3-way sli gtx 680 4GB

[peterleo]

Hi guys!

I'm looking for the highest performance GPU setup possible.

First off, I'd like to play BF3 with all possible eye candy at 5760x1200.
I first considered running two GTX 690's in sli, but I decided against it because:
-it seems quad-sli is pretty bad (micro-stuttering)
-2GB VRAM limitation when 5760x1200 is concerned.

I'd like to have both the gpu raw power of two 690's and no vram limitation of the 2gb 690's.

Based on this, I'm thinking about 3-way sli of gtx680 4gb for the following reasons:
-3 way sli is said to be quite good when it comes to micro-stuttering.
-4 GB of VRAM should be good for 5760x1200
-3 680 gpu's (present in 3way 680 sli) should provide about the same results as the 4 680 gpus (present in two 690's) due to scaling issues in quad sli.
-3 gtx 680 4gb cards are a bit cheaper than 2 690's

Please advise me if you think my reasoning is right or wrong.
Please advise me if you can think of a better solution.
Let me know if I'm missing any pro's or con's

Looking forward to your comments
Cheers

PS I currently have a Corsair 1200AX psu

 

[jamesriley94]

Depending on the game, Tri-SLI can give you negative results compared to dual-SLI.
In the best case in gaming, you'll only see a very small improvement over dual-SLI.

You'd probably be better off saving some money and just getting 2x 680/670/7970.

There's very little performance difference between 670s and 680s, for quite hefty price difference - so you may be better off saving money again and getting 670s.

Single cards are better than dual-GPU cards like the 690, so I would suggest single cards.

 

[peterleo]

So 3 680's in sli might actually perform worse than 2 680's in sli?

 

[jamesriley94]

Depending on the game and your PC specs, yes.

Adding more cards means your PC has to split the workload across that number of cards, which reduces performance. That's one of the reasons why when you go from a single card to SLI you don't see a 100% performance increase.

More and more games these days are being coded to run better on SLI setups, as more people are using them. So on modern games, you're unlikely to see a massive drop in performance, although dependent on drivers, and bigs in the game - this is still possible.
Older games though often won't like tri-SLI at all.

Trti-SLI/quad-SLI setups only really come into play when benchmarking as those programs are specifically coded to handle more than one card.

It's worth getting 2, 680/670/7970 and seeing how they perform on your setup. If you get 35FPS (unlikely) then you may then want to add a third card. But if you get 50FPS+ then it'd be a bit of a waste of money really.

 

[peterleo]

I forgot to post my system specs:

i7 990x @ 4 GHz with Noctua NH-D14
24 GB Mushkin 1600 MHz ram
Rampage 3 Extreme
2 Kingston 96GB SSD's in Raid0
2 WD 2TB HDD's
2 optical drives
Asus Xonar Xense
Corsair AX1200 Psu
HAF X case
3 24" monitors (1920x1200)

Would 3 680's be too much for this configuration?

I've built this system almost two years ago and I've been running it until now with 2 6990 wich are finished. I've gotten all my money back for the 6990's, so I'm looking for a new GPU setup. For various reasons, I have to spend all the refunded money on hardware, so that's why I'm looking for the most amount of performance I can get...

 

[NRG!]

If you're going triple monitor and don't use 3d vision then AMD >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Nvidia tbh.

7950 crossfire spanks 680 sli, let alone 7970s.