WHAT TO DO? Need Help Guys as soon as please

[bonoscot]

hey guys--i have been trailing these forums for weeks now and im still stuck,need help now as soon as possible.

I am new to this multi monitor setup(obviously)i am in the process of getting 3 monitors,1920 x 1080.
i currently have a GTX 285 card(brand new) i am looking to have a triple monitor setup that will play most of these games and games to come.
Bad Company 2,
Dirt 2,
Iracing
team fortress 2,
Left for dead 2,
Need for Speed Shift and the upcoming CRYSIS 2

Now the problem i cant decide is is which way to go in the interest of playing these games on HI detail etc and get great Frames Per Second (Multiplayer mostly).

What do you guys suggest i do in terms of card/cards?

1.Would another 285 card do the trick(remembering Hi res gaming)?
2.Should i go with Getting 2 x nvidia 460 cards?
3.Should i go with Eyefinity 5870?

I am honestly getting frustrated with this now as i hear so many things. I personally just want the best for Multiplayer gaming (pref on High detail in most games) Are any of the above any good for me to look into buying?
Would 1 eyefinity/Nvidia card run these with no problem?Or do i need 2 in my pc(space is a problem tho,my current 285 card is a beast)
i see a lot of videos with 1 card running games smooth? is that so?
Is it easy to setup(connection leads stc) on these card/s?


i would really appreciate any feedback at all guys now----im about to dive in and scared to buy the wrong card/s

Thanks in advance again

[Dyre Straits]

First of all, Eyefinity is proprietary to ATI....oops!!! AMD Video Cards beginning with the HD5xxx Series. One HD 5870 will do the job nicely.

[Delphium]

This kind of depends on your budget and what spec PC you have already.
I am able to play all the games you mention just fine with details on high using a single 5870 2GB card.

One thing to know and look out for when running multi screen gaming is VRAM on the gfx cards.
As you bump up the surround resolution, you require more and more VRAM otherwise you start getting major performance hits.

Although adding another GTX285 would be the cheapest option, using a 2nd hand card as they are no longer sold in stores.
However of cause the have limited VRAM, so you may find that you wont get all your games running in high detail with high fps.

The 460's with 2gb VRAM are very good performers as Paradigm Shifter has kindly benchmarked the difference between 460's 1GB and 460's with 2GB. You will notice that when using Anti Alising at high resolutions with 1GB cards the FPS takes a great hit in comparison to a 2GB card.

Now the 5870 is a great performing card, and is a lot more flexible with what monitor configurations you can use. Again this card comes in 1GB and 2GB versions.

Basicly if you wish to play games with Anti-Alising switched on, then I would advise using a 1GB+ VRAM card (idealy 2GB).
I hope this can help you make an informed decision.
Personally I would go for either 2x 460's with 2GB VRAM each, or as I have now the 5870 with 2gb VRAM.

[bonoscot]

Thanks guys for advice,heres my specs.

Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 860 @ 2.80 GHz
8GB Ram
Windows 7 64Bit
Gtx 285 1Gb
Logitech G15 keyboard
Razor mouse
G25 Steering Wheel



so 1x 5870 would be fine for running in high res and for future games(albeit crysis 2 will be powerful and ill need to upgrade then)

[BRPunk]

It depends on exactly what you want. I made the unfortunate decision of buying a 5870 when they first came out, only to have the 2G version come out mere months later, and now I'm struggling to find anyone to purchase my 1G version and don't have the $ yet to upgrade. Personally I think 2 285 GTX's would perform around the level of one 5870, and it would probably be cheaper to just buy one more 285. The VRAM limit would be the only reason to look into the 5870 2G or the 460 2g's.

[bonoscot]

well i cant get another 285---there is no room whatsoever in my case(the 285 is a mighty beast) so ill be selling my 285 and look into getting a new gfx setup for the 3 monitors,

any more opinions would be apprciated and thanks already for the help :)

[BRPunk]

well i cant get another 285---there is no room whatsoever in my case(the 285 is a mighty beast) so ill be selling my 285 and look into getting a new gfx setup for the 3 monitors,

any more opinions would be apprciated and thanks already for the help :)

Well, the 285 is only 10.5 inches, the 5870 is 11 inches. Keep that in mind if you do get one.

[tepescovir]

is there room for another 285 on your motherboard if you get a bigger case?

[bonoscot]

the 285 is bulky---its width that is the problem---as i already have a sound card in in to.So if i could fit another in there would deffo be an air flow problem(tbh i doubt id fit another in.

[skipclarke]

Single 5870 will bottleneck methinks.
Also get 120Hz screens, they are great for competative fps.

[BRPunk]

The eye can't tell a difference between a 60HZ and 120HZ screen. The only reason that 120HZ screens are becoming modern place is for 3D, because the refresh gets split between your eyes, so you need a 120HZ screen so that the split 3D images in each eye show a 60HZ refresh rate each.

[skipclarke]

I can clearly tell the difference 120 hz looks much smoother (provided your graphics card is powerful enough to run a game at 120 fps)

[bonoscot]

hey little update,i have broke it down to these cards,(the ATI 6 series might be too expensive) would be sufficient in playing my current games in hi res on 3 monitors,what do you think? What would run fine with my system specs,as i say i dont wanna rush in and buy,then have a bottleneck.


2 X Palit GeForce GTX 460 Sonic 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card

1 x Asus GeForce GTX 480 1536MB PCI-Express HDMI

1 x Sapphire ATi HD 5870 2GB GDDR5 PCI-E 2.0 (x16) DVI HDMI 6 x mini DisplayPort Eyefinity 6 Edition Graphics Card


thanks

[Gilly]

I would get the GTX 460's personally. Doesn't need a silly amount of cooling, and won't cost an arm and a leg to pay for the electric. :)

[ZafaZ]

hey little update,i have broke it down to these cards,(the ATI 6 series might be too expensive) would be sufficient in playing my current games in hi res on 3 monitors,what do you think? What would run fine with my system specs,as i say i dont wanna rush in and buy,then have a bottleneck.


2 X Palit GeForce GTX 460 Sonic 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card

1 x Asus GeForce GTX 480 1536MB PCI-Express HDMI

1 x Sapphire ATi HD 5870 2GB GDDR5 PCI-E 2.0 (x16) DVI HDMI 6 x mini DisplayPort Eyefinity 6 Edition Graphics Card

Hi,

nVidia surround requires sli so you out of luck with only getting 1 gtx480

I would lean to 2 x 2gb 460sli rather than single 5870 2gb based on a benchmark data that i've seen.

I run 2x 5850 in eyefinity res 5760x1200 and source games should be fine as well as nfs:shift. can't comment on how crysis 2 will run but i don't think you will be able to run bfbc2 on high with 3 monitors, my system can't.

thanks

[bonoscot]

hey guys,i think i am gonna now go for the ATI Radeon HD 5970 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card , any feedback on this?

[Honiara]

hey little update,i have broke it down to these cards,(the ATI 6 series might be too expensive) would be sufficient in playing my current games in hi res on 3 monitors,what do you think? What would run fine with my system specs,as i say i dont wanna rush in and buy,then have a bottleneck.


2 X Palit GeForce GTX 460 Sonic 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card

1 x Asus GeForce GTX 480 1536MB PCI-Express HDMI

1 x Sapphire ATi HD 5870 2GB GDDR5 PCI-E 2.0 (x16) DVI HDMI 6 x mini DisplayPort Eyefinity 6 Edition Graphics Card


thanks

Surrond gaming on Nvidia hard ware REQUIRES SLI so a single GTX480 will NOT work, (edit: sorry ZafaZ just realised you commented on this)

Does your mother board have 2xPCI Express x16 slots (8 electrical as you are on P55 chipset, 8 electrical is fine btw)

Does your mother board have the Nvidia BIOS hook for SLI? (this is a licence payed by the motherboard vendor to allow SLI, its not just the case of having 2 PCI express slots for Nvidia, ) if you dont have it you can not got Nvidia with out a motherboard change.

If you go ATI you will need either a DP-DVI ACTIVE adaptor or a DP capable monitor. my advise is NOT to get a DVI Dual link active adaptor as the single link's have just been anounced and they are 100% compatable with no down sides, and alot cheeper, and the res of each panel is below the maximum bandwidth of the Single Link DVI interface.

If you are going for 2xGTX 460 you are likely to be CPU limited, so even if you have 2GB of ram you will not get the maximum performance from the video cards. that i7 860 should clock to 4Ghz if you have a decent motherboard and 1600Mhz RAM. although on SOURCE based games that will not be a problem as the engine is several years old now

Running any multi high end card (460's, 470's, 480's, 5850, 5870, 5970) will produce a lot of heat under heavy load, and would strongly suggest NOT going SLI or XFire unless you have good cooling within your case, if you have a standard off the shelf PC like a Dell or HP you will very likely NOT have enough cooling for the needs of multiple cards, if you did a custom build then you are more likely to be able to add cooling as required.

Unfortunalty you were more intrested in letting us know your keyboard model and that you have a stearing wheel, over giving us the important information such as motherboard model, case model and PSU details. Therefor any suggestion made here will be best guess. So please let us have the entire important information and i'm sure my self of many other members on these forums can give you a much better informed decision on what would be your best options.

(sorry about the b**ching, in the middle of that :) )

Honiara

[tepescovir]

2 460's
no contest

[bonoscot]

sorry my pc specs are...

Windows 7 64 bit,
Intel i7 cpu 860@ 2.80 ghz
8 GB ram.
Motherboard (P7P55D LE)
V8 Cooling engine + 4 fans
Currently(GTX 285) on the way (ATI Radeon HD 5970 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card)

I found out due to my motherboard that dual cards wouldnt run at full speed plus i have a sound card installed and the space for dual cards just wouldnt be sufficient now.
I opted to go for the ATI Radeon HD 5970 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card, most powerful card on the market today so im told :0

anyways got a really good deal on it £300 and if i sell my 285 even better :)

Now i heard ill need to buy display port lcd's? and also an adapter now (also heard there is a new adapter with no problems at all?)
Any knowlege on this?


And again thank you guys for helping me as much as you can really appreciate it

[tepescovir]

No, you dont need display port lcd's. the 5970 should run 2 monitors with dvi, but you will need either a monitor with a display port for the third screen, or what most people do is use a display port adapter so you can connect the third monitor with dvi from the monitor to the display port on your 5970 using the dvi to display port adapter.
and the new one thats out looks like the one to go for.

Ps, you can also use a vga to display port adapter to run th third monitor, people have found thm to be more reliable