Thinking about upgrading graphics card - Main differences?

[TurboGFF]

Hey there guys. I recently bought a beast of a PC (check my updated specs ) but I kept my old gfx card. (Radeon HD5870) With my 750W PSU, I'm thinking of either SLI-ing or Xfire-ing these two cards.

a) GeForce GTX 570
b) Radeon XFX HD 6970

I believe my mobo has 1 16x PCI-e slot, and two 8x slots. What I'm asking for is some information and advice over which I should go for? Should I even bother with crossfire/sli? I'm new to the multi-gpu 'scene' so any sort of information would be amazing =)

Really appreciate it guys!

 

[Wishmaster]

1680x1050 the resolution you will gaming at?
At your resolution, the 570 will dominate all by itself, and I would say the 6970 would as well.
I do not have a 6970 so can not fairly comment on them.

I would not SLI or Crossfire either of those 2 cards, unless your going to a much higher resoultion or plan on a multiple monitor setup.
Its not worth the addition headache, and there really isnt much to gain at that res.

A lot more FPS maybe, but keep in mind if you have a 60refresh monitor, then it can only display 60FPS anyway.
At 1680x1050, youll find your self needing to use Vysc in most games because the 570 will be drawing so many FPS, youll get horrible image tearing.
And thats with just a single 570, much less 2 of them.



I have a eVGA GTX570 SuperCloked edition.
And at 1080P, I have yet to find a game it has issues with. It keeps up with everything without issue.

 

[TurboGFF]

My main screen is LED Monitor - Samsung PX2370 23" LED Monitor | Samsung LED Monitors which I believe has max res of 1680x1050. I have another 22inch Dell which I believe is running at the same resolution.

So you think the 570 would be a good upgrade? Is it a good time to buy it or is there a new spec coming soon

 

[Wishmaster]

The 570 and 6970 pretty much trade punches with each other, and are quite close performance wise.
So either card should be fine, its really just a matter of which you prefer.
The Red Team or the Green team.

Coming from a 5870, Im not sure how much of a boost you can expect at that resolution.
But I went from a 4890 --> 570 and it was a nice jump in performance at 1080P.
Im very happy with the 570, and it is a good card.


Does your 5870 have performance issues now?
I would think it would still be doing well, especially at 1680x1050.

Thing is, if it can currently run all your games between say --- 45-60FPS, there may be no need to upgrade just yet, and may be worth waiting.
If it does, then the upgrade may not be the big boost you expect. I mean it will be a performance boost, but you have to keep in mind the display can only show 60FPS anyway (unless you have a 120hz monitor)
So if your current card can already do that or very close, the upgrade will as well. It will just have more headroom & power under the hood for the future games.
Only you can decide if its time to upgrade or not.


Last I heard, Nvidias next gen should start hitting the market at the end of the year, or 1stQ of 2012.
Just guessing, but I would say ATI/AMD have something to offer to compete around the same time as well.

 

[TurboGFF]

Well.. even since I got the card, I've been noticing that it runs at.. 50-55 degrees C at idle (even with my new case and cooling keeping the temp at 24c)

When I run the heaven benchmark, I get 27-35fps. I dont know why it feels like my card is struggling. On my old pc, I knew the cpu was the bottleneck, but now... It's hard to diagnose it. Everything is new except for the gfx card.

 

[Schroff87]

If you want multi-GPU nvidia is your best bet ... no issues during my time of owning dual 460's. Recommend dual 570's if you won't upgrade for a long time. GTX 600 is expected no earlier than end of Q1 2012 so there's a long time until then!

 

[bobkn]

I believe my mobo has 1 16x PCI-e slot, and two 8x slots.

No. The P8Z68-V Pro has 3 PCI-E X16 slots. However, only a single one can be run at X16. If the first two have cards in them, they'll run at X8. The third one can never run above X4, and the bandwidth is shared with other devices, which will be disabled if the slot is run above X1.

It's standard for Sandy Bridge.

 

[Wishmaster]

I believe my mobo has 1 16x PCI-e slot, and two 8x slots.

No. The P8Z68-V Pro has 3 PCI-E X16 slots. However, only a single one can be run at X16. If the first two have cards in them, they'll run at X8. The third one can never run above X4, and the bandwidth is shared with other devices, which will be disabled if the slot is run above X1.

It's standard for Sandy Bridge.

So SLI at x8/x8 and dedicated PhysX can be run at x4 possible as a Standard?


I seem to recall reading some testing results (I want to say it was Toms Hardware but not 100% certain) that claimed there was really no advantage to SLi or Crossfire running at x16/x16 or x8/x8.
That it was minimal at best, & not enough to justfy upgrading to a board capable of the faster bandwidth.

Being as I have limited knowldge with multi GPUs setups, does anyone know how accurate that is? Im curious from those who may have hands on experience with both.