[DChat]

Hey folks,
As the title reads, i'll be making a rig for my brother here soon and we want to go tri-Xfire with 3x6970's on a ~60 inch Samsung HD tv (no idea what resolution it is). I've read how the AM3 PhenomII's are bottlenecking Xfire setups so that doesn't seem to be the right choice... 1155 doesn't fully give x16x16x8 support, and the 1366 seems too outdated and high-end processors are more expensive than the 1155's.

Any advice on which platform is the current best to run a tri-Xfire gaming system? Our main concerns are: multi gpu scaling, PCIe lane speeds on multiple gpu's and OC stability

Any advice and source references are most welcome! Thx

 

[juhansoo12]

Intel for now, but you could wait for Bulldozer. Tri-Xfire seems like such a waste of money with one screen though.

 

[Norlig]

if its a 60" TV, its most likely 1080p resolution. making 3 graphics cards of that caliber waaaay to overkill. a single card would manage that with ease

 

[tsm106]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pangeltveit;12985970
if its a 60" TV, its most likely 1080p resolution. making 3 graphics cards of that caliber waaaay to overkill. a single card would manage that with ease

This. No point getting tri-fire lol. Tri-fire is for running 3 monitors plus not for 1080P! Get a 580 instead and run it on a sandybridge.

 

[Ipwnnubletz]

You can always go with a 6990 + 6970. The 6990 is just 2 6970 GPU's on one PCB. Two card tri-fire.

 

[DChat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pangeltveit;12985970
if its a 60" TV, its most likely 1080p resolution. making 3 graphics cards of that caliber waaaay to overkill. a single card would manage that with ease

I agree, to a certain extent. I wanna be sure to run games at FULL max settings without any problems for at least 3 years

I don't think a single card now can give that confidence

...or does 1080p resolution require less from a videocard than 1920x1080 or 2500x1080?

 

[tsm106]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DChat;12986111
I agree, to a certain extent. I wanna be sure to run games at FULL max settings without any problems for at least 3 years

I don't think a single card now can give that confidence

...or does 1080p resolution require less from a videocard than 1920x1080 or 2500x1080?

I'm pretty sure your Sammy will only be 1920x1080, aka 1080P. Trifire would be a waste because you won't be using the speed available, and you won't be tapping into AMD's larger vram. At 1080P, a single fast card is all you need, and Nvidia cards namely the 570 and 580, own this territory. There's no point in going faster cuz your display device is only so fast anyways.

 

[Ipwnnubletz]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DChat;12986111
...or does 1080p resolution require less from a videocard than 1920x1080 or 2500x1080?

1080p IS 1920x1080.

 

[DChat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tsm106;12986335
I'm pretty sure your Sammy will only be 1920x1080, aka 1080P. Trifire would be a waste because you won't be using the speed available, and you won't be tapping into AMD's larger vram. At 1080P, a single fast card is all you need, and Nvidia cards namely the 570 and 580, own this territory. There's no point in going faster cuz your display device is only so fast anyways.

Hmm.. ok. Seeing as GTA4 already asks for 1.5GB vram at max settings on my current rig (1400x1050 res), I can imagine other games do (or will) too... like Metro2033. Let alone whatever the recommended specs will be of other games in the near future, like Guild Wars 2.
Looking at the benchmark reviews of Metro2033 and Crysis, i'm not satisfied with the results of the single 570 and 580's. It doesn't give the reassurance that one of those cards is sufficient for those games according to my standards, nor that it will be sufficient for the next 3-5 years, and forking out 2x450euro's for a SLI setup that can't compete with a 600euro tri-Xfire setup just seems rediculous

...even though the tri-Xfire is a total overkill.

Now back to the topic at hand... which platform is the best to tri-Xfire on? One person mentioned Sandybridge.. anyone that can vouche for or otherwise?

 

[tsm106]

I'm not sure you understand that Metro isn't really a great game. It's really just a benchmark that you can play. To get metro to play at a solid 60fps, requires blowing a crap ton of money and for what? A few hours till you finish it and then you'll never play it again except to run benches to post online? You have to really wonder why everything plays like crap on Metro, is it really that demanding or is it really just that badly coded? In fact, nothing runs Metro great at max res like it's written into the code, bwahaha Metro pwns you mode enabled.

A single 580 runs just about every other game easily.

 

[DChat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tsm106 I'm not sure you understand that Metro isn't really a great game. It's really just a benchmark that you can play. To get metro to play at a solid 60fps, requires blowing a crap ton of money and for what? A few hours till you finish it and then you'll never play it again except to run benches to post online? You have to really wonder why everything plays like crap on Metro, is it really that demanding or is it really just that badly coded? In fact, nothing runs Metro great at max res like it's written into the code, bwahaha Metro pwns you mode enabled. A single 580 runs just about every other game easily.

I do indeed understand that about Metro. Four years ago I ran into the same situation with Crysis and built my rig solely around maxxing that game. Once done, I knew there wouldn't be another game for the next few years that would be that demanding. Now, 4 years later, only GTA4 and Metro are the only two I can't play above HIGH settings..

 

[Redwoodz]

i7-2600K and dual 6950's or 570's.3 cards is a waste.A single card would be more than enough though,and much more stable as far as drivers are concerned.