What would you do in my position (about to buy two GTX 590s)

[themadhatta]

So i finally decided to just upgrade my rig from 2 nvidia 460 GTX cards to two nvidia 590 GTX cards.
This will allow me to play with max settings with a much nicer frame rate in 3d on my new monitor.
I did a bit of research and came to the conclusion that the best 3d monitor to buy is the Acer GD235HZbid. Please correct me if you think theres something better. I plan to buy two more when i have the money so i can run a full nvidia 3d vision surround setup.

Im running 12 gigs ddr3 ram, using 4 sticks. Using an asus sabertooth x58 motherboard with an intel core i7 950 @#3.07 GHz. And running of the intel controller with an SSD raid of two identical SSDs.

I cant find the nvidia cards i want for sale anywhere, so i was gonna purchase them through their web site. I dont even know if they would actually have it in stock, i would assume they do.
I dont want to have to wait a few months or more for the price to drop or new cards to come out. But do you think it would really be worth the wait since i already have the one 3d monitor?
How drastic do you think the price drop will be on the 590 GTX cards?
What would you do?

-Thanks

 

[iam2thecrowe]

you should just get 2 x gtx 580's, 2 x 590's will require a 1500w PSU or something rediculous, and the scaling of 4 gpu's is quite poor.If you really want to spend all this money on a rediculous gaming setup, buy a projector and have wall sized 3d gaming, you wont need more than 2 gtx580's, even one would probably do it.

 

[mightymaxio]

All i can say is good luck, ive owned a 7950 gx2 and a 9800 gx2 while both were fast, i encountered many problems with them such as driver support, and heat issues. I don't think quad sli is entirely fixed yet and I wont be purchasing another setup anytime soon especially because when you spend that much money on a quad sli setup, a 2 gpu setup 6 months later woops the crap out of them.

 

[tomate2]

What I would do? I would go grab a cup of coffee sit down on a couch and think to myself, "Do I need US$1500 worth of GPU horsepower?" But that's just me.

 

[bystander]

I'm not sure I'd want to do surround 3D. One of the issues with 3D is images on the outside of your vision often experience ghosting or crosstalk. 3D surround will probably experience this a fair bit on the two side monitors. As far as power goes, you will need a lot of power. This will need close to twice the power as running normal 2D surround, so the 590's are probably not overkill. That said, I'd try it with 1 590 first. See how it goes before you consider adding another.

 

[swifty_morgan]

I'd buy 1 580 and see how far it gets me. Then, when I realized I got enough horsepower for the money.................

 

[bystander]

I'd buy 1 580 and see how far it gets me. Then, when I realized I got enough horsepower for the money.................

One 580 cannot run 2D or 3D surround, it is not possible. Not even considering that the card has to be able to render 6 images per frame (1 for each eye on 3 different monitors), but in order to run 3 monitors with Nvidia requires an SLI setup or it just flat will not run the 3rd monitor. A 590 does count as an SLI card and does work.

And as I already mentioned, a single 580 is not enough power to render 6 x 1080p at reasonable FPS on it's own.

 

[mightymaxio]

One 580 can run 2d surround with any additional graphics card actually, even with a crappy old geforce 4 you could. Its called softTH you should look it up, its pretty awesome because it uses one card to do the processing and the other card for the 2nd or 3rd monitor.

It works amazing too i did it with a 8800 gtx and a 5200 fx and it worked great, got about 60 fps and all i had to do was adjust AA a little bit.

http://www.kegetys.net/SoftTH/

 

[bystander]

One 580 can run 2d surround with any additional graphics card actually, even with a crappy old geforce 4 you could. Its called softTH you should look it up, its pretty awesome because it uses one card to do the processing and the other card for the 2nd or 3rd monitor.

It works amazing too i did it with a 8800 gtx and a 5200 fx and it worked great, got about 60 fps and all i had to do was adjust AA a little bit.

Was it 2D surround, or was it a 3 monitor extended desktop? I've also run 3 monitors with an additional card, but as far as I'm aware, 2D surround, for 3 monitor gaming, it must be an SLI setup. This is also what Nvidia's website says: http://www.nvidia.com/object/3d-vision-surround-system-requirements.html

 

[mightymaxio]

2d Surround in games as well as the desktop being extended. The main thing is that you need to put the SoftTH driver in the games bin folder and adjust the ini file in the SoftTH to fit your monitor profile, such as resolution and aspect ratio through this you can actually put as many monitors as you want such as 10 or 20 it doesnt matter.

You need to go to http://www.kegetys.net/SoftTH/

Cool thing is ive even tryed this with integrated graphics with a dedicated GPU and it worked great too.

 

[bystander]

2d Surround in games as well as the desktop being extended. The main thing is that you need to put the SoftTH driver in the games bin folder and adjust the ini file in the SoftTH to fit your monitor profile, such as resolution and aspect ratio through this you can actually put as many monitors as you want such as 10 or 20 it doesnt matter.

You need to go to http://www.kegetys.net/SoftTH/

Cool thing is ive even tryed this with integrated graphics with a dedicated GPU and it worked great too.

I did take a look at your link. It looks like a version from a 3rd party that came out before Nvidia decided to offer it. Unfortunately there are a few problems. It only works with DX8 and DX9 games. It also will not work with 3D surround. It likely isn't as well supported as one by Nvidia.

 

[mightymaxio]

I did take a look at your link. It looks like a version from a 3rd party that came out before Nvidia decided to offer it. Unfortunately there are a few problems. It only works with DX8 and DX9 games. It also will not work with 3D surround. It likely isn't as well supported as one by Nvidia.

Although they do have a beta one for DX10 games as well, its been a while so they might have a DX11 beta driver out for it too, in the forums they list all the new ones just not on the main page.

 

[bystander]

Although they do have a beta one for DX10 games as well, its been a while so they might have a DX11 beta driver out for it too, in the forums they list all the new ones just not on the main page.

It might be interesting for someone with a single card that wants to try a 2D surround setup, but again, he's trying for a 3D surround (3D vision across 3 monitors). That still won't work for what he needs.

 

[mightymaxio]

True i was just listing it as a suggestion for him to use if he wanted to. Not many people know about SoftTH and i hope more people start to use it because its a great thing.

 

[spookie]

I would......get a girlfriend! do you really need it??

 

[clonazepam]

I'd rather have 3 580s than 2 590s. The 580s are available in much higher quantity, and lately I've been seeing a lot of them with MIRs that take them as low as $400-420. Like someone else said, the 590 is the flagship but the 580 is the real workhorse.

If you find power usage to be interesting and not limiting...

The system in the signature w/ overclock to 4.6ghz, 1.34v, 16GB ram, stock clock /voltage on the 580s...

From my post in my thread in "homebuilt"

I picked up some Belkin device to measure the watts, CO2 emissions, and costs associated with the system. It's not great, but its better than I thought it would be.

Idle is about 180 watts - this includes the PC, usb-powered 5.1 headphones, externally-powered logitech g19 keyboard, and western digital's mybook 1TB nas.

Running 3D Mark 11 - 550 watts (thought would be over 600) I'll run a combo like prime95 / furmark next I guess. Probably hit over 600 with that.

Additionally, tested these scenarios -

watching a netflix movie, fullscreen, SD or HD = 200 watts
watching a youtube video, any size, any resolution = 250 watts

 

[themadhatta]

Sorry guys i read everything but i was kinda skimming it just a smidgen because there was so much text and i believe quite few of the people misunderstood one thing.

Heres what i have atm to work with.
1.5-2 grand spending limit USD.
I listed the parts i have atm. But i did not mention that i have a 1000w power supply but dont really know much about power supplies, what to do and what not to do with em. As long as im told that it will work with that i have then i can install it and im all good.

As for what im planning to do. Im a big gamer, and i love spending time at the computer. I was figuring that with the 2 590s that would be overkill for 3d gaming on the monitor i purchased. I currently have 2 matching lcd monitors but i believe they cap at 60hz so i will most likely be playing some games like bad co 2 on a 2d surround setup.
When im not playing games i will be using at least 3 monitors in the extended mode i think its called. The background will be duplicated on each screen, its not gonna be spread across the screens.

I eventually wanna be able to use nvidia 3d vision in 3d surround. When i do have the correct monitor setup the 2 GPUs will hopefully keep me up to speed until i need to upgrade my mother board and possibly my cpu. And if i do need a 3rd nvidia card by then to run games in 3d surround at max settings then i have that option if i purchase a motherboard that can handle 3 video cards in sli

Why im here asking for opinions, is because i want to see how drastic of a price drop there might be on these cards by the end of the year. I might just buy 1 590 for running games on my new monitor if a single 590 can pull off max settings in any game atm in 3d.

Im also trying to budget for a 2 sound card setup for music related purposes but thats a completely unrelated topic that we should leave at rest. So im still just trying to get a more solid game plan going.

-Thanks for all the input so far

 

[mdd1963]

the 590 is a tad slower than two ref 580's....

If ever contemplating gaming with three monitors (effectively 5760x1080/1200) , I'd consider a pair of 3gb 580s...; the 590 uses only a pair of 1.5 gb framebuffers)

 

[themadhatta]

Sorry if i come off as being rude i never ever mean to offend anyone even if they deserve to be.
Obviously two 580s would be better than a 590, but im wanting to have these cards last as long as possible, so wouldnt i be better off purchasing a 590? Then purchasing the second 590 once im pleased with the first would be better than purchasing two 580s, since i plan on getting a second card either way.

I was just wondering how a 590 on its own would hold up against games now a days compared to my dual 460 setup. That way i could save money by just getting 1 590 for now, and then purchasing the second when the price drops, or when i need it.

 

[bystander]

Given your ultimate goal of running 3D surround, which is one of the few cases where two 590's makes sense and would not be overkill, I'd go ahead with the single 590 now and make sure that you have a motherboard that has an extra slot between the 590's.

With two 590's with the extra slot of air between them, you'll get good performance and they'll remain relatively cool and quiet.

If you did 3 580's, they'll have to be installed right up against each other making airflow bad. They'll run hot and noisy as a result. I personally would not want this having had experience with two loud cards.

Edit: One thing I do agree on from above, 1.5GB frame buffers on 3GB 590's could on occasion, require you to lower your settings a little. If they make a 6GB version of a 590, you may want to go for that.

 

[clonazepam]

590s appear to be in very short supply. Your best bet of running 2 may be in purchasing them both now. I skimmed through online sites and stock is non-existent or the price is upwards of $800-900... jus sayin'...

 

[themadhatta]

Thanks for all the suggestions and posts guys. Yeah i wound up having to loan all my money for my computer to my folks

My moms really appreciative tho so im hoping shell be nice and give me something extra when she pays me back.

I have no clue what to do im kinda stuck atm tho. I think my best bet is to buy 1 and buy the 2nd later.

I just dont know i may stop playing games in the next couple of years my life is up in the air atm, no clue where or when its all gonna land.

Gotta love the recession and fighting a trustee for 2 years to the point where you go from having 1.5 mill in the bank to literally barely getting by paying off all our loans with what little income we get from what properties we didnt sell to pay for everything.

I already did spend the money to buy a 3d monitor tho so i might as well just finish the plan since ive already started going down that road.

Oh also can someone please explain to me how to check the userCP on this forum? Im exhausted atm and cant figure it out, im pretty sure i got a pm but the link in my email sent me here. Oh it was asking if i had my question answered i didnt read the text of the email i just clicked the link. But now idk what it wants me to do it told me to click the gold trophy, and idk where it is. Who should get the best answer? Not a single person helped me find my answer it was based on what i heard from everyone who posted. And will it close the thread or can we still discuss the topic in here?

Sorry for being a hassle

 

[clonazepam]

You don't have to select a best answer if you want. I've been dragging out my build log for awhile and I get those from time to time. If you select a best answer, it will have the thread closed eventually... dependent on how soon the mods see it.

Anyway, EVGA is doing a thing now when you buy certain gpus of theirs from newegg and tigerdirect, you get a free copy of the new Batman Arkhum City haha... I bought my 580s last month so I'm gonna see if I can't get in on that... It's something at least. I almost got screwed cuz I f'd up a Steam order and it looked like a double charge there for a bit.

Anyway, you'll end up much better off for having made the sacrifice... but you don't need me to tell you that.

 

[Dansmail26]

If you ever want to sell one of your old boards let me know!