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irfan88

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Hello Everyone,

I have this question going all over my mind that - would a GTX 580 with 1.5 GB VRAM be enough for playing games at ultra settings at 1080p for another couple of years.

I am thinking of adding another 580 in SLI. Would it be worth it. I dont want to end up having a lack of VRAM for the upcoming games. I only play at 1080p but want to max out every setting. 4x AA would be fine though. I dont wish for 8xAA.
 

El Tigre

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You should be fine with today's games and most of the upcoming games. If you can, I would opt for this card instead, it has 2GB of VRAM and will run circles around the GTX 580. It's even faster than a reference GTX 680 out the box in most games. It's also much more energy efficient than the GTX 580 and produces less heat too. With 2GB of VRAM, you will be good to go for the next few years at 1080p.

EVGA GTX 670 FTW.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130787
 
did you already have the card? 1.5GB is quite plenty for majority of the games out there at 1080p. unless you're going for multi-monitor gaming or play a very few games than needs a lot of VRAM even at 1080p you should be fine with 1.5GB. if you still deciding on which card to get going for the GTX670 that EL Tigre link above will be a good choice as well
 

irfan88

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I own a GTX 580. I bought it about 2 months ago. I will only be playing on a single monitor. So I guess 1.5GB will be fine right!!!!!!

and one more thing, I am running this card with a Phenom II x4 overclocked to 3.8Ghz. Will this CPU be able to handle the 580 without any bottlenecks or should I upgrade to a Sandybridge or the Ivybridge platform?
 
You should upgrade to a i5-2500k or i5-3570k get whatever is cheaper ;) my friend had x2 MSI 580 in SLI and bottlenecks with his 965BE CPU OC @3.6GHZ
 

irfan88

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I run a EVGA GTX 580 SuperClocked 1.5GB @ 1080p and it handles all games and even plays the 'big games' smoothly.
Crysis2 DX11, BF3, RAGE, whatever.
I ran it with a Phenom II X4 975@ 4.2GHz for some time.
what's the rest of the unit specs.?
optimal RAM settings and SSD really help the Phenom II keep up.

I now run it with a 2500K and the difference is very noticeable.
but the GTX 580 itself, is still beastly and will be for another year or so.


Nothing special about the specs as of now:

Phenom II x4 955 3.8Ghz
Asus M4N75TD SLI motherboard
8GB 1600Mhz DDR3 Corsair XMS3 RAM Cas 9-9-9-24 1T I believe
500GB SATA HDD
Corsair TX 750V2 PSU

I guess I will keep the 580 and add another in SLI.

I will be upgrading the CPU and the motherboard to i5-2500k and an Asrock Z68 Motherboard. Will be adding an SSD as well
Should I change the RAM from XMS3 to Vengeance. Is there any difference between them considering performance wise?
Another question: I have a Corsair TX 750V2 PSU, will it be sufficient for a GTX 580 SLI setup. I will not be overclocking the GPU's but CPU will be overclocked ofcourse.



 

joedjnpc

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It's hard to say if 1.5 GB will be enough for Unreal Engine 4 games, we're already seeing games like skyrim and max payne hogging a lot of VRAM.

Worst case scenario you could drop your AA to x2 or use FXAA. Sli-ing to me looks like a good choice.
 
1.5 GB of VRAM is a limit in some modern games like Max Payne 3, You won't be able to set MSAA to 8X, and some guys only enable 2X MSAA and FXAA to avoid performance issues when running 4X MSAA with those 1.5 GB of VRAM.

Keep running with a single GTX 580 and upgrade later to one of the GTX 7XXX family.
 

joedjnpc

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You wont see a difference in games with the faster RAM.

I would go for a 800-850 W PSU if you want to overclock.

Also, why not the 3570K? It's not that bad of an overclocker to warrant investing in old tech.
 

joedjnpc

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I'm concerned about the close call power wise too, but my thing is to have a PSU with the necessary connections (pci-e plugs)
so I don't have to use a bunch of adapters..

'urbz' hates adapters.. :/

Get a modular PSU so, they nice.
 

irfan88

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Well I guess, I will stick with my single 580 for now and then upgrade to one of the GTX 7XXX series cards. Its better to skip the 670 and the 680. Not much of a performance gain from a 580. However, 690 would be in a different league all together.

I will upgrade to a 2500k or a 3570k and an Asrock motherboard and keep my TX 750 V2 PSU as its just 2 months old. I kind of suspect that even if I SLI the 7XXX series cards, I wont be needing a beefier PSU.

Well, the only question that comes to my mind is the difference between an XMS3 and the Vengeance Memory!!! Strange I find no difference apart from the volts that they work with.
 

irfan88

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download and run CPU-Z then go to the 'memory' tab, in that section you verify what you running now.
then select the 'SPD' tab, this is your 'specs' settings for your RAM.
XMP-1600, jot those settings down on paper or something.
then go into BIOS and manually set.

http://i1130.photobucket.com/albums/m529/malmental/Untitled-37.png

I have every setting setup similar to the XMP profile. However, the Command Rate is set to 1T. Should I set it to 2T. which one would be better ?
 
1T is better than 2T, however, it won't make any difference in real world performance.
XMS3 or Vengeance or whatever, just pick the low latency RAM with the low voltage, and since there are no true CL7 or CL8 RAM around just go with any Low Voltage CL9 RAM, I personally prefer G.Skill over anything else for reliability.

You should be fine running even 2 GTX 580s with that PSU, but unfortunately you won't have a headroom for overclocking, all the upcoming video cards will be based on lower nm technology which improves power consumption savings, so you can go SLI/CF with any very high end card from the upcoming series.
 
@Ifran
Look at Toms benches regarding the RAM frequency and latencies, all just differs 1 to 2 seconds which you won't feel it. The noticeable gain should be acquired from the upcoming DDR4 memory.
 

irfan88

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Not entirely correct Ilysaml.

The next GPU's from AMD or Nvidia could be hot and very power hungry...

Smaller die does not always mean a lower power figure... see GTX 480 for reference.

But I thought newer graphics cards require less power. See for example 2 670's require only 700 watts of power supply according to Guru3D. 670 beats a 580 right. So If I keep the 580 for another year and then upgrade to something from the upcoming 7XXX series and then add another in SLI, I should be able to get off with a 750 watts PSU right.
 
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