2560x1600 Maxed Gaming GPU Config: SLI or Single GPU?

[DanishDevil]

If you are satisfied with the performance you could always swap one of the cards and pick a dual slot to put on top and have that slot of breathing for the upper card.
The only issue I can think of on the future is the amount of Vram as you already said

That would drive me nuts. Looking through my case window and seeing two different GPUs below my sexy white watercooling tubing? Inconceivable!

Amen to that!

The 560Ti 448's definitely look very appealing, since you put it that way I'd definitely suggest swapping out asap as it would be what I do in your situation .

I think I'm gonna go ahead and go for them. I'm not about to spend as much per card as the next-gen stuff will cost in a few months so I can play BF3 with Ultra textures.

 

[n-ster]

I'm just curious why you have a 2500K and P67 board and you are part of TPU and you didn't OC to at least 4~4.4Ghz?

also did you try swapping the top card and the bottom card?

P.S: I read the thread really fast, so I might have missed some things

 

[DanishDevil]

I swapped the top and bottom card just now actually, to make sure that my old GPU didn't fry.

I'm not overclocking right now because I've had a horrifically long project this semester that I needed my desktop for, so I wasn't going to take any chances whatsoever of having my system down. Give me a week and I'll be over 4GHz

 

[n-ster]

Oh good

Did the swapping the cards help temps?

 

[Chicken Patty]

Overclocking it over 4GHz did allow me to see some slight differences in FPS. So that should also help you a bit.

 

[DanishDevil]

Oh good

Did the swapping the cards help temps?

Nope, the top GPU is still being starved for air and shoved against the very hot backplate of the bottom card. The new GPU has a ticking sound at a certain fan speed and some fin array damage anyway, so it's going back to Amazon.

Overclocking it over 4GHz did allow me to see some slight differences in FPS. So that should also help you a bit.

From what I've seen in BF3 (namely quoting this), I don't think it will make a ton of difference in this game. Definitely will in others, though.

Edit: ----------------------------------------------------------

With the 7900 series looking to be coming in a couple of weeks, I think I'm going to just return this defective card and hold off for a bit to see what releases. I do like the 448's, but I'm not sure I want to deal with a substantial price drop quite so soon.

 

[n-ster]

lol I was about to say forget the 570 and see what the 7950/70 bring to the table

 

[radrok]

Nope, the top GPU is still being starved for air and shoved against the very hot backplate of the bottom card. The new GPU has a ticking sound at a certain fan speed and some fin array damage anyway, so it's going back to Amazon.



From what I've seen in BF3 (namely quoting this), I don't think it will make a ton of difference in this game. Definitely will in others, though.

Edit: ----------------------------------------------------------

With the 7900 series looking to be coming in a couple of weeks, I think I'm going to just return this defective card and hold off for a bit to see what releases. I do like the 448's, but I'm not sure I want to deal with a substantial price drop quite so soon.

I would say wise choice

 

[Chicken Patty]

Very wise choice!!!

And as far as clocking, the only game I can confirm this with is with Crysis 2. Didn't benchmark before and after, but I do notice slightly higher FPS using Fraps to monitor.

 

[DanishDevil]

Well, I just hopped onto Amazon (they've been out of stock on the 448 classy's for a while now) and they had exactly two in stock. Took it as a sign and couldn't turn down the chance to grab the two. Looks like I'll be running two of those soon! Estimated delivery is Friday.

 

[DOM]

so you got 2 560ti 448 ?

 

[Darkleoco]

so you got 2 560ti 448 ?

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GTX_560_Ti_448_Cores_DirectCU_II/1.html

Seems like a decent choice for his resolution though I do think he may have been better served if he had been looking at AMD cards and gone with Crossfire 6950's simply due to the amount of memory being used at his resolution and the potential to find them for significantly cheaper when performance in a near majority of game is close to being neck and neck.

 

[DanishDevil]

so you got 2 560ti 448 ?

Two of these to be exact:

EVGA 012-P3-2068-KR GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 448...

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GTX_560_Ti_448_Cores_DirectCU_II/1.html

Seems like a decent choice for his resolution though I do think he may have been better served if he had been looking at AMD cards and gone with Crossfire 6950's simply due to the amount of memory being used at his resolution and the potential to find them for significantly cheaper when performance in a near majority of game is close to being neck and neck.

I ran CrossFire 6950s flashed to 6970 back in the day, and the driver bugs were horrid. Some say they're fixed now, some say they're not. Also, the main game I'm focusing on is Battlefield 3, and nVidia cards have a distinct advantage over their AMD cousins. If it weren't for one of those two negatives, I would have gotten two 69x0's and been able to run Ultra textures. I'll see what 79x0 brings in January, but until then...

 

[Darkleoco]

Two of these to be exact:

EVGA 012-P3-2068-KR GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 448...



I ran CrossFire 6950s flashed to 6970 back in the day, and the driver bugs were horrid. Some say they're fixed now, some say they're not. Also, the main game I'm focusing on is Battlefield 3, and nVidia cards have a distinct advantage over their AMD cousins. If it weren't for one of those two negatives, I would have gotten two 69x0's and been able to run Ultra textures. I'll see what 79x0 brings in January, but until then...

http://www.fudzilla.com/images/stor.../560/448_Coers/Classified/560ti-448-cores.jpg

Driver bugs are fixed now if you clean install new video drivers, their are the occasional issues of course but I haven't seen anything or heard of anything very serious recently. Also what advantages do Nvidia cards have over AMD cards in BF3 since it does not use Physx?

 

[Chicken Patty]

Those cards are sick man. Keep us posted.

 

[DanishDevil]

Driver bugs are fixed now if you clean install new video drivers, their are the occasional issues of course but I haven't seen anything or heard of anything very serious recently. Also what advantages do Nvidia cards have over AMD cards in BF3 since it does not use Physx?

Referencing this for nVIdia cards being superior to AMD cards in BF3:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/battlefield-3-graphics-performance,3063.html

Those cards are sick man. Keep us posted.

Will do!

 

[Darkleoco]

Referencing this for nVIdia cards being superior to AMD cards in BF3:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/battlefield-3-graphics-performance,3063.html



Will do!

Sorry but according to your own source it is looking very much like AMD cards are better than Nvidia cards in BF3 with the HD 6970 and 6990 beating the 580 and 590 respectively in all resolutions tested in single card setups. And when Crossfire is taken into consideration the fact remains that even 6950's in crossfire edge out GTX 580's in SLI to have better performance even if it is only slightly and then the 6970's completely outpace the 580's. Then not to mention the 6990 at 2560 x 1600 pulling 76.8 FPS without Crossfire which by itself is a 15 FPS increase above the GTX 590 and when Crossfire/SLI are added the 6990's beat out the 590's by nearly 38 FPS.

 

[yogurt_21]

Sorry but according to your own source it is looking very much like AMD cards are better than Nvidia cards in BF3 with the HD 6970 and 6990 beating the 580 and 590 respectively in all resolutions tested in single card setups. And when Crossfire is taken into consideration the fact remains that even 6950's in crossfire edge out GTX 580's in SLI to have better performance even if it is only slightly and then the 6970's completely outpace the 580's. Then not to mention the 6990 at 2560 x 1600 pulling 76.8 FPS without Crossfire which by itself is a 15 FPS increase above the GTX 590 and when Crossfire/SLI are added the 6990's beat out the 590's by nearly 38 FPS.

no kidding, even the aged 5970 is keeping up with 570 sli in that review. That's damned impressive for such an old card.

shoot even 6870 crossfire is keeping the pace.

 

[DanishDevil]

570 is on par with 6950 and 580 is on par with 6970, and they are at different price points, but that my friends is on High quality.

Ultra tells a different story.

“What the heck?” you’re probably asking, referencing back to the Nvidia results. AMD managed to beat more expensive GeForce cards at High quality, but now falls behind at Ultra quality. Remember that the Radeon boards take a lot of abuse with MSAA enabled, and the Ultra preset applies this feature automatically. As a result, I’d go so far as to say Ultra quality at enthusiast-oriented resolutions is out of the question for almost all single-GPU setups.

The only reason I would go for an AMD card would be to take advantage of the extra memory they offer (2GB vs. 1.28GB) specifically for Ultra quality. Because the AMD cards don't do well on Ultra, they were vetoed as a choice for me.

 

[John Doe]

Those 560 Ti 448 Classy's are great cards. Built on a 580 PCB with a Thermalright Shaman-like cooler.

http://www.hitechlegion.com/reviews/video-cards/14955-evga-gtx560ti-448-cores-classified?start=1

 

[Darkleoco]

570 is on par with 6950 and 580 is on par with 6970, and they are at different price points, but that my friends is on High quality.

Ultra tells a different story.

http://media.bestofmicro.com/Y/W/313592/original/amd ultra 2560.png http://media.bestofmicro.com/Z/K/313616/original/nvidia ultra 2560.png



The only reason I would go for an AMD card would be to take advantage of the extra memory they offer (2GB vs. 1.28GB) specifically for Ultra quality. Because the AMD cards don't do well on Ultra, they were vetoed as a choice for me.

Seems to me that their Ultra testing is a little incomplete without Crossfire and SLI being tested but in single card configurations at Ultra you are quite clearly right about Nvidia cards.

 

[John Doe]

Seems to me that their Ultra testing is a little incomplete without Crossfire and SLI being tested but in single card configurations at Ultra you are quite clearly right about Nvidia cards.

Well, the 6970 isn't as fast as a 580. It's up there with a 480. And if you go out of vRAM, the game would lag down. Not go a few frames down. I agree on CF though, AMD cards scale better. But he wants nVidia for their drivers.

 

[radrok]

570 is on par with 6950 and 580 is on par with 6970, and they are at different price points, but that my friends is on High quality.

Ultra tells a different story.

http://media.bestofmicro.com/Y/W/313592/original/amd ultra 2560.png http://media.bestofmicro.com/Z/K/313616/original/nvidia ultra 2560.png



The only reason I would go for an AMD card would be to take advantage of the extra memory they offer (2GB vs. 1.28GB) specifically for Ultra quality. Because the AMD cards don't do well on Ultra, they were vetoed as a choice for me.

But have you seen crossfired results? They tell an entirely different story.

Anyway GTX 560 448 core are a solid choice, you won't be disappointed
Bear in mind though that I've seen almost all my VRAM fulled on BF3 beta and this keeps repeating with newer games at 2560x1600, Skyrim for example takes almost 4 GB of Vram across a 6990 but that's with custom texture packs I have to admit (more than 2GPUs crossfire is disabled on Skyrim)