to my system memory?
2) Will the second card pick up where the other left and I can play on without noticing anything?
3) Will the second card say: f*ck it, I'm outta here?

_________________
Music is my life. You are my music.

If you hit a VRAM limit your framerate will fall precipitously and it will look like crap. You'd likely need to lower your AA settings to avoid the VRAM limit. The computer won't crash or anything.