R9-280X vs 770 4gb 3 monitor gaming

[Waffleboy7]

I am thinking of upgrading my gaming rig to a three monitor set up in 1920x3240 resolution. I want to know if crossfire r9-280x or sli 770 4gb will be better, the r9 280x is cheaper, but the 770 has better performance. I have a 850 watt psu, a i5-4670k, 8gb of ram, and my current gpu is a 770 2gb.

 

[okcnaline]

SLI 2 GTX 770. Since it's better performance.

 

[ingtar33]

the sli 770 won't have better performance in a traditional measure... xfire scales much better then SLi... that said, xfire on the 280x doesn't work on multiple monitors or dx9 games. So get the 770.

 

[GuatoNoP01]

Go with SLI Gigabyte GTX 770 WF 4GB http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CU9GOAO cards. You will have a better experience and overall performance with SLI and a multiple monitor setup.

 

[photonboy]

SLI.

Also, I disagree with CrossFire scaling better. If you can find proof of that beyond comparing only a couple games I'd be interested.

My understanding is that SLI is on average much smoother (less stutter) than Crossfire though AMD is aware they have issues and trying to fix them.

I doubt they will fix the Crossfire for older games either so if they have issues now, do they have them forever?

AFAIK they still haven't fixed the DX9 "runt" issue that results in DX9 games showing a small fraction of every 2nd screen so that you get a perceived 30FPS experience when FRAPS reports you have 60FPS.

 

[ingtar33]

SLI.

Also, I disagree with CrossFire scaling better. If you can find proof of that beyond comparing only a couple games I'd be interested.

My understanding is that SLI is on average much smoother (less stutter) than Crossfire though AMD is aware they have issues and trying to fix them.

I doubt they will fix the Crossfire for older games either so if they have issues now, do they have them forever?

AFAIK they still haven't fixed the DX9 "runt" issue that results in DX9 games showing a small fraction of every 2nd screen so that you get a perceived 30FPS experience when FRAPS reports you have 60FPS.

you're sorta just repeating what i said only with different words... and disagreeing on a known fact. xfire scales rather well... generally around 90%-95%; meaning 2 cards will be 195% the speed of one... you don't see that scaling in SLi... generally SLi hovers around 75%... on the high side 80%.

If you doubt this look at the benches between a r9-290x and a 780ti in xfire/sli. The 780ti is generally about 12% faster then the 290x. using the 290x as the baseline, 2, r9-290x in xfire will be around 195% the performance of one. Meanwhile 2 780tis in SLi (assuming a 12% better performance and 75% scaling) will be around 196% the performance of that one r9-290x. Look at the benches. the two cards come in almost identical when benched in SLi/xfire. At lower resolutions the 780ti will bench a little faster, while at higher resolutions the 290x will bench a little faster... this is largely due to the memory design of the two cards... when averaged out they're almost identical in dual card settups.

But this is far afield of the original question... simply put unlike on the 290/290x xfire on the 280x doesn't work with multiple monitors and dx9 titles. Since the original poster plans on a triple monitor setup, that instantly invalidates the 280x from consideration, leaving the win to the gtx770 by default.

 

[photonboy]

ingtar33,
I'm really curious where you are getting your data from on this supposed Crossfire advantage because frankly I just can't find it. Yes, in a few isolated scenarios for games that are so new we don't see optimizations from NVidia yet, or in high resolution scenarios where the NVidia has less VRAM.. but on AVERAGE I can't.

This link is several months old but I'm having difficulty finding good comparisons that are newer:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/crossfire-sli-scaling-bottleneck,3471-12.html

In particular:
"...but from a slight scaling advantage favoring the slower GeForce GTX 680s when you put two of them together."

*BTW, 2xCrossfire (HD7970's) only got 49% scaling on average with the above games using the Intel CPU and only 33% using an FX-8350 so your 90% scaling number seems too high. Maybe in a couple select games but not on average.

(I could give you a different link that shows closer to 80% scaling over the four games they chose so it totally depends on the games chosen. We really need a lot more games to average... but again I still can't find evidence that favours Crossfire overall.)

If you want to PM me with a link or two that definitively shows Crossfire winning I'm interested as I don't want to hijack this threat, but all my research shows:
a) Scaling is SIMILAR on average, and
b) SLI works smoother on average (see FCAT)
c) Scaling is far below 90% on average

 

[ingtar33]

those scaling numbers your quoting are old articles based on the frame pacing issue that AMD had. those are adjusted frame rate numbers based on pacing problems and runt frames.

When xfire works properly it scales much better then SLi. (note: this does not mean i think it works better. scaling better and working better are two totally different things)