Widescreen Gaming Forum

The last time i owned an nVidia card was back in the FX5600 days, i have no clue where nVidia is in regards to surround these days.

Anyways, i am sick of all the problems with my Ati setup, i have been trying forever (more than a year) to update drivers and it just wont work, so im considering moving to nVidia.

My budget is around $500, i am looking into a SLI setup of 560ti to drive 3*24" screens all in DVI.

How easy is it to setup? and will everything work just like Eyefinity? How about performance at 5760 * 1200 with bezel management?

FYI, right now i have a 5870 1GB and im looking to upgrade and ditch Ati.

Thanks

How easy is it to setup?
Very easy, dont worry about that. :wink:

and will everything work just like Eyefinity?
Yes, only some very few titles (i can remember of Amnesia Dark Descent) dont "like" SLI so itll run like shit on surround.

Check some surround benchies here :
http://www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews/1104/pg1/asus-geforce-gtx-560-ti-directcu-ii-top-review-and-sli-performance-introduction.html

i used ati for eyefinity since it first came out. same as you, i got sick of all the problems and swapped to nvidia.

I have never regreted it as it works so much better for me.
l4d1&2, bad company 2, medal of honor, css. al l had problems with ati, now all work perfectly with nvidia.

But thats me

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intel x79
2 way 780ti's under water
Intel 4760 extreme @ 4GHz
3 x 42 inch screens @5860x1080
16 gigs xmp ram @2200

Ok i have decided now i need some advice.

Speaking about performance in Surround, what is better,

1* ATI 5970 2GB
or
2 * GTX 460 2GB in SLI

Thanks

In any scenario which utilises more than 1GB of VRAM, those 2GB GTX460s will have a significant advantage.

In any scenario which utilises more than 1GB of VRAM, those 2GB GTX460s will have a significant advantage.

My worry is that many games wont like the SLI setup and i will be stock with a slow GPU 1 * 560ti, i have never owned an SLI setup so i dont know how often that happens, where the games refuse to gain any advantage over SLI and just use 1 GPU... can someone enlighten me?

IMHO NVIDIA Surround is dumbed down and feature limited. I'd suggest just working out your driver issue with the 5870. I run both GTX470 Surround and an Eyefinity 6 card. Neither of them are problem free. I think it's a case of hoping the grass is greener on the other side when neither side is ideal. My personal preference would be to have 2 Eyefinity 6 cards over my 3 GTX470s.

_________________
Brad Hawthorne
Product Manager
Nthusim Pty. Ltd. | www.nthusim.com

IMHO NVIDIA Surround is dumbed down and feature limited. I'd suggest just working out your driver issue with the 5870. I run both GTX470 Surround and an Eyefinity 6 card. Neither of them are problem free. I think it's a case of hoping the grass is greener on the other side when neither side is ideal. My personal preference would be to have 2 Eyefinity 6 cards over my 3 GTX470s.

I would actually agree with the point "the grass is always greener"... I find myself wanting to pick up a 6970 to try EyeFinity, but I'm fully aware that both have their own problems. Particularly tri-SLI Surround seems to have a few more issues than just dual.

CY:G - the only game I've found that has serious issues with SLI is Amnesia: Dark Descent. Most other stuff is OK, although I do have a number of games (Shatter, Magic: The Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 spring instantly to mind) that have some fairly serious woes with Surround. The first two load OK once, but from then after crash the system completely when trying to load them, the latter is a lot more unstable with Surround.