Triple monitors on 2gb cards?

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uhh3000

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Dec 7, 2012
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I got a new monitor the other day for rather cheap and got the idea of running a triple-monitor setup. I know I'll need 2 gpu's, but the problem is that i have a gtx 670 with only 2 gb of memory. I was considering selling my current card and throwing in more money for a couple of 4 gb versions. Would 5760x1080 run well on two 2gb cards, or do I need to get rid of the current one and grab a couple 4gb 670's? If 2gb isn't enough, does anyone know a good place to sell your used video cards?
 
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I swapped out my 27" 120Hz monitor and am now running 3 20" 1600x900 displays (desk space limitation) at 4800x900 with 2 x 2GB 680s. I don't have to turn down any of the eye candy.

If you get another 670 (which performs nearly the same as the 680), you may have to turn down some of the details on some games at 5760x1080, but probably won't have to sacrifice too much at all for most games. After a day of playing at the higher res, you'll be hooked on multi-monitor gaming for good (but so will your wallet).

I guess my point is I don't think there is a requirement for 4GB on a video card in order to run 3 monitors. I would say you could probably look at any GTX 690/surround review and know you'd get that kind of performance out of...
Thanks for the reply, I know I'd be able to run 3 monitors, but I wanna be able to max games at playable framerates, and I imagine that 3 screens would eat up my 2 gb of video memory. Thus my question about 4 gb cards
 
things like AA (including FXAA) and other eye-candy take up the most VRam. turn down the unnecessary stuff, set regular graphics to medium or high (depending on how demanding the game is) and you should be fine.

oh, and be sure to use an active displayport to DVI adapter (or just active displayport to whatever adapter) for your third monitor :)
 


if you want to max games, sell your 670, get a pair of 7970s. honestly the 4gb versions of 670 are a waste at those prices. you'll save yourself well over $200 this way and get better performance to boot
 
standard 670 should come with 2 DVI, 1 HDMI (or Micro HDMI i dont remember which one) and Display port. but unlike eyefinity display port is not mandatory for nvidia surround setup. you can use the HDMI port instead of display port if you want to. 2GB is still good enough with triple monitor gaming. just dont go crazy with settings that eat a lot of vram such as AA or community mod
 



I am not sure where you got the idea that Nvidia cards can only support 2 cards maximum. It actually depends on the card. I currently have a 5760x1080 setup on a single GTX 650 for my desktop machine...
 


ops, my bad, totally forgot about that. thanks for correcting me renz
 

Before the 600 series came, meaning 590, 580, 570, 480, etc etc, could only support 2 monitors max
 


Considering that the OP was talking about a 670... the reference design is 2 DVI and a HDMI port. At 1080P there is practically no difference in quality between using HDMI or DVI. He should have no issues setting up all three monitors on a single card. I prefer to use the HDMI port on the middle display(since it has built in speakers) but it really makes no difference how you configure it.
 

I'm pretty sure the point was to explain why he had the idea that he needed SLI for it to work, when you no longer need to.

You made it sound like he was an idiot for thinking he'd need SLI for more than 2 monitors. He was explaining why he thought that way.
 


I had no intent to belittle his opinion but there is no fault in questioning his reasoning.
 
I swapped out my 27" 120Hz monitor and am now running 3 20" 1600x900 displays (desk space limitation) at 4800x900 with 2 x 2GB 680s. I don't have to turn down any of the eye candy.

If you get another 670 (which performs nearly the same as the 680), you may have to turn down some of the details on some games at 5760x1080, but probably won't have to sacrifice too much at all for most games. After a day of playing at the higher res, you'll be hooked on multi-monitor gaming for good (but so will your wallet).

I guess my point is I don't think there is a requirement for 4GB on a video card in order to run 3 monitors. I would say you could probably look at any GTX 690/surround review and know you'd get that kind of performance out of two 2GB 670s at 5760x1080. Even though the GTX 690 sells as a 4GB card, it's 2GB per GPU. Pretty awesome performance across multiple screens with a mere 2GB of video RAM per GPU:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-titan-performance-review,3442-3.html

I'm going to conclude you don't need 4GB cards at this time.
 
Solution
a gtx 670 can handle a triple monitor system but it would be good to buy a GTX 670 4GB version as like Gigabytes which can handle things smarter and easier!than you can choose an ATI chipset like an HD7970 or 7950 with 3GB of vram!but with the ati chipset i am not very sure about the FPS results!
 


A 7950 or 7970 is a very good choose for a Eyefinity setup without question. I was running a Sapphire HD 7950 Eyefinity setup on my 3 Asus 27" monitors on my AMD FX-8350 build and it worked great. When I did my 2013 build and choose to setup a Hackintosh drive again I could not use AMD/ATI since there are no drivers in OSX for the 7950 yet so I had to go intel/Nvidia. Personally while the GTX 670 is a good card it is really no mach what so ever for the 7950.

Main thing is on the 7950 I did not need Crossfire to handle Eyefinity but with the GTX 670 I need SLI to be able to handle games in Surround as it just does not have the power the 7950 did.
 
sorry but i have to disagree after spending days doing benchmarks with gtx 660,670,7950,7970!i did for about 12-15 benchmarks and there are few games beating gtx 670 in FPS!the 7970 did impressivly better than the 7950 but not the gtx 670!believe it or not i am running a system of 2560x1600 resolution with one gigabyte windforce gtx 670 oc in high settings without an issue!if i want to play on ultra settings i overclok the card and theres no problem!or even take a gtx 670 with 4GB of vram on ultra high settings!theres may be a need for SLI cause the resolution is very big but games in this way are playable!if i choose ati chipset i would only go for Crossfire support with two 7950 or 7970!
 
Thanks for all the info guys, really helped me out. After deliberation and further research, I think I'll get another of my current card and just keep the AA and other bells and whistles down. I can deal with some jagged edges if it means saving hundreds and playing on 3 screens :)
 
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