discussion 1500$ eyefinity/surround system

[stolendo]

Thank you in advance for taking your own time to look at this post.

I am a newb at this stuff

As you can probably tell from the title, I am interested in building a new pc with adequate eyefinity/surround capabilities. From what I can gather, eyefinity is better because it has had more time to develop and that I should have at least 3 gb of vram on a graphics card for a multi-display system. Also I am confused as to whether or not to do sli/crossfire for multiple monitors.

the budget is 1500$ not including monitors or os before rebate
no preference for anything
probably not overclocking
purchasing from USA
will build sometime this summer

Does anybody know of good parts for this type of pc? Crossfire?

Any help would be appreciated...

 

[Kindred1]

Quoted from Canada Computers im sure that in the states the prices are basically the same or a bit cheaper

Samsung 840 Pro Series 128GB 2.5"
Seagate Barracuda 2TB
Seasonic X-760 Fully Modular 80PLUS Gold 760W PSU (SS-760KM Active PFC F3)
Intel Core i5-3570K Quad-Core Socket LGA1155, 3.4Ghz, 6MB L3 Cache, 22nm
Gigabyte G1.Sniper M3 Socket 1155 Intel Z77 Chipset
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB DDR3 1866MHz CL10 DIMM (F3-14900CL10S-8GBXL)
2x EVGA (02G-P4-3660-KR) GeForce GTX 660 Ti 2GB GDDR5 | 915 MHz Clock, 6008
LG 24x DVD-Writer
BitFenix Outlaw Black Mid ATX (BFC-OLW-100-KKN1-RP) $49.99


total comes to $1477 before tax

 

[stolendo]

forgive my newbness

don't I need a cooler of some sort?

also I noticed haswell just came out but idk how good that is

 

[KaptCrunch]

cpu boxed version comes with HS & fan

 

[stolendo]

Im thinking crossfire 7950s will be a lot better choice because they have better memory/bandwith for multi-monitor. They will cost 40$ more but I think will be a lot smoother.

will probably get some 900w psu as well (i think these cards use more power than gtx 660 tis) in the end it will be more expensive but I think worth it for the multi-monitor

what do you guys think?

 

[b1lk1]

No Crossfire or SLI. You also need a 4GB card or you will suffer. Crossfire is having issues right now with Eyefinity and it just never pays to buy 2 cards at once. Keep your eyes out for a GTX670 4GB or the equivelent of the current GTX 7 series. You need atleast 3GB Vram for many newer games when running 3 screens for decent frames.

My GTX 670 4GB card has been phenominal for Surround gaming. Get the strongest possible single card. You will be rewarded bigtime.

 

[clshades]

I too have dreamt of doing eyefin but I think after much reading and more reading (forums and otherwise) I'd rather spend that monitor money on a 27 or 30 inch dell ultrasharp with super high resolution.

 

[draemn]

No Crossfire or SLI. You also need a 4GB card or you will suffer. Crossfire is having issues right now with Eyefinity and it just never pays to buy 2 cards at once. Keep your eyes out for a GTX670 4GB or the equivelent of the current GTX 7 series. You need atleast 3GB Vram for many newer games when running 3 screens for decent frames.
... Get the strongest possible single card. You will be rewarded bigtime.

WTF? I have run surround on 1080p monitors with 2GB of vram without any real issues... heck, I even ran surround on SLI 570s and didn't have that much of a problem and they have 1.28GB memory.

From everything I know, gaming is usually better with surround than eyefinity... it will still vary a little game to game. I have also heard a few other people say that there are issues with the ATI cards in crossfire, so maybe research that a little more before buying. Couldn't agree more that buying a powerful single card is a better experience overall than buying dual GPUs to save some money. I have had a lot of good experiences with SLI through nvidia, but a powerful single card still shines in many ways... especially in scenarios where you boot up a game and get the same performance as if you had 1 card, not 2 installed...

 

[b1lk1]

WTF? I have run surround on 1080p monitors with 2GB of vram without any real issues... heck, I even ran surround on SLI 570s and didn't have that much of a problem and they have 1.28GB memory.

From everything I know, gaming is usually better with surround than eyefinity... it will still vary a little game to game. I have also heard a few other people say that there are issues with the ATI cards in crossfire, so maybe research that a little more before buying. Couldn't agree more that buying a powerful single card is a better experience overall than buying dual GPUs to save some money. I have had a lot of good experiences with SLI through nvidia, but a powerful single card still shines in many ways... especially in scenarios where you boot up a game and get the same performance as if you had 1 card, not 2 installed...

WHen you run out of VRAM you get lower frames and stuttering. I have run Surround AND Eyefinity on 1GB VRAM cards and it can do it, just not as well. Once you really crank things up, it makes a major difference.

 

[stolendo]

You need atleast 3GB Vram for many newer games when running 3 screens for decent frames.

the 7950s have 3gb each, however you do have a valid point with the eyefinity/xfire deal being unreliable :/

if I can manage to get this to work however, the graphical power will be epic.

on the other hand, I could get a gtx 780 for the price of two 7950s.