Graphic Card Suggestions

[shrayv]

Greeting All,

I built myself a new PC with the following configuration:

1) i7 2600k

2) Asus Gene-z Maximus IV

3) Corsair Vengeance 1600 MHz x 2

4) Corsair Tx 750 v2

5) Case - Cooler Master CM690 II Advanced

Looking for a pair of GPU's. Read many reviews on

1) 6950 Crossfire

2) 6970 Crossfire

2) GTX 560 Ti SLI

3) GTX 570

4) GTX 580

My budget is about $600 about (Indian Rupees 30,000). The prices here are a little on the higher side. A EVGA GTX 560 Ti Superclocked edition that sells for $250 sells here for about $355. That's hell of a difference.

I would be playing games @ 1920x1080 resolution. This is the first time I am going in for a dual GPU configuration. My last GPU was a good for nothing GeForce 6200 bout about 6 years ago

I have a few queries

1) Is the PSU sufficient to drive 2 GPU's?

2) Would the Asus Gene-Z Maximus IV have enough space for 2 GPU's (side-by-side). A few graphic cards (the one I remember was from ASUS) occupy about 2.5 PCI-E slots

Looking for your valuable suggestions.

Many thanks,

Shray

 

[Shift87]

First any reason you are going with a 2600k over a 2500k if its used for gaming then you really wont see a difference and the 2500k is cheaper. The 750watt psu should be just fine for CF/SLI. I Believe the Gene-Z can support 2 cards no problem as long as as it isn't a ASUS DCU/ii cooler any normal dual slot card should work. But really with your resolution I would say just go with a single GTX 580 its the best the single gpu on the market and cheaper then CF 6950/70 and you won't need to deal with any driver issues or it acting weird in some games like you can get from 2 cards.

 

[yassarikhan786]

For the 750w Power Supply, the GTX 570 in Sli would be a good choice. There's another forum member who goes by the name of Scoob who has the GTX 570 in sli on a 750w power supply and he seems to be very happy.

 

[shrayv]

First any reason you are going with a 2600k over a 2500k if its used for gaming then you really wont see a difference and the 2500k is cheaper. The 750watt psu should be just fine for CF/SLI. I Believe the Gene-Z can support 2 cards no problem as long as as it isn't a ASUS DCU/ii cooler any normal dual slot card should work. But really with your resolution I would say just go with a single GTX 580 its the best the single gpu on the market and cheaper then CF 6950/70 and you won't need to deal with any driver issues or it acting weird in some games like you can get from 2 cards.

But the performance gain of 6950 crossfire is higher than GTX 580. 6950 CF vs GTX 580

 

[Scoob]

Hi,

Firstly, 2600k - don't bother, get the 2500k unless money really isn't remotely significant.

My friend bought the 2600k, purely because I had "only" the 2500k, and my chip has proven easiler to OC, needs less vCore (caveat, silicon lottery!) is more stable and even in heavily threaded stuff we observe no benefit of his HT. Really, save your money, Sandy B. is a fantastic chip and a 2500k is MORE than you need, but just what you want

Regarding two cards for SLI/Crossfire, well I just did the former with a pair of different GTX 570's and it just worked. As far as I'm concerned these "weird driver issues" have been totally non-existant for me and I've tried lots of titles including a load of older stuff. Check out my SLI thread here for my experiences: Link In summary: It. Just. Worked.

My only experience of Xfire is trying to help a friend get his pair 4850's and later pair of 4870x2's working reliably - we failed. The 4850's are now in a workhorse PC that's rarely used for gaming. One of the 4870x2 died a firey death and my friend is now happily using a pair of GTX 480's under water. I've NOT any experience with newer 5000 and 6000 series cards, I'd hope they are a lot better.

Just incase you don't check out that thread, I'm using a Corsair HX750w and both my 570's are overclocked from stock 732mhz core to 850mhz core and my 2500k is at 4.6ghz.

Motherboard-wise, I really like my ASUS P8Z68-V Pro - really stable, really easy to overclock.

Cheers,

Scoob.

 

[S_I_N]

the question here only has 3 possible answers not 5

\

2) GTX 560 Ti SLI GOOD

3) GTX 570 BETTER

4) GTX 580 BEST

Best answer is to always get the single best you can afford and add later if needed.

 

[KaraMurat]

Guys, OP has already built his pc with his given specs, there's not point in telling him to purchase different parts, or questioning his choice.

1. 6950 Crossfire should be fine with a 750w psu, however 6970 Crossfire would be cutting it close and will depend on other components you are using (amount of fans, overclock etc), it should work fine as you have a good quality corsair psu, however I can't make any guarantees.

2. Dual gpu's will fit fine with your motherboard and case.

I typically say go for the single best card possible in the nvidia range. However as there is a pricing difference and you have already kind of set your mind on crossfire , I would say go with a 6950 CF / 6970 CF. The only thing is these cards run hot and their reference coolers make crazy amounts of noise, so you may have to invest in after market cooling.

Calculate if your power supply can run 6970 CF

 

[shrayv]

So in case I go for a GTX 580 now and plan to add one later for a SLI configuration, would the 750 watt PSU suffice?

 

[Scoob]

Hi,

Sorry Shray, indeed you're just after GPUs at this time! Apologies, I read the comments recommending a 2500k over a 2600k and jumped on the bandwagon without properly reading your original post.

A 580 would be better than a 570 certainly, but in my view not the amount extra it costs better, not even close. I use 1920x1200 as my resolution and a single 570 was great, though adding a 2nd 570 is fantastic. In all I've spent £450 in GPU's and at one time that wouldn't even get you a single 580, though they are cheaper now.

Today, a pair of good 570's (KFA) would cost you under £500 the pair, you'd be talking over £700 for a pair of 580's that would of course perform better, but you'd likely not notice it.

My Corsair HX750w handled my 570's running at 850 just fine - this is higher than a standard 580 - so I'd expect you'd be fine even with a modest overclock. My PSU doesn't even seem to be breaking a sweat running my overclock rig, the PSU fan is still only moving a small amount of air and the air is cool. I'd expect the thing to get hot & the fan to ramp up if it was being pushed. Note: the manual says the fan does ramp up under heavy load, but it's basically never gone far off it's idle state really.

If you can wait I'd see what AMD's 7000 series and NV's 600 series are looking like...plus you might end up getting the prior-gen tech cheaper as a result of the newly launched stuff.

Cheers,

Scoob.

 

[KaraMurat]

So in case I go for a GTX 580 now and plan to add one later for a SLI configuration, would the 750 watt PSU suffice?

Unfortunately I don't think so. 1 GTX 580 will work fine with a 750w, however for GTX 580 SLI you will need something like a 850w psu. A good quality psu with high enough amps and a good 12v rail.

 

[Scoob]

Unfortunately I don't think so. 1 GTX 580 will work fine with a 750w, however for GTX 580 SLI you will need something like a 850w psu. A good quality psu with high enough amps and a good 12v rail.

I think his PSU would suffice, even with a slight overclock, after all mine is with fairly decent OC on both CPU and GPUs. However I'd be more comfortable with an 850w supply if I had a pair of 580's, mainly because I would be overclocking more.

I'd say that a good 750w PSU is the minimum. If you go for a 570 then later a 2nd one a 750 will be more than fine, unless you go crazy on the OC under water or something...even then it'd likely be fine.

My 750w PSU hardly seems to be struggling with my current overclocks - besides, the thing would cut out of there was a problem, yet it's not even getting warm, nor is the fan ramping up at all. Sounds like a PSU well in its comfort zone to me!

If I was buying from scatch I would spec up an 850w+ PSU, purely for the over-kill, but my 750 is doing the business for me.

Cheers,

Scoob.

 

[KaraMurat]

I think his PSU would suffice, even with a slight overclock, after all mine is with fairly decent OC on both CPU and GPUs. However I'd be more comfortable with an 850w supply if I had a pair of 580's, mainly because I would be overclocking more.

I'd say that a good 750w PSU is the minimum. If you go for a 570 then later a 2nd one a 750 will be more than fine, unless you go crazy on the OC under water or something...even then it'd likely be fine.

My 750w PSU hardly seems to be struggling with my current overclocks - besides, the thing would cut out of there was a problem, yet it's not even getting warm, nor is the fan ramping up at all. Sounds like a PSU well in its comfort zone to me!

If I was buying from scatch I would spec up an 850w+ PSU, purely for the over-kill, but my 750 is doing the business for me.

Cheers,

Scoob.

750w for GTX 570 SLI works fine for you, however I seriously doubt that a 750w psu would be enough to run GTX 580 in SLI, as well as various other components within the system. You need to consider, overclocking, the amount of components that draw power from within and outside the system, any additional components for scalability and so on.

I'm not saying it's definitely impossible (because I haven't tried it personally) however I really think it would be pushing the psu to the absolute max and psu's typically drop performance when they are running at their limit.

 

[KING_OF_SAND]

I dont think a 750 will power 2 6950/70. It was a minimum of 712watts just to power my 6990 and my current rig and dual 6950/70 takes up more power than one 6990.

 

[ruthless_villain]

I dont think a 750 will power 2 6950/70. It was a minimum of 712watts just to power my 6990 and my current rig and dual 6950/70 takes up more power than one 6990.

6950s is doable if it has the right connectors it should work

 

[Scoob]

Let me grab one of those plugs so I can measure power from the wall with my current setup. I agree that a 750w is near it's limit if you're overclocking with more power-hungry components. However all I can say is that my system appears to be fine with a CPU @ 4.6 and a pair of GPUs @ 850. Would a 580 at say 800 really draw that much more power than a 570 at 800? I really don't know.

It is an interesting topic for sure and I'd like to know that I am indeed being safe. I did do a fair bit of reading up before getting the PSU and 2nd 570 and almost all the information I found said I'd definitely be fine with 2x570's even heavily overclocked.

We still don't know how much difference an overclock makes. My cards are supposed to have an absolute peak of 220w I think, would adding 0.020v (for 850 core) really cause it to draw a lot more power? It will be interesting to test.

I've asked my friend, who currently has the power thingy, to test his system. He has a 2600k @ 4.7 with a pair of 480's at 850 core. He's also running two 18w pumps and a load (really, loads) of fans. I've asked him to check his peak power draw too - we know 480's draw more power than 580's so it'll be a good comparison...almost an extreme case for 580's if you will.

I will post back when I have some results.

Cheers,

Scoob.

 

[KING_OF_SAND]

http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

 

[Scoob]

http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

Hi KING_OF_SAND,

I've used that calculator in the past, very comprehensive though it does over estimate a little in my experience. This is a GOOD thing of course. Measuring a prior system I had (overclocked) it was about 100w or so over the top vs. my real measured results at the wall...this was a couple of years back however.

That calulator recommends that my PSU should be 729w - I assume this is what it recommends my PSU should be rated as, rather than the actual power draw. I which case having a good 750w I'm within my safe limits.

Also, it estimates my CPU as being 154w @ 4.6ghz, which seems excessive, HW Monitor reports it as 90.33w, which seems low for a 95w rated CPU...though others report the same thing - think this feature of HW Monitor is broken personally.

I did speak to my friend briefly to check the readout for his rig using his wall meter plug thing...he's running TWO PSUs, one dedicated to the GPUs, the other providing power to motherboard (so 75w on the PCI-e x2 for his 480's) as well as two 18w pumps, several other devices and a crap load of fans for his HUGE rad...he has over 20 120mm fans in all, 18 alone on the rad (it's a 360x360 so 9+9 push/pull)

Anyway, he gave me a breakdown of his power use at the wall:

Absolute peak he saw 960w at the wall, he broke things down as follows...

"The GPU PSU pulls 460W – 500W and I get up to 460W on the system PSU. Of the latter PSU, 150W will be PCIe to the GPUs via the MB and 150-180W will be the CPU OC with the rest being peripherals and cooling"

His system is over clocked (2600k @ 4.7, 2x GTX 480's at 850) he is running a similar (slightly higher) vCore on both CPU and GPU's than me.

Based purely on these figures I'd say that my PSU is likely to be near a comfortable limit for my overclocked setup, however it does not seem to be struggling at all. I've had other PSU's I own get noticably warmer and their fans spin up when worked, this Corsair seems to be taking it all in it's stride.

I will still try the plug myself, or just order one today most likely, to see what my real from the wall draw is - maybe the estimates are pretty close.

I think the key thing is that they measure PSUs differently now, my PSU would have been rated as 900w not so long ago. Plus, reviews say this particular range of PSUs are massively over-spec anyway, one reviewer reporting to pull over 950w on the 12v rail alone before the thing tripped...excessive testing using proper PSU testing hardware there.

IF I was spec'ing my current system from scratch today, I'd certainly opt for an 850w or more likely a 950w PSU purely to allow it to run in it's efficient zone while maintaining a little bit of extra wiggle room.

Cheers,

Scoob.

 

[shrayv]

Hi all,

I'm planning to extend my budget for a graphics card, the problem I face now is the following fall in the category

1) GTX 560 Ti SLI

2) GTX 570 SLI

3) GTX 580

4) GTX 590

5) AMD 6990

I'm all confused now. Which one should I go in for?

Thanks,

Shray

 

[Scoob]

Hi Shray,

Based on our discusions here, options 1 and 2 will be fine in SLI with your existing PSU, even with some overclocking. Options 3 might be just fine on your existing PSU, but overclocking too much might not be advisable. Options 4 & 5 would need a better PSU...I'd say an 850w or even better a 950w+ for future proofing.

On a personal note: I don't think you'd be dissapointed with a pair of 570's

Cheers,

Scoob.

 

[shrayv]

Here are my thoughts

1) GTX 560 Ti SLI - excellent performance for the price

2) GTX 570 SLI - Matches up to the GTX 590 in most cases Link

3) GTX 580 - Excellent single GPU performace, cheaper than GTX 590 and GTX 570 SLI, equals the price of GTX 560 Ti SLI

4) GTX 590 - Enthusiast series GPU, however meant to be played at higher resolutions of 2560 x 1600 to use the full potential of the card. The 590 runs quite but comes with a lower clock speed and 1 GB less RAM than the 6990

5) AMD 6990 - Also meant to be played at higher resolutions of 2560 x 1600 to use the full potential of the card, Comes with 4 GB of RAM, switchable BIOS, pretty noisy

As mentioned earlier, I have a Corsair TX 750 V2 PSU, all the above cards. The GTX 590 requires a minimum of 700w (link). The 6990 may be more power hungry, the XFX make requires a minimum of 750w.

Since all the above fall in budget (except the 6990, its a nasty $1066 here), I would like to get a card that gives me the most performance for the money spent and also a little future proof. I know a card being 'future proof' is very hard to say. Considering the fact that the next gen graphics card will definitely run better than the current ones.

The 560 Ti and 570 SLI would not require me to upgrade my PSU. If I go in for a single GTX 580 now, and then decide to go in for another for a SLI configuration, I would definitely have to change my PSU at least to a 1000w. But I think, 2 GTX 580's in a SLI configuration would make one hell of a setup.

Looking for your suggestions

Thanks,

Shray