Should i do single 680 or dual 680 sli

[xxcysxx]

hello folks,
i looking to get the 680 for my new built. just for gaming. I'm going to be paying on a flat screen samsung tv at 1080 x 1920 resolution, this tv also does 120 hertz if that mean anything. this machine will be move around to different tv monitors like my house and my shop and my basement, so it does stay at one fix location to one tv panel. but the resolution will be the same on all of them. and i'm just a casual gammer for the summer while i'm out of school. i will not be using it with multi monitor at all. just one tv every time all the time.

i don't mind spending the money for a good setup, but i don't want to waste my money it if it isn't going to be used. so from your experience should i go for two 680 in sli or should i just do one 680 and it would be enough. i want to max out all settings on the games i play with all the pretty eye candy stuff and the rendering to be fluid smooth as possible.

things i have cumulated already are asus maximus V gene z77, i7 2700k, and corsair vengeance 32gb ddr3 1600.
power supply haven't purchase yet, and to be determine according to either sli or single 680 setup.

thanks

 

[Guest]

I had 470's, and due to my aversion to noise, I couldn't be happier having gotten rid of them. The 480's are also noisy, although if I was to go water cooling, things might be different.

I was more talking the peeps that went 480's to 580's.I can understand going from sli 470 to a gtx 680.As far as being loud i feel there actually alot quieter then i expected.The reference card i have is the louder of the two and to me its not loud at all even at 100% fan speed.My 7970 at 60% fan speed is louder then my reference 480 at 100%.Im not getting the loud bit with these im not hearing it lol.The galaxy OC 480 is barely audible at 100% fan speed.Maybe im just going deaf hah.I just played BF 3 campaign an i know the campaign isnt as hard on your system as the multiplayer but in SLI i never went below 60 fps on ultra 16 af and 4x aa so max.These are just 725 mhz so when i figure a way to get the top card cooler im expecting to hit 850 mhz with both cards.Heres a pic of the galaxy oc 480 i love this thing

 

[Guest]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a936taiSVo4

The 480 is not that loud at all!!!

ya my 480 reference isnt close to that loud.If i compared from that video id say the gtx 470 at 60% fan speed is gtx 480 at 100%

 

[Guest]

Yes.
I almost laughed when i heard so many bad things about the 480, when the issue was not the card, it was that reviewers got a batch of unoptimised 480's (early samples).

Honestly i think the gtx 480 is the 3rd quietest card i ever owned after my iceq 7950 and the galaxy 480.Ive owned alot of cards and from what ive read i was expecting this to sound like a freight train its quiet in my books

 

[Guest]

Now can you see why i defend the 480 so much?

yep i wish id gone 480 sli over 7970 crossfire now.I wont lie i was one of those people you hear so much negetive and it scares you from buying one.Oh and for the record my 8800 gt ran hotter usually 100 celcius gaming constantley and that thing is still working today

 

[Guest]

I like both companies myself but when you can get 2 gtx 480's for $420 thats a ridiculous steal.I have to admitt the main reason i offed my 7970 is because i was afraid of it dying on me at the money i paid for it.I wanted to see what it was like to have the worlds fastest GPU and can say its not worth the money.It has awesome performance no doubt and i do reccomend something like that for maybe a single card user but sli at $1000-$1200 price tag is way overboard

 

[PCgamer81]

Here's how my current graphics solution holds up...

http://3dmark.com/3dm11/3181251;jsessionid=pczxvt6dg9hda7qwduz2ar4y

When crossfired, dual 6970s pack a major wallop.

No, my issue with these cards has never been their power. My issue is with the drivers. I'm just sick of the hassle. It has gotten to the point to where I can't even look forward to games coming out because I don't know what it will take to get them to run optimally.

PhysX is another thing. I know people say it's a gimmick, but I have always felt like I'm being ripped off by not getting it, especially considering I have a $2000 setup.

As for finding someone to trade, I would be willing only if I knew for a fact that their 480s worked. It would be worth it to me to pay a little extra to get them new and with a warranty.

 

[Guest]

$210 for an evga gtx 480 on newegg.When i traded mine i went to the guys house and he showed me they worked and i let him tryout my 7970.I agree do not trade unless they let you see them run.The one does run up to 91 degrees on the top and thats not bad for SLI for these.Im actually in the process of building another rig im a psu and a cpu short of it.Its only a single card motherboard so ill just keep the one galaxy and run 1080 p on a flatscreen then sell the other one or keep it for backup and throw and aftermarket cooler on it.My other rig i got the 7950 in and will double them up late summer.Im good with the 7950 overclocked for 3 monitors its been maxing out all my games i play at the moment

 

[PCgamer81]

$210 for an evga gtx 480 on newegg.When i traded mine i went to the guys house and he showed me they worked and i let him tryout my 7970.I agree do not trade unless they let you see them run.The one does run up to 91 degrees on the top and thats not bad for SLI for these.Im actually in the process of building another rig im a psu and a cpu short of it.Its only a single card motherboard so ill just keep the one galaxy and run 1080 p on a flatscreen then sell the other one or keep it for backup and throw and aftermarket cooler on it.My other rig i got the 7950 in and will double them up late summer.Im good with the 7950 overclocked for 3 monitors its been maxing out all my games i play at the moment

Is there a way to have a multi-display setup powered by more than one PC?

 

[xxcysxx]

hello folks,
i just searched up on the 690 and turn out it is going to be a dual gpu card. (yeah, that stuff is new to me), i think this is a great idea, because i was having concern about heating issue that might arise with two 680 in sli as my main board stack the two video right next to each other, and the card on top might not get enough circulation because the lower card is blocking it.

i can do either two 680 in sli and deal with the potential heat issue, or i can do a single 690 and save some money and cross my fingers and hope for a comparable performance. but i will definitely not do two 690 sli, because that's just nuts and senseless spending.

just another quick question. does a dual gpu video card, the card that has two physical processors on the same board, are they actually in a sense "SLI" (or lack of better word) with each other? or do they have no "SLI" what so ever in anyway at all, and actually operate as if it had a single processor on board? i kinda have this weird thought about sli and crossfire, like for example i have heard that although they yield much higher frame rate, their min frame rate is also considerably lower than that of a single card as well. like a larger gap between min and max frame rate.

 

[Guest]

Is there a way to have a multi-display setup powered by more than one PC?

Thats actually a question ive never heard before but a good question.I would guess no but this is out of my area of expertize.All i know is im waiting on another display port adapter i cant swallow games on single screen anymore unless im playing on a 42" or bigger flatscreen

 

[ko888]

hello folks,
i just searched up on the 690 and turn out it is going to be a dual gpu card. (yeah, that stuff is new to me), i think this is a great idea, because i was having concern about heating issue that might arise with two 680 in sli as my main board stack the two video right next to each other, and the card on top might not get enough circulation because the lower card is blocking it.

i can do either two 680 in sli and deal with the potential heat issue, or i can do a single 690 and save some money and cross my fingers and hope for a comparable performance. but i will definitely not do two 690 sli, because that's just nuts and senseless spending.

just another quick question. does a dual gpu video card, the card that has two physical processors on the same board, are they actually in a sense "SLI" (or lack of better word) with each other? or do they have no "SLI" what so ever in anyway at all, and actually operate as if it had a single processor on board? i kinda have this weird thought about sli and crossfire, like for example i have heard that although they yield much higher frame rate, their min frame rate is also considerably lower than that of a single card as well. like a larger gap between min and max frame rate.

On the card there is an nVIDIA NF200 PCI Express SLI interface bridge chip that provides the connection between the two GPUs.

The NVIDIA Control Panel allows you to enable and disable multi-GPU mode.

 

[MANOFKRYPTONAK]

I have a 680, and a 1080p screen, IT IS ENOUGH! I like it I got mine for five and bought the backplate and highflow bracket. I play crysis 2 smooth, SWTOR 100 FPS +, even in PVP in both those games no problem. SCII also no problem. So if you get 1 now and in 6 months to a year want another the price will be lower. Also buy a 50ft HDMI cable instead of moving it so often, I got mine off of amazon works great about 20 bucks.

Hope that helps, and don't go IVY bridge get an i7-2600K or i7-2700K. Much more bang for your buck and less heat.

 

[MANOFKRYPTONAK]

Wait until Ivy comes out, and then sandy prices will drop it like its hot! Toms recommends not upgrading from a high end 2nd gen i7 to an Ivy bridge.

 

[xxcysxx]

hi MANOFKRYPTONAK,
can you please elaborate more on this back plate and high flow bracket you were talking about.

furthermore, i have already purchase the 2700k, was there a reason why you mention not to get/upgrade to the ivy bridge? i though that newer PCIe 3.0 support would at least be desirable, even though disregarding the "slight" better in performance and the newer hd4000 graphics that gammers don't care about.

 

[Guest]

I have a 680, and a 1080p screen, IT IS ENOUGH! I like it I got mine for five and bought the backplate and highflow bracket. I play crysis 2 smooth, SWTOR 100 FPS +, even in PVP in both those games no problem. SCII also no problem. So if you get 1 now and in 6 months to a year want another the price will be lower. Also buy a 50ft HDMI cable instead of moving it so often, I got mine off of amazon works great about 20 bucks.

Hope that helps, and don't go IVY bridge get an i7-2600K or i7-2700K. Much more bang for your buck and less heat.

I think the I7-2600-2700K are to high a price compared to the I5-2500K.You get virtually the same game performance.$200 for the I5-2500K easily the best cpu for the money

 

[Guest]

Wait until Ivy comes out, and then sandy prices will drop it like its hot! Toms recommends not upgrading from a high end 2nd gen i7 to an Ivy bridge.

I really dont see that big of a price cut when ivy comesout for sandy bridge.Its not like IVY is going to blow the sandy bridge out of the water.Im sticking with my i5 for a few more years

 

[PCgamer81]

I really dont see that big of a price cut when ivy comesout for sandy bridge.Its not like IVY is going to blow the sandy bridge out of the water.Im sticking with my i5 for a few more years

+1

The top Sandy Bridge CPUs are bottlenecked by virtually any graphics solution (within reason). So for someone to go shell out on an Ivy for the purpose of a game only machine would in most cases be extremely stupid.

 

[xxcysxx]

i have another question, when you connect the video card (nvidia 680 for example) to the tv with the hdmi cable, does the audio get streamed through hdmi cable as well? i would assume no since the video card doesn't process audio, but i don't have any experiences with video card that has an hdmi interface before.
i would prefer to have this convenient of plugging in just one cable to my tv and get going rather than hooking up another separate cable for audio.
the motherboard i'm using has built in audio processing, is it possible to somehow link the built in audio on the mother board to the video card so when i hook up the hdmi cable i would get the great audio from the motherboard through the hdmi cable as well?

 

[jjb8675309]

^ +1

I agree. I have dual 6970s (basically a 6990) which is more or less 10%-15% more powerful than a single 680, and I can't fill my refresh rate (75Hz) with a few games totally maxed out with all the graphics mods applied (such as Crysis 2 w/ DX11/High-Res/MaLDo's pack/Blackfire's Mod).

Two 680s will be 80% more powerful if not more than what I have - hell yeah! Go for it! It will immediately pay huge dividends, as well as future proof you for years.

what are you using an old crt or something haven't seen a 75hz refresh rate in a while, just curious... I really hope you are not running a 12X10 CRT with 6970 crossfire.... id guess not but now you can see my train of thought

 

[ko888]

i have another question, when you connect the video card (nvidia 680 for example) to the tv with the hdmi cable, does the audio get streamed through hdmi cable as well? i would assume no since the video card doesn't process audio, but i don't have any experiences with video card that has an hdmi interface before.
i would prefer to have this convenient of plugging in just one cable to my tv and get going rather than hooking up another separate cable for audio.
the motherboard i'm using has built in audio processing, is it possible to somehow link the built in audio on the mother board to the video card so when i hook up the hdmi cable i would get the great audio from the motherboard through the hdmi cable as well?

If you install the HD Audio driver that is part of the GeForce driver package it will.

The HD Audio driver, provided in the GeForce driver package, supports 7.1 digital surround sound.

 

[xxcysxx]

does this mean that the video card has it's own sound processor, i though it would have some kind of spdif input that i could connect to the motherboard spdif out.

so that mean the onboard sound hardware on the motherboard is not used when i stream audio through hdmi cable?

 

[ko888]

does this mean that the video card has it's own sound processor, i though it would have some kind of spdif input that i could connect to the motherboard spdif out.

so that mean the onboard sound hardware on the motherboard is not used when i stream audio through hdmi cable?

Before nVIDIA graphics cards had an audio processor chip they had to use an internal audio cable to pass audio from the audio source through to the HDMI port.

Now that the graphics card has its own audio processor chip no internal audio cable is required. The audio is passed digitally through the PCI-E bus. In your case it will be from the motherboard's onboard audio processor to the graphics card's audio processor to be output through the HDMI port.

 

[xxcysxx]

that's fantastic, thank you guys for all your helpful responses. i've learned so much on this forum. i know its very nebbish questions, but i really don't know it. i did searched around on nvidia website to see if they would at least have some kind of manual of the video card layout similar to that of the motherboard just to se how everything in connected, but there's none that i can find.

 

[PCgamer81]

what are you using an old crt or something haven't seen a 75hz refresh rate in a while, just curious... I really hope you are not running a 12X10 CRT with 6970 crossfire.... id guess not but now you can see my train of thought

I can game at 1280x1024 @ 75Hz but when I turn it up it drops to 60Hz.

 

[xxcysxx]

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