Solved 2x 560 ti's or 2x 7770's or 1x 7970?? Suggestions anyone?

[flyguy5187]

I am planning on getting a video card(s) soon but don't know enough to really decide what is the best for me. I plan on keeping it for at least 2-3yrs so I don't mind paying a "little" more hence the 7970 option. I made my choice of the cards in the title based primarily on price and my PSU output. I have an antec hcg-750 PSU which should comfortably run the above cards according to several PSU calculators (rest of my components in sig). I know the drivers for ATI sucks now but obviously it will be improved. But from a performance standpoint, how much does a 2nd card really add and if the 7970 is much better, by how much? worth the price premium? I have a dual monitor setup but only plan on gaming on one but might extend to 3-4monitors in the future (office/wrk stuff only) O and although price diff between 560/560 ti/560 ti 448 core are minimal the power consumption isnt, any ideas there? Hope to hear from the community soon. thanks!

 

[Ivan the SoSo]

The driver issues will be fixed soon....A single 7970 will leave the option to add a second card later, also that 3 gig frame buffer might come in handy at a later date.....

What are you using right now?

Mature drivers are usually worth 10-20%, a second card in theory is doubles the performance, but you mileage may vary

 

[flyguy5187]

I just finished building my PC and fixing minor kinks here and there. Currently using Intel's mighty HD3000 driver lol. On a side note, I have an old LG246WP which doesn't have DVI but was given an hdmi-dvi cable to connect from PC to monitor's hdmi input. The resolutions are messed up and there seems to be no way in fixing it do you know why? I tried diff resolutions and refresh rates but it still looks like I zoomed into my monitor so it is off-centered and no corners are viewable. Plugged in vga cable, everything back to normal...weird.

Back to the orig topic, what you mean by mature drivers having 10-20% premium. Price or performance? Also 2x 7970 would definitely require me to swap out my PSU. Also the 7970 is a 3gb card, that's currently the max supported vram no? I am leaning towards ATI since 1 card can support 3 monitors while I need 2x NVidias for 3+ monitors.

Does anyone know what the current high end game uses in terms of Vram are? I haven't really been playing games on PC for a while and my last card was a nvidia 7950gt oc 512mb. I agree the 1gb vram might not be enough in the future but how soon? thanks

 

[thefabe]

You might want to check the Asus site for a monitor driver, inf file.

This usually helps if in device manager your monitor is being detected as standard vga.

Once it is reported as what it is in device manager, this usually solves the resolution problem.

I'm not sure though if they'll have one, cause they don't have one for mine.

Fabe

 

[Ivan the SoSo]

As drivers are updated fixes and improvements are added, this can increase the performance in games...For example GTA IV does not recognize the the 7970, so it shows the card as the default minimum card, and forcing the settings does not help either....

Driver updates are free....if you are paying that's a problem

What do you plan on doing on this pc? If you don't plan on gaming any of these cards are far more than needed....

 

[flyguy5187]

@fabe - thx for the suggestion I will do that

@ivan - does ATI patch updates to old games or just the "popular" oldies? And I am using this as a personal PC for now. I am not a hard gamer but do game occasionally when I want to kill time. But if I can't play BF3 or skyrim or etc on ultra settings it wouldn't bother me either. I will be happy somewhere in the mid/mid-high section. As long as the game runs smooth and has better or same quality as a PS3 then I am more than happy =)

 

[Ivan the SoSo]

My example will require Rockstar to patch the game again....but drivers will include hot fixes for games....How about this as a single or dual card?Newegg.com - HIS H685FN1GD Radeon HD 6850 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity

Much more affordable

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fastest-graphics-card-radeon-geforce,3067-5.html

 

[flyguy5187]

thx for the suggestion ivan! this card looks beefy and isnt too big like some other ones. I read the reviews and it stated it had micro-stuttering/scaling issues in Xfire. what is that exactly? Also, the reviews at newegg all point to a fan problem so I may look for this card but from different manufacturer? I will probably get 2 for xfire and have almost $200 in change too instead of the 7970 lol. How does the 7770 compare to it though?

Sapphire 11201-00-20G Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition Video Card - 1024MB, GDDR5, PCI-Express 3.0 (x16), 1x Dual-Link DVI-I, 2x Mini DisplayPort, 1x HDMI, DirectX 11, Dual-Slot, CrossFireX, Eyefinity at TigerDirect.com

OR THIS...

EVGA 02G-P3-1387-KR GeForce GTX 460 2Win (Fermi) Video Card - 2GB, 512-bit GDDR5, PCI-Express 2.0 (x16), Dual-GPU, 3x Dual-Link DVI, Mini-HDMI, DirectX 11, Supports 4 Displays & 3D Vision Surround at TigerDirect.com


thanks!!

 

[Ivan the SoSo]

Micro-stuttering is when the time between frames varies from frame to frame....for example the time to render a frame varies/ if most frames take 1.2 seconds to draw, but on occasion the time jumps to 2 seconds, your eyes can see the "lag"....The lower the frame rate the more noticeable the stutter Micro-Stuttering And GPU Scaling In CrossFire And SLI : Micro-Stuttering, Multi-Card Scaling, And More!

Right now there seems to be no 100% cure

A 6850 is slightly faster than the 7770...the 7770 will improve some as better drivers come out....

That's a good price for the 460 x2....if you can get the rebate
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-geforce-stutter-crossfire,2995.html

 

[flyguy5187]

thanks for clarifying. how much faster is the 6850 than the 7770? would the 7770's PCIe 3.0 ever outdo the 6850's PCIe 2.1's dirvers/speed? In other words, is the 7770's speed due to the GPU or hardware? Also I read some bad reviews about overheating and fragile fan blades for the 460 x2 so I am going to stay clear of that...it is also really long 11.5in. I guess I will wait for a deal for the 6850s or 7770s depending on price, I guess whichever drops <$100 first since I will probably be buying 2.

 

[Ivan the SoSo]

The biggest difference is the extra 320 streams....7770/640 streams.....6850/960 streams....8 extra texture units, 16 ROP's, and 128 more memory bandwidth for the 6850

AnandTech - AMD Radeon HD 7750 & Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition Review: Evading The Price/Performance Curve

Yes the 3.0 will outdo the 2.x's .....if you have enough card to use all the extra bandwidth....

If you are worried about a bad card get a XFX....now you MUST register the card in 30 days on their website (took me 3 tries before it took) Lifetime warranty.....Here's something interesting Newegg.com - XFX Double D HD-687A-ZDFC Radeon HD 6870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity

I doubt any of these cards will hit $100

 

[flyguy5187]

see, this is what really ticks me off...ATI came out with the new 7000 series so I assume they are better than the 6000/5000 predecessors, but thanks to you for giving me a heads up, the 6850 has much more "meat" than the 7770 and around the same price. So besides the PCIe 3.0 aspect, there's nothing else the 7770 is better than the 6850 at? If that is the case I will focus my selection towards the ATI 6000 series sicne their drivers are more mature...thanks for all this wonderful info!

 

[Ivan the SoSo]

Really no... The 6850 carries the day, You have to be really careful about what you get....The box makes everything sound wonderful

 

[flyguy5187]

gotta love deceptive advertising! I am probably going to get a SINGLE higher end 6000 series card then -- maybe 6870/6790s so I can leave extra PSU wattage if I want to OC the GPU or CPU. thx for all the help!

 

[Ivan the SoSo]

Your welcome