need a boost for eyefinity

[JOE-E]

i have an eyefinity setup with an amd FX 8320, amd hd 6970, 8 gigs 1600 memory, asus xonar phoebus sound card, 128gb kingston ssd, and a 500gb storage hd with a 650 watt ps. (gaming pc)

i also have a media center pc in the living room with an AMD phenom ii 955 cpu, 4 gb 1333 ram, 2 radeon hd 5770's in crossfirex, and 2 500gb hd's.

the media center pc was built out of my original parts that were in my pc. as i upgraded i ended up with enough parts to build another system.

what ive come to realize is that i dont seem to be getting the performance i was looking for when i started to upgrade. im thinking either getting another 6970 graphics card or changing over to intel.

with my eyefinity setup i find that i have to turn alot of the graphics settings down in order to play the games fluidly or just go back to a single monitor. im not talking about mp either just sp. im thinking that changing over to intel wont change that because my processor isnt really being pushed at all. im thinking i need another graphics card. from what ive read up on the 7970 wont make any difference when using 1 monitor at 60hz but if im using 3 would it be better to upgrade to 1 7970 or should i just get another 6970 and crossfire them?

 

[SPS]

Are you running 3 x 1080? I think upgrading to 7970 would be better purely based on the fact that eyefinity + crossfire is probably more hassle than it's worth. Plus the extra VRAM on the 7970s.

However I believe 6970 crossfire will outperform a single 7970 and probably more cost effective.

 

[jamesriley94]

My advice for multimonitors is always get nvidia. I know the 7970 performs better...
But there isn't much in it, and AMD cards require active display port adapters which are another £80 on top of the card.

IMO, you'd be better off getting a 670, maybe a 680 if you find one at a reasonable price and maybe think of getting the 4gb versions.

I am slightly confused as to what you already have though?
Do you already have 3 screens? If so, I'm guessing you have the active display port adapter - or even display port screens to start with?

 

[grassman]

Download Radeonpro if you plan on xfire it removes micro stutters with dynamic vsync has it's own AA which performs much better then in game AA

 

[SPS]

My advice for multimonitors is always get nvidia. I know the 7970 performs better...
But there isn't much in it, and AMD cards require active display port adapters which are another £80 on top of the card.

You're thinking of HDMI/DVI GPU to DP monitor. Generally it is the other way around which requires an adapter of around £20.

 

[jamesriley94]

On AMD cards if you use triple screens, you have to have at least one monitor plugged in through the mini-display port. If the monitor your using has display port on it, it's fine. If it's DVI, you need to convert the display port from the GPU to DVI through an active adapter:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Startech-co...DW/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1355316427&sr=8-10

This won't work however:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/StarTech-DP...1_3?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1355316463&sr=1-3


On nvidia on the other hand, you can just use DVI, DVI and HDMI, without any need for adapters.

 

[SPS]

On AMD cards if you use triple screens, you have to have at least one monitor plugged in through the mini-display port. If the monitor your using has display port on it, it's fine. If it's DVI, you need to convert the display port from the GPU to DVI through an active adapter:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Startech-co...DW/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1355316427&sr=8-10

This won't work however:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/StarTech-DP...1_3?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1355316463&sr=1-3


On nvidia on the other hand, you can just use DVI, DVI and HDMI, without any need for adapters.

I know I have an AMD card.. and that is for dual link, you can use this:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/StarTech-Mi...pter/dp/B004SUELLC/ref=pd_sim_sbs_computers_3

 

[jamesriley94]

I know I have an AMD card.. and that is for dual link, you can use this:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/StarTech-Mi...pter/dp/B004SUELLC/ref=pd_sim_sbs_computers_3

I thought for them to be active they needed additional power - like from usb?

I dunno - just a friend of mine has his eyefinity rig set up using one of the 80 quid ones - I thought you had to spend something like that for it to be active? Guess I was wrong

 

[SPS]

I thought for them to be active they needed additional power - like from usb?

I dunno - just a friend of mine has his eyefinity rig set up using one of the 80 quid ones - I thought you had to spend something like that for it to be active? Guess I was wrong

Nah it's only when converting to a DP on a monitor (e.g. HDMI to DP), it's confusing to say the least lol.

This is a helpful link: http://support.amd.com/us/eyefinity/Pages/eyefinity-dongles.aspx

 

[b.o.a.t.i]

afaik the 7 series amd cards come with any adaptors you would need to run eyefinity, my 7970 did anyway..
1x mini displayport to dvi (new type of active with no usb) and
1x hdmi to dvi

 

[Rich_]

I'd sell the 6970 for 150, sell one of the 5770's for 75 if it's only a media center pc that you watch hi def movies on, and then take that 225 dollars and put it towards either 2x 7870, or 2x 7950. I'd go with the 7950's, and if you can pull off selling the spare cards it'd only cost 375 bucks for graphics knocking on the door of a 690 or 7990.

 

[JOE-E]

Are you running 3 x 1080? I think upgrading to 7970 would be better purely based on the fact that eyefinity + crossfire is probably more hassle than it's worth. Plus the extra VRAM on the 7970s.

However I believe 6970 crossfire will outperform a single 7970 and probably more cost effective.

yes i am running 3 1920X1080 monitors. i guess i should have thrown that in my post. i see that the 7970 has mor vram and im sure that would help but im wondering by how much. i cant really find any benchmarks about eyefinity. do you know any sites i can look at?

My advice for multimonitors is always get nvidia. I know the 7970 performs better...
But there isn't much in it, and AMD cards require active display port adapters which are another £80 on top of the card.

IMO, you'd be better off getting a 670, maybe a 680 if you find one at a reasonable price and maybe think of getting the 4gb versions.

I am slightly confused as to what you already have though?
Do you already have 3 screens? If so, I'm guessing you have the active display port adapter - or even display port screens to start with?

i already have 3 monitors and i bought an ACTIVE mini-displayport to dvi adapter for $20 in order to get the 3erd monitor to work. i say ACTIVE because if its passive it will not work. found that out the hard way.

i was under the impression that amd cards were more optimized for multi monitor gaming and nvidia was more optimized for 3d gaming.

Download Radeonpro if you plan on xfire it removes micro stutters with dynamic vsync has it's own AA which performs much better then in game AA

im definitely going to check this out b/c i have used crossfire with the 5770's and it was a pain in the arse with certain games (battlefield 3 and crysis 2!!!) thank you for the info.

On AMD cards if you use triple screens, you have to have at least one monitor plugged in through the mini-display port. If the monitor your using has display port on it, it's fine. If it's DVI, you need to convert the display port from the GPU to DVI through an active adapter:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Startech-co...DW/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1355316427&sr=8-10

This won't work however:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/StarTech-DP...1_3?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1355316463&sr=1-3


On nvidia on the other hand, you can just use DVI, DVI and HDMI, without any need for adapters.

this is correct. i havent checked out your links but what you are saying is true. ive done this.

it was that way when eyefinity first came out so your not totally wrong its just that in the last few years they have made better and cheaper adapters that do the same thing and i think amd knew that nvidia was going to come out with something similar so they had to do something better.

 

[jamesriley94]

Dude - you aren't even allowed to double post...
You've just posted 5 in a row.

 

[JOE-E]

I'd sell the 6970 for 150, sell one of the 5770's for 75 if it's only a media center pc that you watch hi def movies on, and then take that 225 dollars and put it towards either 2x 7870, or 2x 7950. I'd go with the 7950's, and if you can pull off selling the spare cards it'd only cost 375 bucks for graphics knocking on the door of a 690 or 7990.

that sounds like a good idea with selling the cards and getting 2x7950's. im sure that would run great. however i have trouble selling pc hardware here in florida. it seems that not very many people know much about building pc's here. i try to get more people involved but they seem to think its some kind of rocket science or that you have to be a geek to build or upgrade a computer. ive tried a couple of times and no luck on selling anything, even pre-built fully functional computers. its weird.

Dude - you aren't even allowed to double post...
You've just posted 5 in a row.

sorry i was just replying to what people responded to my consern. i didnt know.

 

[Deejeta]

Is putting your card on something like Ebay a possibility?
Because a couple of 79xx's or even xfired oc'ed 7870's would go down a treat.
What brand psu are you running? Need some solid 12v rails for crossfire.
I personally reckon a AX or HX750 is needed with crossfire and a piledriver cpu. Especially if you intend to overclock, which hey why wouldnt you this is OC3D afterall.

 

[JOE-E]

Is putting your card on something like Ebay a possibility?
Because a couple of 79xx's or even xfired oc'ed 7870's would go down a treat.
What brand psu are you running? Need some solid 12v rails for crossfire.
I personally reckon a AX or HX750 is needed with crossfire and a piledriver cpu. Especially if you intend to overclock, which hey why wouldnt you this is OC3D afterall.

i dont really know how to use ebay at all. ill look into it though because i have wanted to upgrade to the 7xxx series ever since i got my 3 monitors. as far as the ps goes (cough cough) i have a raidmax 630. yes i know i need to change it out. i bought it when i was just getting into building and didnt know how important power supplies were. i just havent bought a new one yet. ive had my eyes on corsair ps's for awhile now. i have overclocked my cpu a little i think. i just turned off the turbo core tech and turned up the multiplier. ive got it up to 4.2 MHz. i used prime95 to check for errors and it ran for about 8 hours with max temps around 48c. thanks for the advice.

 

[Josh Weston]

I've merged your consecutive posts.
James is quite right about that rule, and although you didn't know about it at the time, you did after he told you about it. We like the users here to take responsibility of their own accounts where possible, so in the future, if you do double post, be sure to use the edit button to merge the posts together. Or, even better, don't double post at all!

You're a new member, so you not knowing all the rules of the forum is to be expected, but you do know now.

Enjoy your time on the forums