Triple Monitor Eyefinity (5760 x 1080) Setup $1000

[tanyawongz]

Approximate Purchase Date: Start of next year, so I can consider Sandy Bridge as well

Budget Range: $1000 for the desktop, $600 for the monitors

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming, Multimedia

Parts Not Required: Keyboard, Mouse, Mousepad, Speakers, OS, HDD (WD Black 750GB)

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Newegg or Amazon (I get free two-day shipping from Amazon)

Country of Origin: USA

Parts Preferences: ATI graphics card, Cooling Master HAF 922 Case

Overclocking: Maybe

SLI or Crossfire: I prefer just having one card.

Monitor Resolution: 5760 x 1080 (Three 24" monitors)

Additional Comments: I will be purchasing Dell's ST2420L monitors for the setup as I already have one. I'm really trying to decide between AMD and Intel's new Sandy Bridge, but considering this is a gaming setup, I suppose I don't need a super powerful CPU, more money should be spent on the GPU instead. This is something I've been looking at, but I welcome all inputs to make this the best system ever!

CASE: CM HAF 922 $90

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz $160
(I think this should be enough for my needs, I don't need a super good CPU, just good enough for it not to bottleneck the GPU.)

MOBO: ASUS M4A87TD EVO AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard $99

RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 $50

GPU: XFX HD-687A-ZNFC Radeon HD 6870 1GB 256-bit DDR5 $240
(I don't know how well this can run 3 monitors at high settings)

PSU: OCZ ModXStream Pro OCZ700MXSP 700W ATX12V V2.2 $80
(I usually prefer Cosair, but I hate how all the cables are already there in the back, any other good modular PSUs?)

Total: $750 (I don't have to use all of my budget, but seems like this is a good setup)

Thanks for looking!

 

[ender06]

Sounds like a lot of fun, must say I'll be jealous of the setup.

Regarding parts:

CPU is made for overclocking and should hit 4GHz on a nice air cooler easily. Black Edition means unlocked multiplier, so that will make overclocking easier.

GPU: I don't think a single 6870 will carry you as far as you want, not with 3 1080p monitors at good settings. Look at Tom's or others' 2560x1600 benchmarks to get a small taste. You're looking at 5760x1080, lots of pixels to render.

Monitors: You'll need at least one displayport monitor, which the the ST2420L is not. Otherwise looks good.

If you don't want to spend a ton now, I'd try to find a displayport monitor to your liking and get another ST2420L to finish off the triple setup and go with the one GPU with the intent to get another in the near future, although most people don't follow through on that.

Otherwise I recommend getting a 2nd GPU. 2x 6870 would probably work pretty well, but again, look at the benchmarks. I'm sure you can find some out there for Eyefinity setups.

Here's some I managed to find for the 6870. More playable than I thought at first. http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/wiki/ATI_Radeon_6870_6850_-_Featured_Review_Page_4

 

[exhail]

WAIT for SB it worth it dont go for the amd build, get something like an i5 2500k when it comes out, now the GPU you should look at an hd 6950 or hd 6970 and prepare to add a 2nd one in the future as that will be amazing!

 

[Guest]

NZXT Apollo BLUE NP Blue SECC Steel Chassis ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Item #: N82E16811146026
Return Policy: Standard Return Policy
$79.99


Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST31000528AS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
Item #: N82E16822148433
Return Policy: Standard Return Policy
Protect Your Investment (expand for options)
$69.99


ASUS VH242H Black 23.6" 5ms HDMI Full 1080P Widescreen LCD Monitor
Item #: N82E16824236052
Return Policy: Monitor Standard Return Policy
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-$40.00 Instant
$10.00 Mail-in Rebate Card
$659.97
$539.97
($179.99 each)


XFX HD-695A-CNFC Radeon HD 6950 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity
Item #: N82E16814150518
Return Policy: VGA Standard Return Policy
$309.99


Antec EarthWatts EA750 750W Continuous Power ATX12V version 2.3 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC ...
Item #: N82E16817371026
Return Policy: Standard Return Policy
Protect Your Investment (expand for options)
-$50.00 Instant
$20.00 Mail-in Rebate
$139.99
$89.99


G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL7D-4GBRM
Item #: N82E16820231303
Return Policy: Memory Standard Return Policy
$69.99


MSI 890FXA-GD70 AM3 AMD 890FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard
Item #: N82E16813130274
Return Policy: Limited Replacement Only Return Policy
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AMD Phenom II X4 970 Black Edition Deneb 3.5GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Desktop Processor HDZ970FBGMBOX
Item #: N82E16819103894
Return Policy: CPU Replacement Only Return Policy
Protect Your Investment (expand for options)
-$20.00 Combo
$20.00 Mail-in Rebate
$385.98
$365.98
1

Newegg Promotional Gift Card - $10.00
Item #: N82E168GC000001
Your Promotional Gift Card will be emailed 4 days after invoice.

Total 1525$

 

[banthracis]

1. a x4 955 is the same as the 965, so no need to spend the extra there.

2. What games do you plan on playing? Any modern game will pretty much be unplayable at that resolution with a single 6970. Playability defined as 22 FPS min, 38 FPS avg.

3. Using multiple high end GPU's will create a CPU bottleneck. Tom's ran into this issue with their september $2k build.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/overclock-cpu-build-a-pc,2700.html

granted, you've got 1.5x the pixels to process over 2560x1600 so there should be less of a bottleneck.

4. XFX 750 would be current best PSU buy. $110 after MIR
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817207003&Tpk=xfx%20750

 

[warezme]

Not sure you will like what you get, I have 3 Alienware OPTX 23" running 5760x1080 on dual 295's and can pretty much guarantee you that you won't be able to game with a single card at that resolution. You must consider that even dual 480's can have a hard time at that resolution on some games let alone one 6870. Another thing you will run into is that many games even recently released still aren't ready for ultra wide screen and end up looking like your looking through a big gunport cutting off the top-bottom and sides. That leaves you to scrounge around for widescreen fixes. I'm just glad I found one for Black-Ops. My next upgrade may be dual 570's or 580's or whatever is next.

 

[mdd1963]

I would think you'd want some sort of 3 way SLI capable mainboard, if SLI is capable of splitting one card per monitor....not sure on this, but, I do know one card will not run with those framerates acceptably, save for perhaps pokerstars.net games!

The odds of this being a $1000 system might be at least $500-$1000 too optimistic...

 

[tanyawongz]

Sounds like a lot of fun, must say I'll be jealous of the setup.

Regarding parts:

CPU is made for overclocking and should hit 4GHz on a nice air cooler easily. Black Edition means unlocked multiplier, so that will make overclocking easier.

GPU: I don't think a single 6870 will carry you as far as you want, not with 3 1080p monitors at good settings. Look at Tom's or others' 2560x1600 benchmarks to get a small taste. You're looking at 5760x1080, lots of pixels to render.

Monitors: You'll need at least one displayport monitor, which the the ST2420L is not. Otherwise looks good.

If you don't want to spend a ton now, I'd try to find a displayport monitor to your liking and get another ST2420L to finish off the triple setup and go with the one GPU with the intent to get another in the near future, although most people don't follow through on that.

Otherwise I recommend getting a 2nd GPU. 2x 6870 would probably work pretty well, but again, look at the benchmarks. I'm sure you can find some out there for Eyefinity setups.

Here's some I managed to find for the 6870. More playable than I thought at first. http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/wiki/ATI_Radeon_6870_6850_-_Featured_Review_Page_4

I've seen that the graphics card comes with a Displayport to DVI adapter, so I won't have to get a special monitor just for the Displayport. I will read more about the benchmarks.

 

[tanyawongz]

WAIT for SB it worth it dont go for the amd build, get something like an i5 2500k when it comes out, now the GPU you should look at an hd 6950 or hd 6970 and prepare to add a 2nd one in the future as that will be amazing!

Looking at all the comments, I think I really should add a second card. I'm just worried when SB comes out, the CPU + mobo combo will be like $100+ more expensive...

 

[tanyawongz]

1. a x4 955 is the same as the 965, so no need to spend the extra there.

2. What games do you plan on playing? Any modern game will pretty much be unplayable at that resolution with a single 6970. Playability defined as 22 FPS min, 38 FPS avg.

3. Using multiple high end GPU's will create a CPU bottleneck. Tom's ran into this issue with their september $2k build.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/overclock-cpu-build-a-pc,2700.html

granted, you've got 1.5x the pixels to process over 2560x1600 so there should be less of a bottleneck.

4. XFX 750 would be current best PSU buy. $110 after MIR
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817207003&Tpk=xfx%20750

Well I haven't gotten many PC games yet, so far I've only got WoW, SC2, NFS: Hot Pursuit, Crysis, BF: BC2. 22 FPS min and 38 FPS avg doesn't sound like that's enough. Maybe a 2nd card is definitely needed.

That PSU looks awesome! Going to add that to my build!

 

[banthracis]

None of above games will play w/ 1 6970.

Crysis especially would require sli gtx 570's at least to be even close to playable at that res.

22 FPS min 38 FPS is the common definition of playable. 1 6970 will get half of that in most games at that res.

edit:
I've done a few eyefinity builds and I ended up going:
1. 3240x1920 using portrait mode monitors. 5760 x 1080 just looks really bad most games.
2. 1 build was 3 way xfire 5870's, other was 2 5970's. Neither could really do Crysis at playable rates though. WOW worked fine, though places like DAL and WG did have issues. Disabling/lowering shadows though improves performance dramatically.

 

[tanyawongz]

None of above games will play w/ 1 6970.

Crysis especially would require sli gtx 570's at least to be even close to playable at that res.

22 FPS min 38 FPS is the common definition of playable. 1 6970 will get half of that in most games at that res.

edit:
I've done a few eyefinity builds and I ended up going:
1. 3240x1920 using portrait mode monitors. 5760 x 1080 just looks really bad most games.
2. 1 build was 3 way xfire 5870's, other was 2 5970's. Neither could really do Crysis at playable rates though. WOW worked fine, though places like DAL and WG did have issues. Disabling/lowering shadows though improves performance dramatically.

So what cards will you recommend for SLI / CF?

 

[banthracis]

Well, if I were to buy today for eyefinity, I'd go xfire 6950's. 6970's really don't seem to be worth the extra $70 per card from a pure performance perspective.

For SLI I'd go GTX 570's, but here we can't actually use eyefinity, but rather 3d surround, which is a whole different setup, which actually won't work with AMD chipsets (SLI not supported officially by AMD).

Obviously this bumps the budget up quite a bit.

 

[tanyawongz]

Well, if I were to buy today for eyefinity, I'd go xfire 6950's. 6970's really don't seem to be worth the extra $70 per card from a pure performance perspective.

For SLI I'd go GTX 570's, but here we can't actually use eyefinity, but rather 3d surround, which is a whole different setup, which actually won't work with AMD chipsets (SLI not supported officially by AMD).

Obviously this bumps the budget up quite a bit.

I think I'll stick with ATI, dual 6950s sound good. How much power would I need to power this then? 800W?

 

[Guest]

if you want 3d get nvidia 570 SLI
if you do not require 3D Go For Amd 6950 Crossfire

 

[mrhoshos96]

 

[banthracis]

I think I'll stick with ATI, dual 6950s sound good. How much power would I need to power this then? 800W?

XFX 750 I linked is fine. It is a very good PSU.

 

[mrhoshos96]

Another one xD
cheapest one i could think of

 

[ha2fb]

At least go with 700+ watts if you plan to CF in the future.
- mrhoshos96 second build.

If you are not going CF.
- mrhoshos96 first build. On this build I would splurge a little more on the ram selection. Go with a reputable brand if you can.

 

[discy]

Maybe you would like to take a look at the HD 6950 (Ah I see you already did). It performs a bit better in eyefinity at 3x 1080p. Also it has 2gb vram instead of 1 so you have more room for the amount of textures you're getting at that resolution. They also take up more space when you enable AA.

6000 series eyefinity benchmarks:
http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/wiki/AMD_Radeon_6970_6950_-_Featured_Review_Page_8

IF you would go for two cards; that is from nvidia or amd. I would suggest you let it depend on the drivers (and cost). The drivers from AMD are not always that great. They do have some bugs at times, causing blue screens. I don't know about Nvidia though. You should do some research.

My strategy at the moment is: stick with one good card. (without cfx or sli) and wait for a new release. Mainly because I don't have a good cfx/sli motherboard. The upcomming 7000 series (about 6 months) should be on a smaller chip, keeping it cooler and performance up. Hopefully that will give more oempf to run eyefinity with dx11 games also. Right now I can play every dx9/dx10 game quite good with my 6870 @ 5760x1080. (cs:source @ 60+fps, black ops @ 55fps). So I guess it also depends on what games you want to play.

I'll rather save my money for when a better card comes out and sell my old one instead of buying two. Don't really have a good reason for it. Perhaps because I don't like the idea that I need two cards.

Ofcourse you can always start with one from AMD, and if it's to slow; add another one later on. I guess that's what I should do .

last but not least: I noticed that after a month the 6870 was released, manufactures designed their own coolers. The 6870 with the twin frozr cooler from msi is up to 19 degrees cooler and 13db quieter than the original cooler. Maybe this will also happen with the 6950? It could be worth to take a look at. Especially when you run two cards at ones.