pcstru Posted June 18, 2013 Posted June 18, 2013 Anyone care to suggest a graphics card or cards for a 3 monitor set up (3 24in 1920x1200 16:10). Currently using an ASUS GTX570, which is probably too chunky (physically it takes up 3 slots) to do two of in SLI and is probably not quite capable of driving three monitors off it's own back. Most of my gaming is iRacing (and soon Assetto Corsa), Rise of Flight, RTS with a smattering of FPS (GTA, Team Fortress etc). Budget is £400 max.
sonofsanta Posted June 18, 2013 Posted June 18, 2013 (edited) Probably an AMD 7970 then - £325 at eBuyer with a nice cooler (there are cheaper ones available, but not by much). Will power three displays on its own, though you'll need a mini-DP-to-whateverYouWant adapter. AMD have done the multi-monitor thing for three generations now so it's pretty solid. Though I seem to recall that the newer nVidia series can do it, perhaps? In which case the nVidia 770 is about the same price and arguably more powerful, depending on the games. EDIT: apparently the nVidia cards can now support mulitple monitors with nVidia surround, since the 600 series - in which case, the 770 cards have 1 x HDMI and 2 x DVI outputs, so probably more convenient than the AMD as well. Overclocked Palit card @ £330. Edited June 18, 2013 by sonofsanta 1
BassTech Posted June 18, 2013 Posted June 18, 2013 I recently purchased this: Sapphire HD 7950 BOOST 3GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDMI.. | Ebuyer.com on it's own, overclocked and runs VERY nicely - It outputs to my 24" 1080p monitor as well as my 37" 1080p TV at the same time and runs games such as FC3 at max settings. If you want SLI two of these overclocked would do the job: Asus GTX 660 Ti DirectCU II OC 2GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDMI.. | Ebuyer.com Ok, it's £40 over budget but in my opinion worth the little extra! 1
Sunnyknight Posted June 18, 2013 Posted June 18, 2013 (edited) 680, 690 <<<< preferred, 780. 680 is just a little behind the 780. However, the 690 blows both out of the water. Edit: Woops, just saw your max budget. Sack the 690. Make a decision between the 680 and 780 imo Edited June 18, 2013 by Sunnyknight
sonofsanta Posted June 18, 2013 Posted June 18, 2013 Budget is £400 max. However, the 690 blows both out of the water. Gigabyte GTX 690: £833 Likewise the 780, at £500+. And 770 is a higher clocked version of the 680, so preferable.
Sunnyknight Posted June 18, 2013 Posted June 18, 2013 (edited) Gigabyte GTX 690: £833 Likewise the 780, at £500+. Yep, just edited ass you were posting Edit: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ASUS-GTX690-4GD5-GeForce-GTX-690-4GB-512-bit-GDDR5-PCI-Express-3-0-x16-HDCP-Read-/370834056558?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item56576ea56e 833 my buttocks. Saying that.... sack the 2nd gtx680 on my rig and buy the 690!? Edited June 18, 2013 by Sunnyknight
VeryPC_Tom_M Posted June 18, 2013 Posted June 18, 2013 So I'm not stabbing in the dark.. How much do you have to spend on the graphics card? What interfaces (DVI, etc) do your monitors have available? Which motherboard are you using (to check for PCI-E 3.0)?
pcstru Posted June 18, 2013 Author Posted June 18, 2013 So I'm not stabbing in the dark.. How much do you have to spend on the graphics card? What interfaces (DVI, etc) do your monitors have available? Which motherboard are you using (to check for PCI-E 3.0)? £400 is the budget on the graphics card. Monitors will be Dell U2412M. Motherboard is ASUS 1155 P8Z68-V PRO. Thanks for the replies so far.
VeryPC_Tom_M Posted June 18, 2013 Posted June 18, 2013 Thanks for that I'd probably look at the GTX670 or 680, both of which can post to 4 monitors. Realistically, you'll probably end up using 2 DVI-DVI connections, and a displayport to displayport (or DP to DVI, to DVI). You'll see a little drop-off in FPS, because you'll be running a PCI-E 3.0 card in a PCI-E 2.0 slot, but to be honest, that'll be negligible (Using a PCI-E 3.0 in a 2.0 slot) 1
sonofsanta Posted June 18, 2013 Posted June 18, 2013 The 770 is cheaper than the 680 and a better performer. Do not get the 680. The two cards are the same chip, just the 770 is clocked higher and priced lower. You could get the 670, but you want all the grunt you can get for 3 1920x1200 monitors, so you may as well spend up to the 770. It's as close to £400 as you'll get - the only cards more powerful are way over £400.
Sunnyknight Posted June 18, 2013 Posted June 18, 2013 The 680 is cheaper than the 770 >.> Also, the performance increase from the 680 to 770 is 5 - 8%. >.> Don't know what you're on about.
sonofsanta Posted June 18, 2013 Posted June 18, 2013 (edited) The 680 is cheaper than the 770 >.> Also, the performance increase from the 680 to 770 is 5 - 8%. >.> Don't know what you're on about. Going by eBuyer as it's normally the best indicator of price. If you've spotted a better offer, I'm sure @pcstru would be delighted to hear it Excluding ex-display models: nVidia GTX 770 costs £320 to £385 nVidia GTX 680 costs £350 to £480 EDIT: @pcstru - you may want to consider a 4GB model for multi-monitor fun e.g. http://www.ebuyer.com/510168-zotac-gtx-770-4gb-gddr5-dual-dvi-hdmi-dp-pci-e-graphics-card-zt-70304-10p (not out till the end of this month) Edited June 18, 2013 by sonofsanta
Sunnyknight Posted June 18, 2013 Posted June 18, 2013 (edited) Components » Graphics Cards - NVIDIA » NVIDIA GTX 680 Series - Overclockers UK 680 Components » Graphics Cards - NVIDIA » NVIDIA GTX 770 Series - Overclockers UK 770 Vary on price for the 2gb and 4gb models. @pcstru @sonofsanta 4gb models already on OCUK. Edited June 18, 2013 by Sunnyknight 1
sonofsanta Posted June 18, 2013 Posted June 18, 2013 Components » Graphics Cards - NVIDIA » NVIDIA GTX 680 Series - Overclockers UK 680 Components » Graphics Cards - NVIDIA » NVIDIA GTX 770 Series - Overclockers UK 770 Vary on price for the 2gb and 4gb models. @pcstru @sonofsanta 4gb models already on OCUK. Fair play - I didn't bother shopping around as it wasn't my money I was spending the 4GB cards are more expensive than eBuyer mind. It'd be worth looking round a fair bit, judging by the price variance between just those two sites!
pcstru Posted June 18, 2013 Author Posted June 18, 2013 EDIT: @pcstru - you may want to consider a 4GB model for multi-monitor fun e.g. Zotac GTX 770 4GB GDDR5 Dual-DVI HDMI DP PCI-E.. | Ebuyer.com (not out till the end of this month) Thanks again everyone. Damn-it though, reading a review of a 3 monitor 1080 set-up driven by a 680, frame rates seem to be dropping a little lower than I want. I'm sure iRacing won't trouble it and I guess there is always the settings to fiddle with but ... but ... the 780 does seem to be 25% faster. Uuurgh.
Sunnyknight Posted June 18, 2013 Posted June 18, 2013 @pcstru Pull out the £££ then I know i had to when i first bought my brand new gtx 680 lol. Gotta bite the bullet sometime. Saying that, if you do go for the 780. pay £100 more and buy the 690. Ba-da-bing-ba-da-boom! Nothing will touch it, for now.
pcstru Posted June 18, 2013 Author Posted June 18, 2013 @Sunnyknight - 690 - £800+!!! In opening a package and looking my wife in the eye and answering her inevitable innocently posed "how much", there is a line which I cannot cross... Not if I want to live.
sonofsanta Posted June 18, 2013 Posted June 18, 2013 I'd argue a Titan is a better buy than the 690, for two reasons - VRAM, and SLI jittering. One GPU chip will deliver a smoother performance than two chips in concert (the 690 is basically two 680's on one PCB). The raw numbers may not be as high, but the overall impression is smoother. I say this as someone who regrets Crossfiring. The 690 has 4GB of VRAM where the Titan has 6GB, and the more the merrier for the amount of screen real estate you have. Incidentally, the 780 is limited to 3GB of RAM, as 6GB is the preserve of the Titan - so you can get more VRAM on the 770 than you can the 780. I'm not sure what is more valuable in your scenario though, the extra 33% RAM or the extra brute force from the chip. First world problems, eh?
Sunnyknight Posted June 18, 2013 Posted June 18, 2013 (edited) An interesting point. However.... the titand clock and ram is higher than the 690, but the 690 has 3 dvi ports, higher bandwidth, fastet streaming cores and flops.... well thats about 1k highrr than the titan. However... the titan for multi screen gaming will advance over the 690 because of @sonofsanta said.... higher vram. Raw power... or smoothness. You decide. Edit: @pcstru You can pick them up for £600. Edited June 18, 2013 by Sunnyknight
featured_spectre Posted June 18, 2013 Posted June 18, 2013 I would go for the smoothness personally. If the high raw power card cannot do something that a slightly lower spec card can do, then it is not worth going for the high power card.
Bromcom_John Posted June 18, 2013 Posted June 18, 2013 We went for the 660 ti in our new set up at home. But that was more about ensuring the budget would then stretch in the future for the 3 identical cards that would ultiamtely sit in its quad SLI configuration. I shudder to think what teh bank balance would look like if I had to source 4 x anything in the 680 range!
pcstru Posted June 18, 2013 Author Posted June 18, 2013 I bought the GTX 570 with the intention of adding another one at a later date for the three monitor set up - but when it comes to actually doing that, it doesn't seem to make much sense.
flyinghaggis Posted June 18, 2013 Posted June 18, 2013 The GTX 780 seems like the card to go for at the moment (since it's essentially a cut down titan) but the recent NVidia price hikes of the 700 series over the previous 600series are a bitter pill to swallow. I'd like one but personally it's hard to justify spending £550 on a video card!
pcstru Posted June 18, 2013 Author Posted June 18, 2013 Edit: @pcstru You can pick them up for £600. Where?
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