What single card would best a HD5830 XF setup?

[marlinman]

As in title. I'm guessing 2GB is a prereq (tho' ain't too clear on this point). Would e.g. a 2GB GTX560Ti qualify, or a 2GB 6950?

 

[VirtualLarry]

I would think something like a 7870 might. I'm not too sure though. CF 5830 is pretty powerful.

 

[marlinman]

Yeah I was impressed at how much smoother Skyrim became with a second 5830 - even after enabling HD textures and upping shadow quality. Couldn't handle AA tho'.

 

[Arzachel]

Iirc, the 5830 is slightly slower than a GTX460 and two of those in sli are around the same performance as a single GTX 580, so the HD7870 should be slightly(or much, if you're willing to overclock) better than your current setup and you could recoup much of the price by selling those 5830's to bitcoin miners.

Of course unless you absolutely must, it would be wise to atleast wait a few weeks to see what Nvidia has to offer.

 

[marlinman]

Gee, you'd almost think from replies that a new GPU had just seen the light of day!

@Arzachel: Yep, if I decide against another 5830 I'll wait to see what Kepler offers.

One thing I'm unclear on: I game at 1920x1080 and understand that with high enough AA levels, 1GB could be insufficient. Would this be as much of an issue with 2 1GB cards in XF/SLI as it would be with a single 1GB card?

 

[RavenSEAL]

7970

 

[Arzachel]

Gee, you'd almost think from replies that a new GPU had just seen the light of day!

@Arzachel: Yep, if I decide against another 5830 I'll wait to see what Kepler offers.

One thing I'm unclear on: I game at 1920x1080 and understand that with high enough AA levels, 1GB could be insufficient. Would this be as much of an issue with 2 1GB cards in XF/SLI as it would be with a single 1GB card?

Anything with 1 GB would usually run out of steam before hitting VRAM limitations, so xfire/sli makes it much more likely but even then it's quite rare.

 

[Stuka87]

Anything with 1 GB would usually run out of steam before hitting VRAM limitations, so xfire/sli makes it much more likely but even then it's quite rare.

A CF 5830 setup has plenty of speed to hit vram limitations in games like BF3, which can easily use over 1.3GB at 1080P. I have gotten BF3 over 1.4GB on my 7950.

 

[DaveSimmons]

> One thing I'm unclear on: I game at 1920x1080 and understand that with high enough AA levels, 1GB could be insufficient. Would this be as much of an issue with 2 1GB cards in XF/SLI as it would be with a single 1GB card?

Unless this has changed at some point, then yes it's no better than having a 1 GB card in terms of VRAM for textures and such, since each card needs its own copy of them.

 

[notty22]

Correct it's no better than having 1gb of Vram.

So in a particular game you could be in between getting 80fps and not be able to use that gpu power to add AA or initiate a adjustable FOV increase.
But it's not many games where that will happen. But add those to the list of multi-gpu idiosyncrasies.

edit : 1gb- @1080P

 

[RaistlinZ]

7950, especially once you start overclocking.

 

[marlinman]

My dilemma is that for NZ$220 I can get another 5830 (or rather a 6850 to replace the 5830 in my missus' PC), whereas 7900-series cards start at NZ$730. GTX580s are slightly cheaper.

Ideally, I'd like my setup to handle all current games at highest settings @1080p.

As alluded to above, two 5830s couldn't handle Skyrim HD with all settings maxed. Well, maybe I'm being fussy. I only disabled MSAA because even from an SSD, entering new areas was stuttery as all hell. (Would this be a VRAM issue I wonder?)

And is there a single card in existence that can handle Witcher 2 ubersampling?

 

[Ieat]

Skyrim might be running out of vram on ultra. Using my gtx 460 2gb in sli on ultra setting usually shows 1250mb to 1300mb vram is being used at 1080p.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

A 7970 would be an upgrade once overclocked high

 

[marlinman]

How do you guys determine VRAM usage by a running game?

 

[bucd]

Gee, you'd almost think from replies that a new GPU had just seen the light of day!

@Arzachel: Yep, if I decide against another 5830 I'll wait to see what Kepler offers.

One thing I'm unclear on: I game at 1920x1080 and understand that with high enough AA levels, 1GB could be insufficient. Would this be as much of an issue with 2 1GB cards in XF/SLI as it would be with a single 1GB card?

Two 1gb card may = 2gb physical ram, but it only uses 1gb (in XF/SLI config). So either case, you are still at 1gb

-D