Widescreen Gaming Forum

Hello all. I am looking for some advice on a possible upgrade from a single to triple monitor eyefinity set up.

My current computer components would be considered a little older now but they still perform quite well . I have a Core 2 Quad Q9400 2.6 GHz @ 3.7 GHz. Two Radeon 4870's in Crossfire and 6GB of 6400 RAM. Asus P5E Deluxe Main board. I can play BF3 with everything on Ultra at 1650x1050 which I am happy enough with.(AA lowered Down)

I recently "acquired" two 20 inch (60Hz)Samsung monitors that are very similar to the monitor I already have so was contemplating a new graphics card to allow eyefinity. These monitors max resolution is 1600x900 with a single VGA port.

My questions are these.

1: Do you think my system would withstand a 6990 or a 7970 card and give good results ?

2: Is 1600x900 x 3 good resolution for an eyefinity set up, or considered small ?

3: 6990 or 7970(7950) ? which would be best ?

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Quad at 3.7ghz should be fine... or at least not much performance drop! Had a C2D E8400 @4ghz with a HD6970. which got slowed down in games like Crysis and The Witcher 2. But a Quad might be enough.

1920*1080 x3 is the most used Eyefinity/Surround resolution. But there is absolutly no problem if you want to use 1600*900 that should work fine too.

And if i were you i'd go for an 7970 over an 6990! sure... the 6990 has around 10-30% more Performance but its a Dual GPU Card! You have problems with Crossfire Profiles and around 20% of all games won't work with two GPU cores so you have the performance of a hd6950.

The HD7970 is a nice card. But have you considered a GTX680 ? With new Nvidia Cards you can use Surround(aka Eyefinity) with a Single card!

Haldi, thanks for the prompt informative response.

I will take your advice on the 7970. Would you consider the 7950 "as good as" a 7970 as its nearly 100 euro cheaper?

I hadn't considered Nvidia cards at all simply because my last few cards were ATI and am more familiar with them.

You mention the GTX680 can do surround on a single card? Does that imply that a 7970 has trouble with eyefinity on its own ? sorry if I misunderstand..

....its just if I get the wrong card my partner will beat me to death with it.....it's taken me two weeks to convince her that our relationship will benefit from eyefinity :)

You mention the GTX680 can do surround on a single card? Does that imply that a 7970 has trouble with eyefinity on its own ? sorry if I misunderstand..

The thing is that if you want to go Surround (triple Monitor) on Nvidia Systems before GTX680 you need SLI! so two GTX580, or Two gtx560 or a gtx590. But now with the GTX680 you can run Surround from a Single Card like you can do with AMD's HD7970.



And if you wan't to save 100Euro and go for a 7950. If you think you could use the money better, do it! its around 5-15% Performance loss to a HD7970, but if you have 45FPS or 42FPS doesn't realy matter does it? Nor does it if you have 72FPS or 80fps. And if you think the HD7950 has to less power, you could OC the card. heard of some people who run a 7950 with 1000mhz up to 1100mhz! then you get this 5-15% performance back ;)



btw. AussieTimmeh made a nice Article bout AMD's Eyefinity vs Nvidia Surround. http://www.wsgf.org/article/red-vs-green-vs-blue-v2

Thanks Haldi for all your help.. i really appreciate it.