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Tri 6950's or 580's in SLI?

Better Solution for 3 Monitor Setup

  • Sapphire 6950's in TRI - 876 Dollars/822 after MIR's

  • EVGA GTX 580 In SLI - 999.98 Dollars

Results are only viewable after voting.
Castiel

Castiel

Golden Member
I can't honestly decide. I'm going with a 3 monitor setup and the 2GB from the 6950's is an advantage but i'm scared of Amd's drivers with 3 cards. What does everyone think?
 
Castiel said:
I'm leaning towards the 580's because well.. They're 580's. Put them on water, overclock them to 1ghz core and call it a day
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You can say the same about te 6950s, unlock em, put em on water and OC them to hell but I think a GTX 580 SLi will be more stable than a Trifire. Also games that don't scale well will suck on the Trifire so if I was in your shoes I would get GTX 580s.
 
badb0y said:
You can say the same about te 6950s, unlock em, put em on water and OC them to hell but I think a GTX 580 SLi will be more stable than a Trifire. Also games that don't scale well will suck on the Trifire so if I was in your shoes I would get GTX 580s.
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I wish Nvidia would give us info on the damn 595's already because i'd wait for them.
 
Castiel said:
I wish Nvidia would give us info on the damn 595's already because i'd wait for them.
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Well If I was to make an educated guess it would be a Dual GTX 580 clocked at GTX 570 OR a dual GTX 570 straight up. It's much easier to pop in GTX 570s cause they are on par with 6970s and the resulant cards of both companies (GTX 595/AMD 6990) will be comparable in performance and price.
 
badb0y said:
Well If I was to make an educated guess it would be a Dual GTX 580 clocked at GTX 570 OR a dual GTX 570 straight up. It's much easier to pop in GTX 570s cause they are on par with 6970s and the resulant cards of both companies (GTX 595/AMD 6990) will be comparable in performance and price.
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I think Nvidia wants to crush Amd and make a statement. I would love 2 downclocked GF110 512 cores at 600c with 3 8 Pin's but i know the 3 8 pins is never going to happen
 
Castiel said:
I think Nvidia wants to crush Amd and make a statement. I would love 2 downclocked GF110 512 cores at 600c with 3 8 Pin's but i know the 3 8 pins is never going to happen
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Crushing AMD is a tough task especially with the numbers Crossfired 6950/6970s put up, in the past this would be easy to do but these new chips are top notch when paired. If they choose GTX 580s and underclock them, I think it would not be enough to "crush" a 6990. At best it would end up with the GTX 595 being 5-10% faster but when all is said and done, it would probably be a wash.
 
I would have to say the GTX-580's. Standard cooling on the 6950 jsn't going to do as well as the 580's reference design. The trifire setup would probably be faster, though (and cheaper). The lack of airflow on the reference cooler when sandwiched into a trifire setup would put me off.
 
Looking at it again noticed you aren't getting 3GB 580s.
Go for the 6950s then 2 GB is a huge advantage at triple monitor resolutions since once the 580s buffer is filled up frame rates are going to drop a lot.
It's also cheaper and gives you the option of selling one or two of the 6950s off in the future when you no longer need/want trifire. With the 580 you need both of them to run 3 monitors so that wouldn't be an option.
 
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Not really sure what the dilemma is. Tri 2 gb 6950's are faster, cheaper, and can be unlocked into hd 6970's. The 2gb buffer will also come in handy if you're looking at a 3 monitor setup.
 
-Slacker- said:
Not really sure what the dilemma is. Tri 2 gb 6950's are faster, cheaper, and can be unlocked into hd 6970's. The 2gb buffer will also come in handy if you're looking at a 3 monitor setup.
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These are pretty much the reasons I voted for the 6950s (and the scaling is still fantastic with the 6000 series cards). That said, if cooling and/or noise are concerns, the 580 SLI combo is worth considering on those merits. Pure performance wise the 6950s are a vastly superior value.

I can't see the value in getting three 570s so long as the 6950s can be unlocked via BIOS flash.
 
Lets see if we can gather some benches from around the web for tri SLI 570/580 and trifired 6950/6970.

Here is one on the 570s but with older drivers. From December.
http://benchmarkextreme.com/Articles/GTX%20570/P1.html

Here is a Unigine 2.1 570 triSLI score. Not sure what CPU or driver version though.
570-SLI-Unigine.jpg


I'll look for any others as well as trifire.
Something from Xtremesystems forum with Tri 6970s.
http://67.90.82.13/forums/showthread.php?t=263672

From Skurge:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=265548 6950 trifire
 
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Has anyone done any comparisons between 3x6950 vs. 2x6950? Going for 3 cards might be a waste of money unless you're getting a large performance increase over 2 cards.

I hear there are going to be 560 TI 2GB cards out too. You may also consider running three of them in SLI for around $810.
 
RaistlinZ said:
Has anyone done any comparisons between 3x6950 vs. 2x6950? Going for 3 cards might be a waste of money unless you're getting a large performance increase over 2 cards.

I hear there are going to be 560 TI 2GB cards out too. You may also consider running three of them in SLI for around $810.
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560s would be fine for single monitor resolutions, but they are hopeless for surround.
 
Skurge said:
560s would be fine for single monitor resolutions, but they are hopeless for surround.
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Wrong.
NVIDIA's current generation of video cards are more than capable of pushing triple displays with SLI at very fast framerates
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http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/08/17/geforce_gtx_460_sli_vs_radeon_hd_5870_cfx_5760/
The Bottom Line


NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 460 SLI continues to impress, even at triple display resolutions. However, as the resolution increases, the gap does close between the Radeon HD 5870 CrossFireX and GeForce GTX 460 SLI. In the end though, there is no denying that GeForce GTX 460 SLI provided faster framerates and a smoother, more consistent, gameplay experience.

When AMD’s ATI Eyefinity was debuted, there was nothing else to compare it to at the time. We’ve certainly had great performances with AMD video cards in ATI Eyefnity, and still do. It seems though that NVIDIA has been hard at work too, trying to steal that crown, and it seems NVIDIA's hard work has paid off. Yes, NVIDIA was caught off guard by ATI Eyefinity, but it seems NVIDIA's current generation of video cards are more than capable of pushing triple displays with SLI at very fast framerates. NVIDIA has certainly surprised everyone with the GeForce GTX 460 and its amazing SLI scaling and performance.

It is also worth noting that in single card configurations, AMD's ATI Radeon HD 5800 series still rules the multi-display market and has no competition. It looks as though AMD's CrossFireX implementation is the only poison in the well at this time. Single 5850s and 5870s are still great cards, but we do have to say that the GeForce GTX 460 has taken away the HD 5850's "Best Value" crown that it has worn since its introduction. With GeForce GTX 460 1GB SLI performance compared to any level of CrossFireX, well, AMD should just be embarrassed.
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12819866178QeqKSKbSs_1_2.gif
 
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