Nvidia or AMD?

[alienware]

If the video rendering software uses cuda to speed things up, go for a 680/670. If not then go for a 7970. SLI is of no benefit to you and the 660sli only has a 192bit bus which will bottleneck you for 2 screen gaming. Where as the single more powerful cards have a much higher bit bus and can easily cope with the 2 screens

I think you mean three screen gaming as dual screen isn't possible unless I missed something.

It's already been proven many times over that the lower memory bus doesn't really hurt things. Unless of course you're talking about three screen gaming but even then I've not seen any evidence that it hinders anything.

 

[NeverBackDown]

OP stated he is using 2 monitors.

 

[grassman]

Adobe will be utilizing Open CL soon sooo.. :\

 

[NeverBackDown]

Then 7970 is the best option?

 

[Dang3r0us]

i use 1 screen for gaming atm 2 screens i wouldn't see my dot so ill need to aimbot then

1 screen for games 1 for other stuff ill go for 3 screens later from time can't buy all @ once

i have adobe after effects and sony vegas.
i use sony vegas more then adobe so dunno friend of me that works in the pc business says go for gtx 680 for the quality of the product but he can get the AMD also but hes not a fan but thats why i came to the forums and i see to many AMD people hate nvidia and SLI.. but also i see people from nvidia that say amd is good but not in crossfire so i dunno

 

[Master&Puppet]

It's not a big deal really. Pros and cons to both sides. People will put emphasis on different setups depending on what is important to them. There's enough info here for you to make a decision based on what you think your priorities are.

Raw performance wise the sli option is great and cheap but you will occasionally have issues with it so you need to be happy gaming on a single card when issues pop up (e.g. both SLI and XFire did not work with FarCry 3 unless you dug around for the problem). Unless you are gaming on multiple monitors then the memory size and bus width is not a concern.

If you go for a single card then AMD is a more sensible choice given the price to performance ratio (7950 or 7970). However if your editing programs aren't making use of open gl then nvidia is the answer (I'd take a 670 because the 680 is priced too highly IMO).

Steer clear of crossfire until AMD sort their drivers out for it unless you are happy spending time tinkering with settings.