Many Video card questions lumped into 1 post

[notigg]

Hey all.. before I ask here are my system specs:

SAPPHIRE 100281SR Radeon HD 5870 (Cypress XT) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0

ASUS P6T LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard

Antec Twelve Hundred Black Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case

CORSAIR DOMINATOR 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600

Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield 2.66GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor

Antec Signature SG-850 850W Continuous Power ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular ...

First question: Currently I get about 333 MHash/s on bitcoin mining. I seem to run games pretty well. Right now..... everything seems to work. However when I downloaded the newest drivers for my 5870..... it broke. My primary screen had display artifacts in the middle lower half and it was extremely glitched. I had to "roll back" the drivers.. and I just picked february of this year to roll back to. Now things are working again. To me this means that there is a driver problem. But could it possibly be a faulty hardware(video card)?

Second question: My ultimate plan is to play SWTOR with 3 screens each at 1920 X 1080 resoultion. My question is.... what is the best option for that? To my mind the cheapest option is to get a second 5870 card... one with more than 1 GB of texture memory... like 2 GB... and plug 2 monitors into that 1 and 1 monitor into my current one. Is that good plan? In other words could two 5870's run 3 monitors at that resolution? And is it okay if the other 5870 is not identical to my current one? (if it has 2 GB ram instead of 1 GB? )

third question: Power... One of the reasons I built a computer rather than buy one is because of picking the parts. I picked a very expensive... high quality power supply. It says it is crossfire ready but it is still only 850 watts. Is that going to be enough?

4: Ultimately I will build a new computer... but for now I would rather have a "temporary" solution.... until AMD/NVIDIA come out with their next generation cards. Right now I am leaning towards AMD ........ but I am not a fan boy. I have had problems with both of the brands. SO I am a fan of either really although I do like nvidia a little better.

Ultimately.... should I aim for a "triple" monitor setup ... where each monitor gets it's own video card? For this would you recommend nvidia or ATI? One of the reasons I have never done "dual" is because I am worried about the heat of having multiple graphics cards in my case.

If you have only 2 cards and 3 monitors do you plug 2 into the weaker one? or do they both have to be identical?

 

[Silverforce11]

SWTOR, nobody knows since its not released yet. Generally if you want to game on 3 monitors, you need CF or SLI to produce acceptable performance and maintain decent image quality.

850W is more than enough.

The driver issue, is prolly you not cleaning your drivers properly before installing the new ones. Go and get driver sweeper and clean up.

A 2nd 5870, used from ebay will give you a very high performance setup for cheap.

 

[notigg]

well that is a good point.. although I was in beta. but things could change.

I was looking at my motherboard closely and it looks like it says 3 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (at x16/x16/x1 or x16/x8/x8 mode) . I think that is good news for my cross fire right? (btw.. I am not sure if I have all the original parts that came with my mobo. to use crossfire do I need a special adapter?

Ebay might be the only way I can get another 5870.... I can barely find any on the net and those I found are extremely expensive. like in the 400 dollar range.

I might sell my 5870 on craigslist and get 2 6950's

I will try that driver sweeper. It makes the most sense.

SWTOR, nobody knows since its not released yet. Generally if you want to game on 3 monitors, you need CF or SLI to produce acceptable performance and maintain decent image quality.

850W is more than enough.

The driver issue, is prolly you not cleaning your drivers properly before installing the new ones. Go and get driver sweeper and clean up.

A 2nd 5870, used from ebay will give you a very high performance setup for cheap.

 

[Silverforce11]

Your MB is great for CF.

2x 5870 is essentially the same as 2x 6950, so dont waste your $$.

Try to get lucky and snag a used 5870 on ebay for around $100

 

[notigg]

alright I am looking at ebay. I will try to get new if i can... but used might be okay. It just sounds sketchy.

I will use them to mine bitcoins while I wait for the game to release...

here is another question... if I have 3 monitors.. would I plug 2 into 1 of the cards and 1 into another?

the only reason I was leaning towards the 6950... each 6950 has 2 GB of ram. That could help with a 3 monitor setup. With two 5870 I will only have 2 GB ram total.. not 4.