# Comparing cards not only on FPS but on merits! need help with choice



## zanat0s (Apr 10, 2010)

Hi all,

I have the following PC:

i965 @ 3.8Ghz
V10 aircooling
12 GB Dominator GT @ 1866 Mhz
SSD agility EX 60 GB
EVGA classified VI X58
Bluray Dvd rom
Asus Xonar 1.3 HDMI
3 X Monitors DEll 3008 WFP

Until now i was running the PC with 2 X Gtx 295(MSI) with no problems. One of the cards is now malfucitning and my store will swap them because they are under warranty. i have now the following choice upgrade to GTX 480 SLI or ATI 5970 Xfire.

What is most important for me? I want to have PhysX and a good gaming experience. I am an nvidia fan but definetely Ati consumes less Watt and outputs more frames. My big problem is whether I can have PhysX with ATI cards(by suing nvidia cards or AGEIA).

i want to know what you believe. What cards should i get and why? I wouldn't have upgraded if i didn't have the issue with GTX 295 but a decision needs to be made.

PROS of ATI 5970
faster than the competition
more economical

CONS of ATI 5970
no PhysX
not good at Antialising as Nvidia(does it matter though?)
variances in perfomance

Pros of GTX 480
PhysX
better scaling at games through SLI

Cons of GTX 480
hight Temp
not as fast 5970

can you share your view with me?


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## newtekie1 (Apr 10, 2010)

Get the HD5970s and forget about PhysX, there is literally one good game that uses it, Batman, and once you beat Batman it is pointless to even worry about PhysX.  And there aren't any good games on the horizon that plan to use PhysX either.


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## zanat0s (Apr 10, 2010)

well i like PhysX and i would like to have more information. I want this to be a discussion on merits and facts..

i can have one card extra to be the PhysX accelerator. I am really confused about the choice i can make and i hope people can help me make an informed decision.


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## Kreij (Apr 10, 2010)

Welcome to TPU, Zan 

Take a moment to put you system specs in using the UserCP. That way you will not have to type them all the time and people will be able to better help you with problems in the future.

You are going to get opinions from both sides of the fence (ATI/Nvidia), so don't get bogged down in the rhetoric. 

I don't care about physX, so I would get the 5970, but that's just me.


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## $immond$ (Apr 10, 2010)

newtekie1 said:


> Get the HD5970s and forget about PhysX, there is literally one good game that uses it, Batman, and once you beat Batman it is pointless to even worry about PhysX.  And there aren't any good games on the horizon that plan to use PhysX either.



I find PhysX more useful than Eyefinity, I am sure there will be ^more^  games developed in the future that will utilize PhysX.


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## newtekie1 (Apr 10, 2010)

$immond$ said:


> I find PhysX more useful than Eyefinity, I am sure there will be games developed in the future that will utilize PhysX.



I'd like to know in what did you find it more useful?  Because, aside from Batman, in the few other games that hardware PhysX is used, I really found it added next to nothing to the game.

And with DX11 adding its own physics engine, there likely won't be a whole lot more games that will use PhysX.  Because nVidia could never get PhysX running on ATi hardware, it kind of killed any potential that PhysX had.

As it is, there are a whole total of 15 current and upcoming games that use hardware PhysX, according to nVidia's site, most of which are not exactly block-busters.


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## MT Alex (Apr 10, 2010)

$immond$ said:


> I find PhysX more useful than Eyefinity, I am sure there will be games developed in the future that will utilize PhysX.



Eyefinity would be useful to him since he has 3 monitors.

It seems to me that PhysX is more important for benchmarks, since very few real world apps take advantage of it.


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## $immond$ (Apr 10, 2010)

Id rather game use this instead of having to see separations of the screens.
Gaming at 2880×900 rofl...


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## newtekie1 (Apr 10, 2010)

MT Alex said:


> Eyefinity would be useful to him since he has 3 monitors.
> 
> It seems to me that PhysX is more important for benchmarks, since very few real world apps take advantage of it.



It would seem to me that eyefinity isn't really a concern either, he wasn't gaming on all three monitors with the GTX295s, so I doubt he is going to with the new cards, though at least with the HD5970's it is possible.  Though I also agree, that eyefinity is pretty gimmicky and useless, less so than PhysX as this point, but still pretty useless.


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## Black Panther (Apr 10, 2010)

zanat0s said:


> i have now the following choice upgrade to GTX 480 SLI or ATI 5970 Xfire.



A single 5970 beats a single GTX480. 
So choose 5970 CF over GTX480 SLI.

*@ $immond$*, I nearly hate you for posting that! 
The main reason I never went for eyefinity is that I find having the picture separated by the bezels to be ridiculous.
But that thing.... omg *drools* and the price is downright prohibitive :shadedshu Totally out of budget


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## erocker (Apr 10, 2010)

zanat0s said:


> PROS of ATI 5970
> faster than the competition
> more economical
> 
> ...



Well I disagree with your Anti aliasing statement. ATi does AA better but that is just opinion.

I wouldn't say a 5970 is economical. 

Here is a list of PhysX games: http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_physxgames_home.html - I wouldn't use PhysX as a determining factor.

The only solution for you in my mind is the 5970. Three monitors and no other card will do it better. 

If PhysX ends up really being a concern for you 5970 + something like a 9800GT would work. It can be done easily and it works well, I've done it. You can get the means to do it at nghq.com


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## newtekie1 (Apr 10, 2010)

erocker said:


> Well I disagree with your Anti aliasing statement. ATi does AA better but that is just opinion.



I would actually agree with him, _if_ we were back in the HD2900/HD3800 days. However, now I think they are about even, I still might even give the slight edge to nVidia(I think they do transparent AA a lot better), but really during gameplay they are both extremely good so it doesn't matter.


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## $immond$ (Apr 11, 2010)

Black Panther said:


> A single 5970 beats a single GTX480.
> So choose 5970 CF over GTX480 SLI.
> 
> *@ $immond$*, I nearly hate you for posting that!
> ...




Well perhaps a 32" to 40" LCD widescreen would be a viable option to those ugly screen separation from 3 monitors. When I get my 5850 I am going to see if I can game on my 42" LCD.


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## Fourstaff (Apr 11, 2010)

My vote goes to 5970, but 5870CF might be a viable option


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## crazyeyesreaper (Apr 11, 2010)

why wouldnt you game on your 42" its the same res as most monitors so it dosent make a difference

if he wants 5970 crossfire id say hes better off with a 5970 + 5870 for trifire trifire scales way better then quad and if you overclock the 5970 to 5870 clocks your golden and can save a few bills and trifire 5970+5850 will use less power then 480 sli and be faster so its win win and considering price there the same  5970 and since 5850 / 5970 clocks are close u can overclock them both easily if there reference models.  

as far as eyefinity it goes 3x1 is awesome 3x2 sucks 

physx is garbage you realize that if physx ran on more then 2 cores say 4 cores and 8 threads of that i7 no nvidia gpu would be able to do physx faster so at the end of the day you may want physx for 1-2 games but sadly if you weren't screwed by proprietary standards your i7 would do physx better then the gpu. for 1 solid reason

for nvidia Physx + rendering + tessellation is done on the shaders so tell me once u turn that all on and start pushing a game how long will that high frame rate last? when if it ran off the cpu and used your other hardware effectively you wouldnt see a drop.

eitherway take your pick both choices in gpus will slaughter all games but metro 2033 with all settings maxed


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## $immond$ (Apr 11, 2010)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> why wouldnt you game on your 42" its the same res as most monitors so it dosent make a difference



Because my 2900 Pro doesn't have enough balls?, I meant.... Its super duper!

Gaming on 3 monitors is a waste and is unsightly, if its used for working with apps and managing VM's it may have a purpose.


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## crazyeyesreaper (Apr 11, 2010)

lol if your card handles your games at 1920x1200 on a monitor it will easily handle that 42" tv if it cant well then it just wont handle it that simple   as size is irrelevent only res matters


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## $immond$ (Apr 11, 2010)

Its being upgraded to a 5850 soon so I will be more confident in playing the latest games on a much larger screen.


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## newtekie1 (Apr 11, 2010)

$immond$ said:


> Gaming on 3 monitors is a waste and is unsightly _to me_, if its used for working with apps and managing VM's it may have a purpose.



FTFY

If the image on the center screen doesn't change, and you are adding the extra view of the two side monitors, how is that a negative?

And it is obvious you have no actual idea what you are talking about, as using three monitors to work with apps and manage VMs has nothing to do with eyefinity.  People have been doing that seemlessly for years without eyefinity.  The great thing about eyefinity is it makes all 3 monitors appear as one large monitor to the game/full screen app, which hasn't been easily possible before.


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## $immond$ (Apr 11, 2010)

newtekie1 said:


> FTFY
> 
> If the image on the center screen doesn't change, and you are adding the extra view of the two side monitors, how is that a negative?
> 
> And it is obvious you have no actual idea what you are talking about, as using three monitors to work with apps and manage VMs has nothing to do with eyefinity.  People have been doing that seemlessly for years without eyefinity.  The great thing about eyefinity is it makes all 3 monitors appear as one large monitor to the game/full screen app, which hasn't been easily possible before.



I suppose if you don't have depth perception its great but I can notice those ugly monitor separations sitting 2 feet away. I hardly call that enjoyable and immersive gaming.







this even looks allot more "immersive" than 3 monitors.


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## Crazykenny (Apr 11, 2010)

No brainer, go for the HD5970 Crossfire set-up. The GTX480, for me, feel like a rushed card. Dont get me wrong, but I expected better from Nvidia. 

Perhaps wait for a redone GTX485? Less wattage and heat.


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## bobzilla2009 (Apr 12, 2010)

Crazykenny said:


> No brainer, go for the HD5970 Crossfire set-up. The GTX480, for me, feel like a rushed card. Dont get me wrong, but I expected better from Nvidia.
> 
> Perhaps wait for a redone GTX485? Less wattage and heat.



if a 7 month late card is rushed, i would hate to see how long an unrushed nvidia card would take to make.


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## Fourstaff (Apr 12, 2010)

bobzilla2009 said:


> if a 7 month late card is rushed, i would hate to see how long an unrushed nvidia card would take to make.



Its rushed, not 7 months late. Nvidia just took their time early on with all kinds of fancy features, and then when ATI released the 5 series, they were in deep trouble, hence the rush.


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## bobzilla2009 (Apr 12, 2010)

Fourstaff said:


> Its rushed, not 7 months late. Nvidia just took their time early on with all kinds of fancy features, and then when ATI released the 5 series, they were in deep trouble, hence the rush.



aye, maybe they thought the hd5 series was going to be naff. Surely they learned from the hd4 series that AMD will bust their balls if ther don't pull their thumb out of their ass.


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## newtekie1 (Apr 12, 2010)

$immond$ said:


> I suppose if you don't have depth perception its great but I can notice those ugly monitor separations sitting 2 feet away. I hardly call that enjoyable and immersive gaming.
> 
> http://www.fahad.com/pics/elumens_visionstation.jpg
> 
> ...



Depth Perception:





It is nice that _you_, can see the separations, but others can ignore them.

You have yet to answer the question I've asking in this thread and the other.  In what exactly do you find PhysX useful?


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## Fourstaff (Apr 12, 2010)

newtekie1 said:


> In what exactly do you find PhysX useful?



It looks great on advertising boards. That's round about all the benefits.


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## $immond$ (Apr 12, 2010)

Fourstaff said:


> It looks great on advertising boards. That's round about all the benefits.


 












I don't sit 6 inches from my screen so I would definitely notice those ugly separations.

(The concept/ability to offload work from the CPU with a dedicated card makes physx more useful for me.). Physx adds more eye candy especially in games like Batman and Metro 2033, both games I really enjoy. I am sure there will be more games and DX 11 games that will utilize physx in the future. 

I personally cant stand Eyefinity until there are more optimized monitors that wont cost an arm and leg and that wont show separations of the screens. I think Nvidia made a mistake by making physx exclusively propitiatory to there GPU's since in order to get physx to work with a multiple video cards you still need to purchase an Nvidia card. 

I think it would have been smarter to make it more universal as it would ensure that there would be an Nvidia product in every gamers rig regardless if they used ATI cards (that is unless your an ATI die-hard) but with DX.11 still fairly fresh things may change, we haven't seen the full extent of DX.11.


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## newtekie1 (Apr 12, 2010)

$immond$ said:


> (The concept/ability to offload work from the CPU with a dedicated card makes physx more useful for me.). Physx adds more eye candy especially in games like Batman and Metro 2033, both games I really enjoy. I am sure there will be more games and DX 11 games that will utilize physx in the future.



It is a nice concept, but it isn't used in anything useful.  The two games you metnions, and Mirrors Edge, are the ONLY games it adds anything to, and Metro 2033 it hardly adds anything...  Three games is not enough to make something useful, and in fact it adds nothing really to any of those three either, certainly nothing that I really go wow over, or can't live without.  It can't be useful to you if it isn't actually used in games, a concept isn't useful at all if it isn't implemented, and PhysX isn't being implemented.

Are three games really worth it?  Especially when two of the games are over a year old, and have litterally no replay value once beat?

I know I just can't live without the little dust coming out when I shot something, and the little unrealistic looking rocks falling to the ground, or the little extra smoke that hangs in the air when I throw a grenade in Metro 2033.  All of that really makes the game, I'll tell you...


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## Zubasa (Apr 12, 2010)

$immond$ said:


> http://www.unlimit-tech.com/blog/wp-content/Picture/ati-eyefinity-02.jpg
> 
> http://www.overclock.net/attachments/ati/136115d1262889930-official-ati-eyefinity-club-img_5049.jpg
> 
> ...


Bashing Eyefinity being uesless doesn't make Physx useful.
The OP is asking for what Physx or Eyefinity is good for, not some nVidia vs ATi crap 

Right now the 5970 is the better performer of the cards and nobody can be certain how will Physx or Eyefinity goes.
Unless you know more than nVidia does, what you think really doesn't make any difference, HW Physx is only supported in a few games.
http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_physxgames_home.html


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## shevanel (Apr 12, 2010)

I wonder if people know that just because your physx game doesnt support ATI graphics cards it doesn't mean that there arent any other games with physics in them that ATI cards can run just fine.

I think some people think that physics are cool, physx is the only thing that provides realistic physics  and in order to have physics in games you must have an nvidia card. FALSE!

I really believe this is becoming one of those misunderstandings about games with physics properties.. I could be wrong but I hope people know that there are alot of games with wonderful physics effects that are not done by PHYSX. 

The only thing in Batman AA were smoke/fog reacting to people walking through it.. floppy flags.. breakable tiles, papers on a desk, papers on a floor and jokers toy chatter wind-up teeth.

You couldn't break anything other than a corner of a wall by throwing someone into it, no breakable items such as desks, boxes, crates, or even those coffee cups. etc

With a GTX275 I remember posting videos here on the xzaz scene where the tiles break on the floor.. my FPS would drop nearly 75-90% during the moment of impact.

Same with those physics maps for UT3, don't even get me started.

what is the next physx game coming out? exactly.


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## zanat0s (Apr 12, 2010)

i guess it is 5970 for me

so the next question is the 2GB or the 4gb one or you think the differences will be not noticeable...

.
you are right about the bezels but i do not enjoy games(for pc on my 46 LCD it just doesn't feel right... i play ps3 there but not pc.

i guess it is because  i have no desk in front of my LC and on top of that I find it uncomofortable playing with wireless mouse and keyboard!


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## $immond$ (Apr 12, 2010)

To each there own, but sometimes more isn't always better.


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## newtekie1 (Apr 13, 2010)

$immond$ said:


> http://www.legitreviews.com/images/reviews/1069/24panels.jpg
> 
> To each there own, but sometimes more isn't always better.



Yes, we get that you don't think eyefinity is a good feature.  However, you have failed, or haven't even even tried, to convince use that PhysX is actually something better to have.

All your posts have been essentially bashing ATi's technology, yet you can't really come up with a convincing argument for nVidia's...

If you want to sucessfully back up your claim that PhysX is better than Eyefinity, you not only have to show that Eyefinity is useless, you have to show that PhysX isn't just as useless.

However, we have shown that essentially there are only 2 games that really show a difference with hardware PhysX enabled, and both games still look pretty good without it.  While Ati's site lists about 36 games that work with Eyefinity, and I'm sure there are actually more that they just haven't tested so they aren't on the list.


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## Benetanegia (Apr 13, 2010)

I somehow think this PhysX vs Eyefinity discussion is really stupid to have in this thread. The reason is simple: Nvidia has a similar feature to Eyefinity and although it's probably not as complete and it requires 2 cards, in this case it doesn't matter at all, since he is talking about buying 2 cards anyway. He can have both things going with 2xGTX480 plus 3DVision, I know, another feature that probably doesn't matter to most. That's not the matter here though, he asked what would be best to have all those things, because I suppose they are somewhat important *for him*, so all that should be discussed here is what fullfills better his requirements, not if he should or should not desire those things.

IMO what best suits him is without a doubt the SLI setup. There aren't many HD5970 Crossfire reviews out there but the ones that I have seen, included the one made by Wizzard show that the scaling is rather poor, along the lines of 25-40% increase for the second card (something typical for a quad setup on the other hand). And this is mainly why I think GTX480 SLI is better, because Fermi scales extremely well in SLI, ++80% all the time and that makes it effectively faster than 2xHD5970 *at a much lower price*. The only drawback is a slightly higher power consumption.

Between GTX480 SLI and HD5*8*70 Crossfire, I would probably go with Ati, but then again that's entirely a different performance level. Yes a single GTX480 is not that much faster than a single 5870, 15%, at least with beta drivers, but when paired up, things change completely, even with beta drivers. Whether the accumulated performance difference is worth the $$ difference and power consumption is just everyone's choice, but that same consideration has to be made to choose in favor of the much more expensive HD5970's too.


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## crazyeyesreaper (Apr 13, 2010)

again this is why i said 5970 + 5870 or 5970 + 5850 scaling is much improved and less power and less cash spent

not to mention 5970+5870 will use less power then 2 gtx 480s and provide better frame rate in games if he wants eyefinity he can have it in a 4 PCIe socket board he can still add a nvidia gpu for physx if he so chooses. theres more choices here then ppl think


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## Benetanegia (Apr 13, 2010)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> again this is why i said 5970 + 5870 or 5970 + 5850 scaling is much improved and less power and less cash spent
> 
> not to mention 5970+5870 will use less power then 2 gtx 480s and provide better frame rate in games if he wants eyefinity he can have it in a 4 PCIe socket board he can still add a nvidia gpu for physx if he so chooses. theres more choices here then ppl think



Nah, trifire has never worked well with different cards from what I've seen, I would need to see a review of HD5970+5870 to say that it does, because as much as pleople like saying that scaling is good I have to see it, because on every review that I saw (mainly previous generation) mixing different cards didn't result in good scaling at all, not beyond the quad setup anyway. So that puts you right below GTX480 SLI again and for the *same* price. In fact a little bit higher (500+500 vs 650+400). And he loses PhysX. You are right on power consumption though.


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## naoan (Apr 13, 2010)

And don't forget the schorching idle temp of 480 SLi http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1258/15/ Nvidia apparently tried to fix this with bios update... and failed http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1264/1/


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## Benetanegia (Apr 13, 2010)

naoan said:


> And don't forget the schorching idle temp of 480 SLi http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1258/15/ Nvidia apparently tried to fix this with bios update... and failed http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1264/1/



That's something that is making a lot of noise (like any Fermi related news tbh), but it's not something new by any means. It has happened with many cards in the past and was solved, so it will be fixed probably. Some members have been posting some temp results from their production cards in "My production Fermi arrived!" thread and they seem much better (they didn't post screens though, so better hold on until we see reviews).

All in all, it IS something to take into account, but it's not something that I would call unfixable by any means.


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## crazyeyesreaper (Apr 13, 2010)

well if i remember bodar posted dual tri and quad fire results on the 5870 series and posted a thread here along with a video showing all the games tested

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=305813&page=9

some of bodars stuff is in this thread but its all over the place

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=305813&page=11

some more there


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## RejZoR (Apr 13, 2010)

What makes you think Radeons are worse at doing FSAA compared to NVIDIA offerings?
Have you ever tried 8x FSAA mode with Edge Detect filter and SuperSampling for transparent textures? If you ask me, once you go this far up, it doesn't really matter. As for the lower modes like 4x FSAA with basic Box filter, it looks just fine as far as i see it. And it's fast.
2x mode looks ok to lower the jaggies a bit and it's free as it doesn't seem to give any noticeable performance hit at all. But then again, it's the same with NVIDIA.


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## zanat0s (Apr 13, 2010)

thank you guys!

all your reviews are very helpful! i am still closer to the ATI setup :0

the reason 2 ATI 5870 won't do it for me is that 2 GTX 295 are equal to CF 5870(in FPS at least).

I am very disappointed by the GTX 480, considering that NVIDIA delayed it 6 months. They could delay more and get to the market with a product that can easily beat ATi but they didn't.

I like a company which respects its customers.


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## DonInKansas (Apr 13, 2010)

If you fold:  Nvidia

If you don't:  ATi.

Simple as that, pretty much.


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## $immond$ (Apr 13, 2010)

newtekie1 said:


> Yes, we get that you don't think eyefinity is a good feature.  However, you have failed, or haven't even even tried, to convince use that PhysX is actually something better to have.



First off I was *NOT *trying to convince people its better than Eyefinity I stated *IMO* its more useful for me. 


> All your posts have been essentially bashing ATi's technology, yet you can't really come up with a convincing argument for nVidia's...



My posts have stated how unsightly 3+ and 6+ monitors are for gaming, *get off the ATI fanboat.* I wouldn't have been a loyal ATI/AMD customer if I bashed their technology. Most of my rigs have used ATI cards and my motherboards have always had an ATI chipset. Aside my from laptop which had a C2D and a 9500m GS. (which didn't last) 




> If you want to sucessfully back up your claim that PhysX is better than Eyefinity, you not only have to show that Eyefinity is useless, you have to show that PhysX isn't just as useless.




Once again I stated it is a more useful gimmick *IMO*, opinion doesn't equal a fact, its just my thoughts of it. You seem to have twisted this thread into ATI vs Nvidia disregarding how I stated the idea of the technology is what I find fascinating. I don't find 3 screens fascinating at all. (For working yes, gaming no)



> However, we have shown that essentially there are only 2 games that really show a difference with hardware PhysX enabled, and both games still look pretty good without it.  While Ati's site lists about 36 games that work with Eyefinity, and I'm sure there are actually more that they just haven't tested so they aren't on the list.



Your missing the point, *You haven't convinced me to purchase 3 to 6 monitors because my card supports Eyefinity* however Game how you like but I am not spending $900 for 3 25" LCD's to see unsightly lines separating my game. I am content with my screen arrangements for now. 

I will restate" "To each their own".


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## Benetanegia (Apr 13, 2010)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> well if i remember bodar posted dual tri and quad fire results on the 5870 series and posted a thread here along with a video showing all the games tested
> 
> http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=305813&page=9
> 
> ...



That's with 3 5870s (or 4), not 5970 + another card. I never said 3 cards scale bad, I said that using different cards, which results in asymetric rendering, does scale badly, often times worse than the slower card of the mix crosfired with itself. Or that's what I have seen until now and why I ask for proof that it has improved.

3 cards could be an option (if you can or want to deal with 3 cards), but I'm not sure if 3x 5850's would match GTX480 SLI and 3x 5870's is far more expensive. Bodar's posts don't show an impressive scaling, only 3 games are showing pretty good scaling and it's in those games where the GTX480 scales better too (FarCry2, RE5...), sometimes surpassing the 100% barrier, so it's a tough call.


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## [I.R.A]_FBi (Apr 13, 2010)

$immond$ said:


> I find PhysX more useful than Eyefinity, I am sure there will be ^more^  games developed in the future that will utilize PhysX.



everywhere i go i see you typing this, why?


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## newtekie1 (Apr 13, 2010)

$immond$ said:


> First off I was *NOT *trying to convince people its better than Eyefinity I stated *IMO* its more useful for me.



If you come into a thread someone has created asking which cards he should buy based on merits, and state your opinion on two merits, you are trying to convince him that one merit is better than the other, and you have to back it up, which you have failed to do.




$immond$ said:


> My posts have stated how unsightly 3+ and 6+ monitors are for gaming, *get off the ATI fanboat.* I wouldn't have been a loyal ATI/AMD customer if I bashed their technology. Most of my rigs have used ATI cards and my motherboards have always had an ATI chipset. Aside my from laptop which had a C2D and a 9500m GS. (which didn't last)



I think there are a lot of people that would find it very odd that you are effectivly calling _me_ and ATi fanboy at this point...

I'm not calling you a fanboy in any way, just stating what you have done in this thread and the other.




$immond$ said:


> Once again I stated it is a more useful gimmick *IMO*, opinion doesn't equal a fact, its just my thoughts of it. You seem to have twisted this thread into ATI vs Nvidia disregarding how I stated the idea of the technology is what I find fascinating. I don't find 3 screens fascinating at all. (For working yes, gaming no)



You can't make a reasonable argument for PhysX other than "it is my opinion" which is based on nothing.  It if fine if that is your opinion, but if you are going to voice it, you have to be able to back it up, which you haven't.




$immond$ said:


> Your missing the point, *You haven't convinced me to purchase 3 to 6 monitors because my card supports Eyefinity* however Game how you like but I am not spending $900 for 3 25" LCD's to see unsightly lines separating my game. I am content with my screen arrangements for now.
> 
> I will restate" "To each their own".



I don't have to convince you to purchase 3 to 6 monitors.  You brought up Eyefinity and said it wasn't as useful as PhysX.  So *you are the one that has to convicne us and the OP that both (a) PhysX actually is useful and (b) Eyefinity isn't.* And saying "PhysX is a better concept" isn't a valid argument for PhysX being useful, because if a concept is unused, it isn't useful.


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## $immond$ (Apr 13, 2010)

I am going to end this already dying thread. Both ATI and Nvidia offer gimmicks. ATI-eyefinity and Nvidia's physx. I myself will never find a useful aspect of eye-finity. Both offer a purpose but to the ATI die-hards they obvisously say otherwise about Nvidia.  

To each there own but you wont catch me dead gaming on a 3-6 monitor setup, its absolutely a wast of money and is an eye sore.


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## Fourstaff (Apr 13, 2010)

$immond$ said:


> To each there own but you wont catch me dead gaming on a 3-6 monitor setup, its absolutely a wast of money and is an eye sore.



Personally I think a 3 monitor setup for racing games is not too bad, and a 5 monitor setup arranged like a cross can be interesting too (but eyefinity does not support as far as my knowledge holds)


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## crazyeyesreaper (Apr 13, 2010)

everyone has there opinion i think its retarded Physx uses 1-2 cores max and if it was truly multithreaded you would not need a fucking gpu for physx period  if fluidmark physx bench is to be believed a properly multi threaded physx on a damn Q9400 is almost as fast a gtx 275 + gts 250 used for physx so as far as im concerned physx could be great if ppl stopped with the fucking you need a GPU to do physx bullshit.  ive USED eyefinity 3x1 is great 3x2 or more is retarded and guess what they make super thin bezel monitors and if bezels get in the way ill just modify said monitors in a 3x1 setup so theres no side bezel problem friggin solved in that department.

besides if a gtx 480 sli cant run metro 2033 maxed with DX11 effects how the hell is going to run physx on top of it? if physx even made a difference in said game if i remember a gtx 280 as a PPU with a gtx 480 as the render only gave a 1-3 fps improvement so as far as im concerned more monitors = more realestate higher resolutions etc physx = extra gpu work that could already be done on the cpu and thus higher frame rates . end of the day ppl will get what they want end of story but considering only 15 games on the market use hardware physx and only 1 actually needs it to run well i call shenanigans on physx


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## newtekie1 (Apr 13, 2010)

$immond$ said:


> http://www.legitreviews.com/images/reviews/1069/ATI-Eyefinity-WOW.jpg
> 
> I am going to end this already dying thread. Both ATI and Nvidia offer gimmicks. ATI-eyefinity and Nvidia's physx. I myself will never find a useful aspect of eye-finity. Both offer a purpose but to the ATI die-hards they obvisously say otherwise about Nvidia.
> 
> To each there own but you wont catch me dead gaming on a 3-6 monitor setup, its absolutely a wast of money and is an eye sore.



You might not find a useful aspect of Eyefinity, but you obviously haven't found anything useful about PhysX either, considering when I asked what you found it useful in, you completely ignored the question the first time, then posted some BS about it being a good "concept"...


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## El Fiendo (Apr 13, 2010)

newtekie1 said:


> I think there are a lot of people that would find it very odd that you are effectivly calling _me_ and ATi fanboy at this point...



I'll admit, I lol'd when I first saw it. Pretty sure you should quote and sig it. Everytime someone blasts 'Nvidia fanboy' at you, you can simply point them to your sig. You multi faceted fanboy, you. 


Gaming with multiple monitors and their bezels is like looking through one of these:







You notice them for about 13 seconds flat, and then you learn to 'look past' them.


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## crazyeyesreaper (Apr 13, 2010)

theres no better way to say it then the way the man above did  El Fiendo


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## [I.R.A]_FBi (Apr 13, 2010)

dead horse is dead


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## newtekie1 (Apr 13, 2010)

El Fiendo said:


> I'll admit, I lol'd when I first saw it. Pretty sure you should quote and sig it. Everytime someone blasts 'Nvidia fanboy' at you, you can simply point them to your sig. You multi faceted fanboy, you.
> 
> 
> Gaming with multiple monitors and their bezels is like looking through one of these:
> ...



I've gotten used to the fact that I'll pretty much be labelled a fanboy of whoever I'm defending(or whoever the other person is ignorantly bashing with no real information).

I've been called an ATi fanboy and an nVidia fanboy in the same day, hell I'm pretty sure it has happened within a few hours.

And if I wasn't out of room in my sig already, I totally would quote and sig it.


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## HalfAHertz (Apr 13, 2010)

What's the point of this thread? We already have 10 threads like this...


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## El Fiendo (Apr 13, 2010)

Right, I'll contribute to the OP's question as I don't think I've seen it mentioned. 

Nvidia is coming out with its own 'Eyefinity' called Nvidia Surround, and its an offshoot of their 3D Vision Surround. Essentially, you can either get regular old Eyefinity (no use of any glasses or anything silly, its just Eyefinity but from Nvidia), or Eyefinity with 3D (assuming you have supporting 120MHz monitors). Link

I don't believe its released yet, but theoretically it should offer similar performance. I haven't really researched it (as upgrading my video cards is nowhere on my list at the moment) so I can't tell you when its being released. However, it should provide you with an alternative to thinking ATI only for multiple monitor gaming.


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## zanat0s (Apr 14, 2010)

Guyz,

can you please at least help me with my decision?

I do not care whether PhysX or Eyfinity sicks or not.

i want to know which combination of cards to select!

2 X 5970 or 2 X 480 GTX! and i would like to hear your opinions and reasons if possible 

thanx


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## naoan (Apr 14, 2010)

you're at the right thread, read again from the 1st post.


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## DannibusX (Apr 14, 2010)

I would roll with the 5970, personally.  It's a top tier card and it performs well.  I've used nVidia for years, but when I bought my 5870 I was seriously impressed with ATI.

Besides, if you want to use PhysX, install your 285 in another slot and use the hacked driver mod that's going around the interwebs to enable it.

I think that once you get the 5970 installed, if you decide to go that route, you will be a very happy camper (in MW2).


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## subhendu (Apr 15, 2010)

If u need physx ,then buy a gtx 480...
if u don't want physx then buy 5970 or 5870cf


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## Zubasa (Apr 15, 2010)

subhendu said:


> If u need physx ,then buy a gtx 480...
> if u don't want physx then buy 5970 or 5870cf


Since the OP says he don't need physx.
This means 5970CF is the winner.


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## Benetanegia (Apr 15, 2010)

A single HD5970 is the winner, 2xHD5*8*70 could be winner, 2xHD5970 is an absolute waste!!!!! Definately the worst thing one could do. The second card only adds +25%, whereas the GTX480 SLI scales to +70% according to Wizzard's review, much more in the modern games (nearly 100% sometimes, read Wizzard's review and look at individual games). This makes the *GTX480 SLI much faster than 2xHD5970*. Also if the OP wants to OC, the GTX480 scales almost linearly (check this review) which makes it the better choice for enthusiasts as long as power consumption is not a concern, or if you are willing to concede in exchange for greatest performance.

- single GTX480 versus Ati counterparts. All things considered (perf/watt, perf/price) Ati wins hands down. 

- 2x GTX480 vs 2x HD5970: GTX480 SLI wins hands down. Better performance, comparable perf/watt, much better performance-per-dollar.

- 2x GTX480 versus 2xHD5870: Ati wins while offering slightly lower performance (10-20%), which might go against the purpose of an enthusiast. Both cards scale the same when using 2 cards, about 70%, so the performance advantage of the GTX480 is mantained, and all the problems with the high TDP are mantained too. It all depends what you want.

Stop doing such misleading claims such as "Since a single HD5970 is faster than GTX480, 2x HD5970 is better too". GTX480 SLI is the fastest 2 GPU config one can get, a fact that is amplified if you are willing to overclock. If the OP wants or needs 2 cards, if it really has to be more than one card, 2xHD5970 is just not an option, not a wise one anyway. If he wants the fastest thing posible, that's GTX480 SLI, but comes with it's trade-offs. If he wants perf/watt that's 2xHD5870 or a single HD5970. Avoid 2x HD5970 at all costs.


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## Zubasa (Apr 15, 2010)

Nope.
Even if the second card only adds 25% to performance the 5970CF is still faster.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_480_SLI/27.html


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## HalfAHertz (Apr 15, 2010)

But is it worth the added cost?


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## newtekie1 (Apr 15, 2010)

Zubasa said:


> Nope.
> Even if the second card only adds 25% to performance the 5970CF is still faster.
> http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_480_SLI/27.html
> http://tpucdn.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_480_SLI/images/perfrel_2560.gif



Well according to W1z's review, even at the highest resolution, HD5970 CF only scaled about 20% across all the benchmarks, scaling only got worse as the resolution went down.


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## Benetanegia (Apr 15, 2010)

Zubasa said:


> Nope.
> Even if the second card only adds 25% to performance the 5970CF is still faster.
> http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_480_SLI/27.html
> http://tpucdn.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_480_SLI/images/perfrel_2560.gif



Yeah... nope... yeah... well hmm strictly speaking, adding 25% to that results does make it faster, but as you can see and calculate from the chart that newtekie posted it's actually a 23%:

82 * 1.23 = 100.8

Paying $300 more for less than a 1% doesn't look like a good idea. OC both cards and the SLI setup wins hands down, because as the link I posted demostrates Fermi scales almost linearly as you increase clocks, increasing performance way out of reach of any Ati cards. If you are willing to pay $1300 and at the same time be subyugated to the bad scaling of more than 2 GPUs (not cards) there are many better 3-way options: 3xGTX470, 3x5870, 3x3850. All those settings would offer better performance than 2xHD5970 (probably not the HD5850 but it would be close enough). At the same time none of them would offer a significant improvement over 2xGTX480 and could become a nightmare like any multi-GPU setup with more than 2 cards. Also if you are willing to pay $300 more for a 1%, why not pay $500 more (3xGTX480) instead and have a much much faster setup?


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## crazyeyesreaper (Apr 15, 2010)

maybe because 3-4 cypress gpus will top out at 900 watts where as 3 way sli can hit as high as 1200 watts on the PSU  i still say 1 5970 + 5870 would work just fine and over far better performance at a lower power draw


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## Benetanegia (Apr 15, 2010)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> i still say 1 5970 + 5870 would work just fine and over far better performance at a lower power draw



Like I said, prove it. All that I have seen until now demostrates that mixing different GPUs does not scale well at all.


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## crazyeyesreaper (Apr 15, 2010)

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=112113


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## HalfAHertz (Apr 15, 2010)

Um I think that botrh Ati and Nvidia suck and you should all upgrade to intel HD because intel is *TEH BOMB!* I just upgraded and I'm never switching back. I get 134 fps in Crysis! So what if all the trees are missing, the sky is pink and the vehicles look  like cubes....FPS is all that matters !!!!11eleven


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## AsRock (Apr 15, 2010)

you can overlap LCDs so you could get rid of 1/2 the bezel if done right with the right LCD mount\mounts.

All so games like Black Shark make multi monitor a kick ass way to make your life better .


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## Benetanegia (Apr 15, 2010)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=112113



I'd need a more reliable source* really, but idk it might be. I really don't know, it defies any logic that adding a HD5850 improves performance more than 50%.

*not trying to be a dick, but IMHO and after looking at it closely in photoshop (I do it constantly when I see something strange, that's how I discovered that the first Fermi die shots were fake, if anyone remembers that), at least the Heaven comparison pic is fake (haven't looked at others, but the fact that some are pixelated or have a slightly different aspect ratio is weird too). The fact that both Heaven results have the same cyphers (1,0,7,8) made me look at it closely and found some strange things, for me 100% fake. Things to look at: 

1- The upper settings window (one on the left) has something blue on the upper border that shouldn't be there afaik, but on the right border it lacks the white line that makes the bezel/extrusion. As if it had been cut&pasted. 

2- Same window. Something dark bue on the lower left corner and the window is not round as it should, it ends up exactly where the aforementioned white line shoud start and go up from there to make the bezel.

3- The numbers are antialiased in the lower results (they have like an halo) or maybe it's an extrusion/bezel again, in any case they have clearer pixels all around. But the upper results, the ones pertaining to single HD5970 have none on the upper and lower side of them, you can almost see the line. IMHO 100% cut&paste.

4- Lower results windows lacks the bezel on the lower left corner.

Now I'm convinced that pic is fake and I can't believe anything from that guy, sorry. I don't like accusing people if it's not really necessary, but the odd numbers called my attention and after looking at them closely, what I found is enough for me to call BS on a guy with only 28 posts (sorry if it's not). 

*Like I said I don't like accusing, so I'm not going to post this in his thread and please, I would like that no one does it, unless someone finds something on their own. *


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## Zubasa (Apr 15, 2010)

newtekie1 said:


> Well according to W1z's review, even at the highest resolution, HD5970 CF only scaled about 20% across all the benchmarks, scaling only got worse as the resolution went down.
> 
> http://tpucdn.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_5970_CrossFire/images/perfrel_2560.gif


It is good as the OP have 3 DEll 3008 monitors each are 2560x1600 
If he uses them in an eyefinity setup scaling improves at that triple 2560x1600 resolution.


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## Benetanegia (Apr 15, 2010)

While looking for some mixed crossfire results aroud the net (since I don't believe the ones from that guy), I have found a lot of posts in AMD forums claiming that Quad Crossfire + Eyefinity don't work well (or at all) right now. Apparently there's difficulties with simple Crossfire + eyefinity too, but looks like a hit or miss there. They mention Cat 10.4 will fix everything, then again if you search older threads the same was said about 10.2 and 10.3, and still not working acording to AMD forums. A single HD5970 still seems a better option for now.

PS - Regarding the HD5970+5850. According to AMD combination option charts (since I was on AMD.com why not take a look) that's not even posible, so I'm more and more convinced that was complete BS.


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## newtekie1 (Apr 15, 2010)

Benetanegia said:


> PS - Regarding the HD5970+5850. According to AMD combination option charts (since I was on AMD.com why not take a look) that's not even posible, so I'm more and more convinced that was complete BS.



I don't know what combination options chart you are looking at, but the one on ATi's site says it is certainly possible.

As for how it scales, well if 4 full cypress GPUs only give a ~20-25% performance boost over 2, then 3 isn't going to be any better.  It might consume less power, but it won't be any better performance wise then 4.

Really, the poor scaling with 4 GPUs isn't surprising, or anything new.  Getting 4 GPUs to work together causes a lot of overhead just in keeping the 4 in sync.


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## HalfAHertz (Apr 16, 2010)

I wouldn't be surprised if 3 GPUs > 4 due to pci-e/NB/CPU/whatever bottlenecks and bad drivers...


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## Benetanegia (Apr 16, 2010)

newtekie1 said:


> I don't know what combination options chart you are looking at, but the one on ATi's site says it is certainly possible.
> 
> As for how it scales, well if 4 full cypress GPUs only give a ~20-25% performance boost over 2, then 3 isn't going to be any better.  It might consume less power, but it won't be any better performance wise then 4.
> 
> Really, the poor scaling with 4 GPUs isn't surprising, or anything new.  Getting 4 GPUs to work together causes a lot of overhead just in keeping the 4 in sync.



 Nah, same chart, but I can't read apparently. lol

I have not changed my mind regarding the results though.


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