I can't decide wich buy :(

[lalalaa]

Hello everyone! I'm new in this community and i need some help.

I want to do a triple display setup with 3x lg 22 inch to play in surround (at maximun if possible) games like bf3, cod, dead space and the new far cry.

I'm between the gtx 670 2gb oc top from asus and the sapphire hd 7970 3gb oc boost dual-x cooler. They are at the same price here in Argentina.

I saw reviews and all that stuff and i wanna know wich would be better.
I was going for the 670, I had nvidia since my first pc and bought like 4 or 5 or them graphic cards, but don't misunderstand me, i'm not a "nvidia fanboy" or something like that, only had experience on the nvidia cards never tried amd graphics because i haven't got the opportunity
Well... my idea at the beginning was run 1x670/7970 for the 3 monitors and save some money to do sli/cf later.

My only concern is on the vram. I saw reviews from like 3 or 4 sites and the 2 cards run mostly the same performance at 5760x1080, but, would the 7970 3gb be some kind of "future proof" because of those 3gb?
I mean, now we have games that don't stress too much the cards, but if i going for the 670 2gb, will be some game that make me regreat later for didn't bought the 3gb card?

What you recommend guys?

Thanks very much

 

[Master&Puppet]

7970 - it's faster and has more vRAM Just make sure you get the active adapter for the display.

 

[tristan]

i would go for the 7970, i think that amd has the better 3 screen gaming atm, eyefinity is better than nvidia surround, and the 3gb ram will help with 3 monitors.

 

[jamesriley94]

First off, welcome to the forums.

Neither of those cards will be able to max out BF3, you need SLI 670s minimum for that. Also, the 670 that you listed isn't the best, as it doesn't cool the RAM directly - I think the card was even discontinued because of this.

The RAM thing won't matter really. Since adding a second for SLI will double the RAM anyway, and 4gb will be enough.

Now, I'd like to say I run the same setup, 5760x1080, running off 1, 670. It will run pretty much any game across three screens fine, but not at maximum settings. BF3 has to be run at medium, others you can get away with high or even maximum. I don't notice the difference between the quality tbh, and BF3 at medium settings, the single card can top 60 FPS on the monitors.

The 7970 is more powerful than the 670 - so in most uses, this would be a better choice. However, with AMD cards, in order to set up multi-monitor configurations, you need an active display port adapter, which is usually around 100 USD. So bear in mind, if you go for the AMD option, you'll have to spend a bit more.

I would personally get the 670 (not the Asus one you listed however) and run games at medium, until you can afford to go for SLI.

One side note - CoD games can't really be played triple screen as they're badly coded for it, and it just stretches a single 1920x1080 resolution across 3 screens, making it unplayable without mods - which if used in multiplayer, will get you banned.

 

[tristan]

The RAM thing won't matter really. Since adding a second for SLI will double the RAM anyway, and 4gb will be enough.

i don't think that ram gets doubled when you sli as it still has to be split between 2 gpus.

 

[jamesriley94]

i don't think that ram gets doubled when you sli as it still has to be split between 2 gpus.

Right, fair enough - first time I've ever even researched that

2GB should still be more than enough though. I've never seen my vRAM usage come close to 2GB. And if it is an issue, there are 4gb versions of the 670s.

 

[airdeano]

i didn't think the vRAM doubled..
but id hold out for a larger vRAM GPU or leap into the 7970..
looked into the 7950 cards? seem they kinda overclock pretty hard from Tom's
videos.

airdeano

 

[lalalaa]

Thanks for reply guys! ^_^
I saw the 670 4gb but here in Argentina exist some sh*t called "tax technology" and the price of that stuff is like the double on the other cards...
the 670 is like 3700 argentinian pesos and the 4gb version is 8000 <.< that's my problem... well thanks guys i think i'll go for the 7970, i hope that the stores won't raise on the price...

 

[airdeano]

look into the 660ti 2GB and 3GB versions..

airdeano

 

[Master&Puppet]

The RAM thing won't matter really. Since adding a second for SLI will double the RAM anyway, and 4gb will be enough.

i don't think that ram gets doubled when you sli as it still has to be split between 2 gpus.

Multi-gpu rendering works in two ways:

Split-frame rendering. Where 1 card is the 'master' and the second the 'slave'. The master is told to render a frame. It does the top half of a frame itself and tells the slave to do the bottom half. The slave then sends the bottom half back up to the master which sews the two halves together and sends it to the monitor. You still only have an effective 2gb of vRAM because the frame data is fully loaded into both GPUs - however the GPU in each will work on different halves of the data to make one complete image.

Alternate-frame rendering. Where the cards take it in turns to render a frame each. I.e. card A does frames 1,3,5,7,9 and card B does frames 2,4,6,8,10. Each card renders an entire frame but has twice as long to do the work. Because each frame is rendered completely by a single card it is still only 2gb.

 

[Bang]

Very intersting info there mate.

I've got a mate who has 2xGTX560's in SLI but he cant run 3 monitors with them. He had to borrow an old GT430 off me to be able to run a third monitor. Dont ask me why Nvidias drivers dont allow 2 cards with a total of 6 outputs to run three measely monitors.

 

[Timeless]

7970 kicks the 670s ass on higher resolutions so I would go AMD.
But I wouldn't go for a reference design as I had 2 and both had annoying coil whine. I have a Asus 7970 DCII now and that one is whisper quiet.