Widescreen Gaming Forum

Oh man Nvidia just threw a major wrench in the cog work for WSGF multi monitor gamers.

News on the GTX680 looks like
> Faster than the 7970
> Less power consumption
> Enables single gpu multi-monitor
> Cheaper than the 7970

So at first glance it just took over.

But - We know things go a lot deeper than that for a true evaluation.

Over the course of time we learned that support from drivers, is important. That multi-monitor options like custom resolutions and bezel compensation are important. That VRAM is also very important.

From the onset looking into these other factors the victory between the 7970 and the 680 may not be so clear.


We know AMD Eyefinity is tried and true and that support from drivers is pretty good, we know that 3GB VRAM is much better than 2GB, we don't know if AMD will price drop soon to beat the 680 in price, and we have no idea what sort of other options or support Nvidia may provide in the multi-monior scene.

I think us as a group of enthusiast with a focus on multi-monior gaming have to take a much deeper look between these two cards than the other hardware sites or other general gamers. What may be the clear choice for best card on general market may not be the same for us.

I hope with Ibrin getting a 680 for review that he can put things through a vigorous testing process to help give us most of this information and I myself will key in with any information I can.

I have a couple of things to just throw out there.

680 Missing Features I'd like to see:

• 2x1, 4x1, 5x1, 3x2, 6x1, 7x1, 8x1, 4x2, etc Setups - If nVidia Surround had required 2 cards, and now they can do it off 1 card, why not be able to do more setups? With 4 available ports per card, the potential is there for nVidia to do something truly special.


• 4GB Versions - Honestly I feel like this will happen. I'm looking at you Pailet.

Actually I'm going to stop right there, because I feel like there are just features missing from most multi-monitor solutions. There's a complete lack of inflexibility with what displays get used, how they output resolutions, and what resolutions can be chosen. People should be able to "use what they got" without a hitch. I know SoftTH generally takes care of this, but it's not perfect, as there are performance hits, Dx9 only limitations, unease of use, lack of documentation of how to use, etc.

When It comes down to it, I feel as if the 680 is just nVidia checking the box again and saying, "hey we can do it too." Although also saying, "at same time as being cheaper, more powerful, and added interesting features." I just don't want to have to wait for the 780 to come out to have any "new" features.

The state of Surround Gaming could be better, more accessible, and more streamlined. I'm hopeful, that going forward, most of my concerns will be taken care of.

...meh... I don't even want to post this now. Sigh.. Well I wrote it. Sorry for the rant. I do like the 680 and am interested to see what happens next.

Since my main game focus right now is BF3... that's where I'll be most interested in. The numbers do look good for that game... but... as mentioned, the issue may be video memory. 3GB seems to be the key and vital point when it comes to gaming in multi-monitor situations. And I ain't too sure if nvidia has really thought it tru when they designed the 600 series. I do like the aggressive pricing. And maybe... just maybe... AMD may cut theirs down to keep up.

So with the 680 out... does that mean nvidia has finally made it possible to do single-card Surround and not requiring SLI to get this?

I thought I had my rig prepped for BF3 when I got my pair of 6950. Now it feels like I'm being left behind. But then again... I'm not missing a whole lot of details after the visual tweaks.

Since my main game focus right now is BF3... that's where I'll be most interested in. The numbers do look good for that game... but... as mentioned, the issue may be video memory. 3GB seems to be the key and vital point when it comes to gaming in multi-monitor situations. And I ain't too sure if nvidia has really thought it tru when they designed the 600 series. I do like the aggressive pricing. And maybe... just maybe... AMD may cut theirs down to keep up.

So with the 680 out... does that mean nvidia has finally made it possible to do single-card Surround and not requiring SLI to get this?

I thought I had my rig prepped for BF3 when I got my pair of 6950. Now it feels like I'm being left behind. But then again... I'm not missing a whole lot of details after the visual tweaks.

The 680 can do triple monitor on a single card, as for the memory, if 2GB was enough for all current games @ 5760x1080 then it'll be enough for a little while longer, also bare in mind the 680 is not currently expected to be there best single gpu card. And there are a few graphics manufactures that'll double the 2GB at some point anyway.

I agree completely, we need someone with both GPUs to do a thorough comparison, just looking at other sites benchmarks, its easy to say that the 680 is better but for us the reality is different, there is so many other things to look at, im really hoping that the staff here can do the definitive review/benchmark for this community.

Cant wait for that editorial.

I agree completely, we need someone with both GPUs to do a thorough comparison, just looking at other sites benchmarks, its easy to say that the 680 is better but for us the reality is different, there is so many other things to look at, im really hoping that the staff here can do the definitive review/benchmark for this community.

Cant wait for that editorial.

BTW looking through some reviews I find that the GTX 590 is still better than 680 when going above 2500x resolutions (aka 3x screens). I bet this is because of the 2nd GF110 gpu there. Also I noticed that at lower resolutions the GTX590 is a pure crap:))) I was a bit intrigued by this....

I am also looking to see what the GTX680 will do in Surround...but I still believe 3D Surround is too taxing for just one GPU.... So I am looking forward a Eyefinity VS 2D Surround VS 3D Surround benchmark with actual real results ;))

Best Regards,
Helifax

http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/grafikkarten/2012/test-nvidia-geforce-gtx-680/22/#abschnitt_surround_eyefinity_auf_einer_karte


Test. At least some small infos

http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/grafikkarten/2012/test-nvidia-geforce-gtx-680/22/#abschnitt_surround_eyefinity_auf_einer_karte

Based on those findings it seems that the 7970 does a little better in triple 1080p res compared to the 680. So although on a single monitor the 680 might be faster, that doesn't seem to be the case on the res that matters most to us.

Actually I'm going to stop right there, because I feel like there are just features missing from most multi-monitor solutions. There's a complete lack of inflexibility with what displays get used, how they output resolutions, and what resolutions can be chosen. People should be able to "use what they got" without a hitch. I know SoftTH generally takes care of this, but it's not perfect, as there are performance hits, Dx9 only limitations, unease of use, lack of documentation of how to use, etc.

I totally agree on all points but the last. Documentation on SoftTH is quite ok and configuring SofTH 2.x with my config tool shouldn't be no problem.

@"Multi-Monitor King":
2Gb Vram aren't enough to use the GTX680 to its full potential in triplewide. EVGAs 4GB version might make it king. Until then the 7970 is the card to go for.

Guys, tell me, please.Which of the technologies it supports more games - Eyefinity or Nvidia Surround?

Guys, tell me, please.Which of the technologies it supports more games - Eyefinity or Nvidia Surround?

They're about equal. Generally, if a game works in Surround, it'll work in EyeFinity (and vice versa)... some games work better in EyeFinity (Deus Ex Human Revolution) while others work better in Surround (The Witcher 2) so if either of those are important to you... choose accordingly.

Of course, while it's not idea, it's still possible to play games in a single monitor resolution. ;)

Guys, tell me, please.Which of the technologies it supports more games - Eyefinity or Nvidia Surround?

They're about equal. Generally, if a game works in Surround, it'll work in EyeFinity (and vice versa)... some games work better in EyeFinity (Deus Ex Human Revolution) while others work better in Surround (The Witcher 2) so if either of those are important to you... choose accordingly.

Of course, while it's not ideal, it's still possible to play games in a single monitor resolution. ;)

The big thing for me is I use my 5970 with a u2711 (2560x1440) and 2 p2210 dell monitors (1680x1050). I play the games that are a little tough at eyefinity res on my u2711 screen and flight sims and certain other games at 5040x1050.

My 5970 can go in and out of eyefinity in about 5 seconds with the windows key + p shortcut. My u2711 will automatically switch to 1680x1050 and play perfectly with my other 2 monitors at 5040x1050.

Then when I go back to extended the u2711 goes right back to 2560x1440!

Also BM works perfect also!

The scalier on the u2711 works really well and I can barely tell the diff in res. Also when playing games you really cant tell the diff in the actual screen sizes.

I think I have the best of both worlds with the possibility of one large screen and then eyefinity very quickly.

The point of this is I do not think that nvidia will let you run diff res or size monitors in surround. Much less with bm working perfectly also.

On to the 7990 for me. I just hope it does not get cancelled because I could crossfire 7970's but I use a 250gts for physx. That works perfect also btw!

Tom's Hardware has published a second article on the 680 and one page in particular is interesting. So as you guys can see, if you overclock both cards so they run at similar speeds, they perform about equal in triple screen resolution. I would even say that the 7970 performs a little better. The 680 seemed to be overclocked to the max and 7970 could be pushed a little further (they couldn't get passed the CCC overclock limits, not even with Afterburner, big fail imo). Since the 7970 is a little more expensive as well, it seems very hard to crown a clear winner.

Tom's Hardware has published a second article on the 680 and one page in particular is interesting. So as you guys can see, if you overclock both cards so they run at similar speeds, they perform about equal in triple screen resolution. I would even say that the 7970 performs a little better. The 680 seemed to be overclocked to the max and 7970 could be pushed a little further (they couldn't get passed the CCC overclock limits, not even with Afterburner, big fail imo). Since the 7970 is a little more expensive as well, it seems very hard to crown a clear winner.

This is true, not the first instance I have seen it mentioned either.

If I recall correct the Nvidia GPU has something called GPU Boost or similar and its like an auto overclock feature. So while you have have stock clocks set in your control panel the gpu is raising those clocks in game on its own for a boost.

AMD however is keeping it's stock clocks all the way though.

So when you pit them against each other and you manually overclock you start to close the gap between the two. I do not know the full details on how the Nvidia GPU handles an overclock if it raises the boost limit or only the boost base and if that could/will lead to issues for stability on max overclock as well similar to how a cpu overclock would with intel turbo boost.

The price difference may end up being more of a determine factor than I originally though and while Nvidia is leading AMD is known to always be willing to have the cheaper product and with public eye seeing the GTX680 as the better GPU I feel that is even more incentive for them to not only meet but beat the GTX680 in price.

For me the key deciding factor was the amount of memory on the card. I went with the 7970 because I felt that the extra gigabyte of video memory was critical for my 7680 x 1600 resolution. I was upgrading from two 5870s with 1 Gig of memory on those, and an inability to even run some games due to it. So I didn't want to upgrade too little, in that respect, and find myself with a fast card that couldn't even run a game at the high settings.