580gtx or 2X560gtx ?

[Succellus]

The doubt...

here a 580 GTX is around 820 USD.

2 560 GTX are about 941,USD..

And what would be the PSU requirement for each config.

 

I m in great doubt....

 

What i want to know is what will be better...for DCS, IL2, for the rest its irrelevent.

 

Ho yeah and i plan a 4 monitor setup (maybe tripple head to go, maybe softmultimonitor) +1 for gauges and etc.

Edited April 10, 2011 by Succellus

[EtherealN]

On four monitor: you NEED the dual cards. A 580 will never feed more than two screens unless you go TH2G (and in that case: remember to add the cost of that unit to your pricetag comparison). It's an nVidia limitation: two screens per card, unless it's a dual-GPU card like the 590.

 

Regarding power needs, the 560Ti is rated at 170W TDP, the 580 at 244W TDP. Note however that vendors using custom boards might change these values slightly. Also, remember to always "double up" on PSU. If you expect your machine to total 400W at load - get an 800W PSU. This for two reasons - you decrease the adverse effects of the PSU "growing old" (on heavy use you could use 10% capacity loss per year as a rough rule of thumb to be on the safe side), as well as the fact that most PSU's will be at their most efficient at roughly half load (saving you money on your electricity bill). Also, staying away from the higher ends of a given unit's capacity will decrease wear.

 

As for use in DCS, I'm not 100%. I've never used SLI on any machine, but there are some issues inherent to it - specifically a memory overhead that will decrease the effective memory usage on your cards. So SLI 560's will not give you the full advantage of the 1GB vRAM.

[RSharpe]

As for use in DCS, I'm not 100%. I've never used SLI on any machine, but there are some issues inherent to it - specifically a memory overhead that will decrease the effective memory usage on your cards. So SLI 560's will not give you the full advantage of the 1GB vRAM.

 

?

[EtherealN]

http://www.slizone.com/object/slizone_ask_mmm013.html

 

It's not a case of adding the memory of the two cards together. They both store the same information in vRAM, making 2x1GB vRAM cards have 1GB effective video memory accessible. Both cards need to have the same textures etc loaded. On top of that, there is also overhead through the routines that handle syncing between the cards. How big this overhead is nowadays I don't know, but it is there.

[Xxx]

:)This PSU calculator is useful:-

 

http://www.antec.outervision.com/

 

An 850W PSU with a moderate o/c should handle a GTX580 or a ATI 6970...All depends which driver manufacturer you like:unsure:

 

and yes, spot on info, GPU= 2 x 1GB = 1 GB or less!!!

Unless you go for a GTX 590 (3GB) or ATI 6990 (4GB), then you will need a small power station in your case:music_whistling:

[DayGlow]

As a former sli user duel cards work great when they work, but are a major headache to configure with some games. I would always recommend the single card over sli. As for surround gaming you would need sli to run it, but you can't run a forth monitor from the cards. You'll still need a seperate card to run the other display.

[RSharpe]

Running multiple screens requires a lot of video memory. 1GB won't cut it at all. I'm running across three 1920x1200 monitors, with two 3GB 580 SLIed consumes around 2.5gb on my system. You also need a lot of GPU power to push close to 7 megapixels.

 

Edited April 11, 2011 by RSharpe

[Succellus]

My system will at max be at first 1 1080P TV +1 1680X1050 22Monitor for gauges, mfd etc.

At years end i ll probably acquire 2 1080X1050 monitors to use as protrait at TV side + another 580GTX.... and will probably need another PSU cause my 800 wont fit the bill anymore, i suppose.

 

I actually have a MSI 460GTX 1gb hawk... if i let it in the case with the 580GTX that will also be MSI twin froz blah blah blah, will it be worth anything ? Or can i discard it.

 

IF SLI is so bad why so many people are happy with it (or at least say it) i agree its far from the nirvana that is sold but...

Edited April 11, 2011 by Succellus

[DayGlow]

It's not bad, but it is tinker-required. Not every game has an sli profile so you'll have to create it, plus not every game is sli friendly. Some flat out won't work. Since this is the case it doesn't make sense to have x2 midrange/value cards when a single high end card has similar performance with less issues.

 

Sli does make sensebwhen you are pushing the edge of performance, ie x2 580's. Is the cost of x2 560 significantly less than a single 580? What's the performance delta between them?

Edited April 11, 2011 by DayGlow

[scheffchen]

Running multiple screens requires a lot of video memory. 1GB won't cut it at all. I'm running across three 1920x1200 monitors, with two 3GB 580 SLIed consumes around 2.5gb on my system. You also need a lot of GPU power to push close to 7 megapixels.

 

 

thank you for posting that interesting picture. i have two gtx470 (zotac amp) and it was splendid before i upgraded to triple monitor...

now i am missing vram a lot!

[Succellus]

It's not bad, but it is tinker-required. Not every game has an sli profile so you'll have to create it, plus not every game is sli friendly. Some flat out won't work. Since this is the case it doesn't make sense to have x2 midrange/value cards when a single high end card has similar performance with less issues.

 

Sli does make sensebwhen you are pushing the edge of performance, ie x2 580's. Is the cost of x2 560 significantly less than a single 580? What's the performance delta between them?

 

Diference beetween 2X560 and 1 580 now is around 100USD-150USD where i live.

The Delte in performance is terra incognita for me, it is sayd that it beat a 580 from a reasonable margin(apparently when it works).

So the conclusion i ve come reading this is : its not really worth it.

I can really upgrade to a 580 now to have 2 monitors and IF i still think its worth buy another 580 and go tripple monitors.

Sincerely i dont feel much the need with track ir, but i concede it would be cool and perfect for a simpit.

Until flexible screen come.

[RSharpe]

thank you for posting that interesting picture. i have two gtx470 (zotac amp) and it was splendid before i upgraded to triple monitor...

now i am missing vram a lot!

 

Yeah. AMD's 2GB per GPU cards is an improvement from Nvidia's typical 1.5GB, but even 2GB isn't enough on triple monitors when you start using anti-aliasing. The premium for 3GB 580 cards is so high, but once you have it and forget that you've spent the money, it's really nice to have.

[Succellus]

Yeah. AMD's 2GB per GPU cards is an improvement from Nvidia's typical 1.5GB, but even 2GB isn't enough on triple monitors when you start using anti-aliasing. The premium for 3GB 580 cards is so high, but once you have it and forget that you've spent the money, it's really nice to have.

 

Wouldn t triple head to go easy the burden , or the soft th ?

Its what they bragg as theyr main advantage, you don t require as much brute power.

[RSharpe]

Wouldn t triple head to go easy the burden , or the soft th ?

Its what they bragg as theyr main advantage, you don t require as much brute power.

 

I wouldn't be able to say since I have no experience with those. But would they not add additional cost anyhow? Triple Head to Go doesn't support 1920x1200 monitors and above either?

[DayGlow]

TripleHead2Go is resolution limited. To use x3 high rez 16:9 or 16:10 You need to use the Amd or Nvidia solutions. I have no experience with SoftTH, I maybe wrong, but it maybe DX limited (ie not supporting DX10/11' not sure)

 

http://widescreengamingforum.com/

 

This site is a great resource.

[EtherealN]

Regarding the performance delta:

 

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews/1104/pg15/asus-geforce-gtx-560-ti-directcu-ii-top-review-and-sli-performance-gtx-560-ti-sli-vs-gtx-580.html

 

In crysis warhead on Full-HD and "Enthusiast" settings it apparently outperformed the 580 by an average 11 FPS (47 to 58 ). Not bad. It actually ALMOST makes me consider purchasing a second 560. :P

 

But that's a game that has specific profiles. I suspect a second 560 wouldn't really gain me much in DCS (I already have it almost entriely maxed out, with usually 50+ FPS, 60 to 80 if at altitude), and I don't really play many other games that would actually make use of the second card. Though I could run a second GPU Folding client... Hmm... :D

[beers]

(I already have it almost entriely maxed out, with usually 50+ FPS, 60 to 80 if at altitude)

 

Being someone who has a 2600K + 560gtx shipping to me this very moment, I am very curious what "almost entirely maxed out" looks like specifically... what is not maxed out, what did you find took FPS away from you, are there settings you could drop that would keep you over 60?

[Slammin]

Sli=space heater. I've done Sli with 7800GTX and also a rig with 8800GTS and as has been said, you will have to do some tinkering sometimes but it's not really too big of a hassle. My two biggest complaints would be the heat and also the micro-stuttering. Some folks are not that sensitive to the micro-stuttering and it doesn't happen with 'every' game, but I noticed it with most, but I'm sure it's because I mostly play flight sims. It's very difficult to detect with FPS, at least for me.

 

That said, I have my main doisplay and also an 8" touchscreen attached to my 580GTX and have a Dell 2405FPW attached to my 280GTX. If I do get a need for more video horsepower in the future I will most likely get another 580GTX and Sli again.

[EtherealN]

Beers,

 

My settings vary a bit depending on circumstance, but generally it is something like this (grabbed directly from the lua file):

 

   ["graphics"] = 
   {
       ["VSync"] = true,
       ["multiMonitorSetup"] = "1camera",
       ["color"] = "32",
       ["heatBlr"] = 1,
       ["scenes"] = "high",
       ["water"] = 2,
       ["fullScreen"] = false,
       ["visibRange"] = "High",
       ["treesVisibility"] = 9000,
       ["aspect"] = 1.7822580645161,
       ["haze"] = 1,
       ["shadows"] = 2,
       ["TranspSSAA"] = false,
       ["effects"] = 3,
       ["textures"] = 2,
       ["lights"] = 2,
       ["MSAA"] = 2,
       ["height"] = 992,
       ["civTraffic"] = "",
       ["HDR"] = true,
       ["clutterMaxDistance"] = 0,
       ["width"] = 1768,

 

I've made some sacrifices - the most obvious "saver" would be to switch to fullscreen. There are some caveats to it though: extremely busy missions or heavy action close to the new detailed aerodromes will bring it down a bit. I saved a bit on MSAA as you can see, mainly due to not really seeing the difference. If you use a large plasma TV on Full-HD rather than a standard 22incher the requirement for this might change.

 

I also have clutter at 0. I haven't really perceived a difference when having it bigger, but I'm just a bit ambivalent about it aesthetically. Although I do have a love for flying paint-scrapingly low, at those times I have to pay so much attention to the flying that I don't really notice it. (In my personal opinion it's a features that will work a lot better in DCS:BS than DCS:A-10C.)

 

Note though: the numbers I've quoted are on an overclocked machine - see signature. That said: the two things to "dump" if you want to ensure slightly higher framerates are water to 1 and VisibRange to Medium.

[Xxx]

Running multiple screens requires a lot of video memory. 1GB won't cut it at all. I'm running across three 1920x1200 monitors, with two 3GB 580 SLIed consumes around 2.5gb on my system. You also need a lot of GPU power to push close to 7 megapixels.

 

 

These are interesting. I previously thought 2 Gb on the 6970 would be fine?

 

Now have a look at this video. The maker has a ATI 5870 (single) thats 1024 Mb.

 

How is he running A10 with that?:helpsmilie:

 

Here:-

 

We need to explain how the sim uses Vram? Or I would like to know before I upgrade!!!

[RSharpe]

These are interesting. I previously thought 2 Gb on the 6970 would be fine?

 

Now have a look at this video. The maker has a ATI 5870 (single) thats 1024 Mb.

 

How is he running A10 with that?:helpsmilie:

 

Here:-

 

We need to explain how the sim uses Vram? Or I would like to know before I upgrade!!!

 

These are my game settings. My guess is that anti-aliasing is either off or turned way down in the case of the 5970. It's hard to tell what the image quality is, and the video doesn't look quite as smooth as what I have right now.

 

6970 in Crossfire is probably fine if you dial back the AA. I just find that you need AA, or edges become really jagged.

 

[Xxx]

These are my game settings. My guess is that anti-aliasing is either off or turned way down in the case of the 5970. It's hard to tell what the image quality is, and the video doesn't look quite as smooth as what I have right now.

 

6970 in Crossfire is probably fine if you dial back the AA. I just find that you need AA, or edges become really jagged.

 

 

 

Agree.

 

I am about to join you in the GPU class of 580:thumbup:

 

I have ordered a Palit 3 GB GTX 580. Will add a second when I have sorted out the cash!

 

I think Vram and having sufficient to prevent the system from utilising system RAM, is important to eliminate graphics glitches, stutters etc. Like your figures demonstrate, A10 requires video memory if it is to run at high resolution.

 

Regards.

[aceflier]

Hmm well in the comming weeks I'll be gettting 2x Palit 2gb gtx 560's with a 2600k rig so I'll see how that goes. Right now under heavy battle lots of models/smokes my gtx260's in SLI are giving me 80-100% performance improvement over a single gtx 260. 8fps vs 14fps on a test track.