Graphics Cards for 5040x1050 gaming

[Opyders]

Hi, all. I currently own 2 1680x1050 monitors and I'm planning on buying the third this week. For this resolution would 2x Overclocked Gigabyte 7950s do the trick? The most GPU-intensive thing I want to do is play Battlefield 3 on high settings and no AA and get 60 fps. Also, I plan on using RadeonPro to reduce micro stutter.

Do you guys think this set up would work well? It's been my dream ever since I played with microcenter's eyefinity setup.

 

[chimaxi83]

You really can't go wrong with 2 x 7950 or even 2 x 670 (if you're interested in Nvidia) for that res. You'll get slightly better performance from AMD, and probably find a better deal on them as well.

 

[dragantoe]

yeah 2 x 7950 with dominate that res, but if you play a lot of mainstream games go with the gtx 670's just for that extra boost in performance, what other games are you playing?

 

[raghu78]

Two HD 7950s overclocked to 1.1 Ghz will actually let you play at 5040 x 1050 at 60 fps with maxed out settings (Ultra 4X MSAA). Get the HD 7950. its a freaking beast.:thumbsup:

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Assuming you are past 1.1ghz, You will be able to play at high-ultra settings with AA off with 50-70 fps in 80%+ games. Some games like MW may need to be played at low to med though.

To play with 4x MSAA you need to play at 25x14 with that setup. Even then not for every game.

 

[BrightCandle]

The problem with AMD cards in crossfire continues to be stutter. They just don't feel smooth.

You'll certainly want dual high end cards for this resolution so I would stick with NVidia who have significantly better dual card support (I should know, I own 2x 7970's and 2x680's). All the claims of drivers fixing it etc is rubbish, its as bad today as it was at the beginning of the year when they released the cards. The frame rate is higher on the AMD cards but the frame times are much less consistent, the NVidia cards will fool your eyes there is motion better than the AMD ones which is ultimately what you need not raw FPS.

 

[lehtv]

+1 to 7950 3GB crossfire OC'd on stock volts. Nothing beats that value for money. Gigabyte 3x windforce and Sapphire dual-X will stay relatively quiet and cool and probably MSI as well

 

[Final8ty]

The problem with AMD cards in crossfire continues to be stutter. They just don't feel smooth.

You'll certainly want dual high end cards for this resolution so I would stick with NVidia who have significantly better dual card support (I should know, I own 2x 7970's and 2x680's). All the claims of drivers fixing it etc is rubbish, its as bad today as it was at the beginning of the year when they released the cards. The frame rate is higher on the AMD cards but the frame times are much less consistent, the NVidia cards will fool your eyes there is motion better than the AMD ones which is ultimately what you need not raw FPS.

And if the user uses Vsync or frame capping with Afterburner and even the Latests RadeonPro Radeon Games Profiles Automation Tool with its new features he could elevate those issues if he experiences them as some people experience it and some don't.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

If you want dual gpus then stick to nvidia 670s or 680s. And for that Rez you need at east 670 sli or 690.

 

[chimaxi83]

The problem with AMD cards in crossfire continues to be stutter. They just don't feel smooth.

You'll certainly want dual high end cards for this resolution so I would stick with NVidia who have significantly better dual card support (I should know, I own 2x 7970's and 2x680's). All the claims of drivers fixing it etc is rubbish, its as bad today as it was at the beginning of the year when they released the cards. The frame rate is higher on the AMD cards but the frame times are much less consistent, the NVidia cards will fool your eyes there is motion better than the AMD ones which is ultimately what you need not raw FPS.

Are you going off review sites, or personal experience?

 

[Final8ty]

Are you going off review sites, or personal experience?

His personal experience of the past when he had 2x 7970's and does not accept that others don't experience it.

I tested the 7970's in crossfire on single 1920x1200 and 5760x1200. I have done the same thing with the 680's, but I have only had them a few weeks and I have found myself playing a lot of games triple monitor where on the 7970's it wasn't possible.

NVidia in SLI >> ATI in xfire for 1920x1200
NVidia in SLI >>> ATI in xfire for 5760x1200
NVidia > ATI in 1920x1200

the NVidia's in SLI are not as smooth as on their own. It starts to show some stutter around 45 fps, where a single 680 looks quite smooth down to 30 fps if not a little lower. Which says if you get less than 50% extra from the second card you would be better turning it off! But on AMD anything less than or greater than 60 fps would stutter worse than anything I have seen on NVidia. Honestly I would call AMD in crossfire on 7970's unplayable. Its not just microstutter, its simply does not fool me there is motion properly. It gave me headaches .

So SLI is worse than a single card, but all NVidia options are better than the AMD ones, single or xfire. NVidia is just smoother at lower FPS than AMD. No amount of overclocking my 7970s solved the problem, they stutter even only when loaded to 30%. They just sucked donkey balls in games and in Windows they have such massive performance problems you need to turn transparency off and then you'll "only" have 300ms of input lag.

Get the NVidia card(s). Its not that AMD's cards don't benchmark well, its that the benchmarks aren't measuring what actually matters.

Having done the opposite to you and going from a pair of 680 to a pair of 7970's I can say I found none of this true.

The 7970 looks almost exactly the same as the 680, they both net about the same FPS (and if I had to pick I would say the 7970 felt a tiny bit smoother but only by a fraction at 5760x1080) and since the 12.7 AMD drivers I honestly haven't had a single driver issue. I think you must have had a bad OS/driver install.

OP, I think you are over analyzing the situation, I would just pick the easiest/cheapest/coolest looking.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?281820-Classic-ATI-vs-Nvidia-question/page2

We could analytically find statistical differences in anything but its the personal experience that really counts.

The factual statistical data says the 6xx should be smoother, but how much it is to the individual or even if they notice a difference is what counts and the discrepancy between set-ups and individual usage can mean that is not always the case as the quotes above demonstrate.

I'm a Vsync user so the 6xx would likely not be a good idea for me as it can have issues with stuttering on some set-ups when being used.

 

[flopper]

Using a single 7970 1200mhz for 120hz 5040x1050, sure I turn down settings for my fps games but rts and other games its perfectly fine with maxing out unless going overboard.
a single card allows me to play the settings I want, not to say I want to play high on BF3 but doable though.

 

[RussianSensation]

HD 7950 CF or GTX670 SLI are good bets. GTX670 can be found for $330 for a good model. With RadeonPro, the micro-stutter on Radeons seems to be a non-issue.

This review states:

"That said, we have to wonder why anyone would bother with the GeForce GTX 680 4GB for extreme resolutions when the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition was constantly faster at both 5040x1050 and 7680x1600. In fact at 7680x1600 the 7970 GHz Edition was on average 20% faster than the GeForce GTX 680 4GB in the half dozen games that we tested with."

AMD cards handle triple monitor gaming and high resolution much better.

This review also confirms this.

However, the MSAA performance hit in BF3 is about 30%. If you reduce MSAA and reduce settings from from Ultra to High, you might be able to hit 60 fps avg. on a GTX670 + OC. Since a single GTX670 supports 3 monitors out of the box with no adapters, you can get one of those and if it's still not fast enough based on the settings you want, grab a 2nd one.