31 replies to this topic

[Team Leader]

Can someone recommend one to me? I kinda used up a lot of my cash on founders pack, so I'm not quite ready to go over around $220. So I need a 3 screen graphics card for both gaming and working a digital audio workstation. It doesn't have to be amazing, but respectable and reliable. My computer is powerful enough to run probably anything. Any help would be appreciated.

[razorkill12]

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814102987

$189 after $10 MIR

also come with free copy of BF3, and Dirt3....Best deal around

[Shivus]

razorkill12, on 20 June 2012 - 04:58 PM, said:

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814102987

$189 after $10 MIR

also come with free copy of BF3, and Dirt3....Best deal around

This

HDMI and 2 DVI, 2 games.

Amazing performance for the price.

[NeoThoR]

Why?

EDIT: I see why now... this is why I have a cheap dell system. Sometimes it's easier running 2 different systems with 3 monitors than 1 system with 3 monitors.

Edited by neothor, 20 June 2012 - 05:11 PM.

[Team Leader]

razorkill12, on 20 June 2012 - 04:58 PM, said:

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814102987

$189 after $10 MIR

also come with free copy of BF3, and Dirt3....Best deal around

Wow thanks dude I'll look into this one!

[Decadre]

Why, did they say that MWO will support 3 monitors?

[Kravenous]

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814102986 I would suggest the 7850 as it is easily(very easily) overclocked to outperform the 7870 at stock clocks. Downside it is $240 but is substantially better than the 6950 in benchmarks when overclocked and is current gen hardware so future driver improvements may give more performance.

P.S. I am running one right now and all games run great maxed out, although I am only running a single monitor.

Edited by Kravenous, 20 June 2012 - 07:36 PM.

[Catamount]

MWO will almost certainly support triple monitors, since Cryengine 3 is built for it

[CynicalCyanide]

Just so you know, a $200 card isn't going to hack it for 3 monitor gaming.

Just won't happen. Not for modern games, at least, unless you dial the reso(s) back till you're looking at something one monitor might have anyway.

Edit: Be aware that many models of card don't support 3 monitor gaming out of the box. For example, no Nvidia cards apart from the 6xx series can support 3 monitors off 1 card. Many (If not almost all) AMD cards will also need a displayport adapter (about what, at least $20 i think) for 3 to work for gaming.

Edited by iron wolf, 21 June 2012 - 06:56 AM.

[razorkill12]

So when I bought it for $300 last year, it would hack it? Do a little research.........

[Team Leader]

iron wolf, on 21 June 2012 - 06:53 AM, said:

Just so you know, a $200 card isn't going to hack it for 3 monitor gaming.

Just won't happen. Not for modern games, at least, unless you dial the reso(s) back till you're looking at something one monitor might have anyway.

Edit: Be aware that many models of card don't support 3 monitor gaming out of the box. For example, no Nvidia cards apart from the 6xx series can support 3 monitors off 1 card. Many (If not almost all) AMD cards will also need a displayport adapter (about what, at least $20 i think) for 3 to work for gaming.

well then you seem knowledgeable on the subject. Would you care to make a recommendation?

[silentD11]

iron wolf, on 21 June 2012 - 06:53 AM, said:

Just so you know, a $200 card isn't going to hack it for 3 monitor gaming.

Just won't happen. Not for modern games, at least, unless you dial the reso(s) back till you're looking at something one monitor might have anyway.

Edit: Be aware that many models of card don't support 3 monitor gaming out of the box. For example, no Nvidia cards apart from the 6xx series can support 3 monitors off 1 card. Many (If not almost all) AMD cards will also need a displayport adapter (about what, at least $20 i think) for 3 to work for gaming.

This x1000, it won't hack it. Unless you're talking uber low resolution. Three monitor gaming usually only gets decent frame rates at tri video card level. You're not gaming on three monitors short of tri SLI or Crossfire X. I can barely push tri 1920x1200 monitors with good frame rates in modern games with tri gtx480s and even then it's iffy at best.

Look at it this way, if one high end card nets you 45 fps over a single 1200p monitor you need another for each other monitor you want to drive, and that's just the start of it. The cards process on their own, but they load the frame buffer into their vram and don't share the load, if the card has less than 3gb of vram it's going to run out fast. This is why at tri 1600p monitors a 3gb gtx580 tri SLI rig will smash a tri 680rig.

Unless you plan to go gang busters on your PC (hex core extreme edition, tri or quad video cards in the high end, 16gb memory) tri monitor isn't going to work.

[razorkill12]

Thanks for the great 1st hand info silent. People post negative comments with no info to back it up....its really annoying

[Nintenja]

560 ti is the most bang for the buck but a little more than $220.

[silentD11]

razorkill12, on 21 June 2012 - 08:05 AM, said:

Thanks for the great 1st hand info silent. People post negative comments with no info to back it up....its really annoying

Thanks,

But the truth is most tech advice is bullshit, I work in IT security now and I used to work for a company I cannot name due to NDA and I won't get into it.

I'll just say though that 1gb of vram is enough for 1080-1200p in most games.... aka ONE monitor, goes to hell and back after. Most people don't know how SLI works, that's due to someone I can't name. The reality of it is it loads the frame buffer into each card and then they co prosses it at about 14-75% gains... depending on the game. So if each card doesn't have the vram to load the buffer, you get stuttering left and right. To say nothing of the fact that several motherboards opperate the thrid PCIE slot at x8 speeds and thus choke the **** out of it killing the card (that's why those top end boards cost 200 bucks more, you're paying to be able to run three cards full bore). Also (with intel) only x58 and x79 work the PCIE buss properly for multiple cards, that p55 and p67 **** doesn't really hack it. You're locked into high end or the GPU performance degrades. The reasons of this would take pages to explain.

This is all to say, unless you plan a rebuild from the ground up or already have a high end system, TRI just isn't going to work for you.

[cipher]

silentD11, on 21 June 2012 - 08:36 AM, said:

I'll just say though that 1gb of vram is enough for 1080-1200p in most games.... aka ONE monitor, goes to hell and back after. Most people don't know how SLI works, that's due to someone I can't name. The reality of it is it loads the frame buffer into each card and then they co prosses it at about 14-75% gains... depending on the game. So if each card doesn't have the vram to load the buffer, you get stuttering left and right. To say nothing of the fact that several motherboards opperate the thrid PCIE slot at x8 speeds and thus choke the **** out of it killing the card (that's why those top end boards cost 200 bucks more, you're paying to be able to run three cards full bore). Also (with intel) only x58 and x79 work the PCIE buss properly for multiple cards, that p55 and p67 **** doesn't really hack it. You're locked into high end or the GPU performance degrades. The reasons of this would take pages to explain.

This is all to say, unless you plan a rebuild from the ground up or already have a high end system, TRI just isn't going to work for you.

QFT. If the OP wants to run three monitors, but only game on one and use the other two for browsers, etc., that's fine. But if they want "surround gaming" to run MWO across all three monitors, then they need a serious system upgrade, and even the top-end single GPU video cards won't handle that smoothly with high settings. They'd need to go either SLI or CrossfireX and get cards with 2 to 4GB of video memory for each GPU.

That's another thing about SLI/CrossfireX, which is also the same for multiple CPUs: each processor needs its own copy of memory. So those dual GPU cards like the 690 and 7990 might claim to have something like 4GB of video memory, but in reality it's 2GB usable since each GPU needs a physical allocation of the same amount of memory.

[Vulpesveritas]

given the 6950 sale is over...
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814161396 is a decent solution for $170
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814150563 will be your best bet under that $220 price point.
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814131473 will be significantly better for $20 more.
How significantly?

It's 20% faster for that $20 more, quieter, and

uses 40 watts, or about 50% less power on average.

It's quite worth the $20 over your budget in my opinion. Also, it is much faster still in comparison in heavily tessellated game engines in DX11, like CryENGINE 3 for example.

just my input.

[silentD11]

You're not going to push a game over three monitors with a single 6950 at good frame rates and without micro stutter, it won't happen.

[Vulpesveritas]

silentD11, on 21 June 2012 - 11:05 AM, said:

You're not going to push a game over three monitors with a single 6950 at good frame rates and without micro stutter, it won't happen.

Not at 1080p no, but at 720p it shouldn't be an issue. No one said you have to max the resolution on the monitors. lol

[cipher]

Vulpesveritas, on 21 June 2012 - 11:05 AM, said:

Not at 1080p no, but at 720p it shouldn't be an issue. No one said you have to max the resolution on the monitors. lol

Yup. And I ran three 1280x1024 monitors for triple screen gaming (3840x1024) on at first two 8800 GTX cards then a GTX 285, and later a GTX 295. That was back when widescreen was a new concept, lol. It's all relevant to the final resolution.