3-way crossfire 6970, 4-way 6950, or 2-way sli gtx 580?

[stalker7d7]

With 3 displays. For the best performance, to last a few years at least.

What do you think would be the best choice?

3 x Radeon HD 6970 @ $1080
4 x Radeon HD 6950 @ $1080
2 x GeForce GTX 580 @ $1000

 

[stalker7d7]

you said a few years.....

I heard a lot about the amount of heat the 580's generate, will there be a problem stuffing 3 of those suckers into one system?

 

[stalker7d7]

Ah, that solves that.

Would 4 6950's outperform the gtx580's though? Or is crossfire technology not to a point yet where you can get a great performance boost from more than 2-3 cards?

Or are the gtx 580 that vastly superior to the 6950/70?

 

[stalker7d7]

the gtx 580 is the fastest single gpu on planet earth.......

But that wasn't the question. Just how much faster? And at what cost? I'm not looking to waste money.

You're starting to seem like an nvidia fanboy now...

 

[Ninja Pants]

3 6970's comfortably outperform 2 580's and depending on the game will ever outperform 3-way 580 SLI. Here is just one of many benchmarks that have been done between different setup variations of the two cards: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4254/triplegpu-performance-multigpu-scaling-part1.

The question is would 4x6950's beat 3x6970... answer is I don't know, and I haven't seen any benches on it either. Though performance scaling does diminish as you add more GPU's and tri-fire seems to be more stable than quad-fire. [edit] not even taking into account a suitable mobo.

For three displays the 580's loose at again as having 25% less VRAM is something you have to consider when running at those resolutions.

All out for a 3 screen display at the $1000 price mark I would recommend tri-fire 6970's from what you mentioned above but would suggest you also consider tri-fire 2GB 6950's as the performance is not too far off the 6970 and is significantly cheaper.

 

[Ninja Pants]

You're starting to seem like an nvidia fanboy now...

haha what gave you that impression...

 

[stalker7d7]

3 6970's comfortably outperform 2 580's and depending on the game will ever outperform 3-way 580 SLI. Here is just one of many benchmarks that have been done between different setup variations of the two cards: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4254/triplegpu-performance-multigpu-scaling-part1.

The question is would 4x6950's beat 3x6970... answer is I don't know, and I haven't seen any benches on it either. Though performance scaling does diminish as you add more GPU's and tri-fire seems to be more stable than quad-fire. [edit] not even taking into account a suitable mobo.

For three displays the 580's loose at again as having 25% less VRAM is something you have to consider when running at those resolutions.

All out for a 3 screen display at the $1000 price mark I would recommend tri-fire 6970's from what you mentioned above but would suggest you also consider tri-fire 2GB 6950's as the performance is not too far off the 6970 and is significantly cheaper.

Thanks for your in-depth opinion. It's more or less along my original thought path, but I just wanted to ask others to be a little more sure.

And about 384-bit being fanboyish, was because of the single line responses saying "580 580 580 580 580" ...


And besides, geforce sux at generating bitcoins and the like.

 

[stalker7d7]

Best answer selected by stalker7d7.

 

[Ninja Pants]

That is true and I know, was just being facetious 😛. Good luck with the build.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey