[H] 6990+6970 CF vs GTX580 SLI triple monitor

[GaiaHunter]

Yes, you are right about this......and only this bit...price point....But AMD have always undercut NV AFAIA

You are telling me that it isn't similar number of graphic cards?

Well just run 3x6970 vs 3x570.

The only interesting thing about comparing 3x6970 or 3x570 to for example 3x580 is to know if the performance increase justifies the price premium (and this will vary from person to person - $600 saved will go along way in buying next gen cards for example or 2 monitors). If the 3xGTX580 that will cost $1500 don't beat the other setups that are around $900 by quite a bit it will be disappointing.

There is a few others on this interesting review http://www.anandtech.com/show/4254/triplegpu-performance-multigpu-scaling-part1 .

I only copied the first page to not make this post to heavy on images (before anyone accuses me of favoritism) but it seems to be representative of the other benches as well, sometimes the GTX580 tri-sli extra power kicks in others it doesn't, sometimes drivers mess up either triple configuration, etc.

 

[SolMiester]

You are telling me that it isn't similar number of graphic cards?

Well just run 3x6970 vs 3x570.

The only interesting thing about comparing 3x6970 or 3x570 to for example 3x580 is to know if the performance increase justifies the price premium (and this will vary from person to person - $600 saved will go along way in buying next gen cards for example or 2 monitors). If the 3xGTX580 that will cost $1500 don't beat the other setups that are around $900 by quite a bit it will be disappointing.

It isnt a similar number of GPU's!...

Once again though, you are looking at only price performance....HP servers are a premium for the same performance, yet sell more!

Edit for your graphs, 2 to AMD and 3 to NV, does it come down to the games only?

 

[GaiaHunter]

It isnt a similar number of GPU's!...

Once again though, you are looking at only price performance....HP servers are a premium for the same performance, yet sell more!

I don't buy GPUs. I buy cards. And those cost me money.

About the servers I'm not sure if HP gets that premium due to better costumer service/quality or just by brand recognition.

I don't buy brand recognition but I can surely pay a premium for reliability or for certainty that my hardware will work for a reasonable time frame - I've never experienced any major problems with either AMD or NVIDIA so no preference there.

Edit for your graphs, 2 to AMD and 3 to NV, does it come down to the games only?

Seems like it and to driver support - it seems SLI and CF work fine but tri fire and tri sli not so well.

Civ V, Dirt2, ME2 go for NVIDIA. Wolfenstein also goes for NVIDIA simply because while 3xGTX580 are no better than 2xGTX580, with 3x6970 the game crashes.

AMD takes BFBC2 and Stalker:Cop.

But that is just looking at performance.

If you look at price and power consumption some people preferences will vary.

 

[SlowSpyder]

It isnt a similar number of GPU's!...

Once again though, you are looking at only price performance....HP servers are a premium for the same performance, yet sell more!

Edit for your graphs, 2 to AMD and 3 to NV, does it come down to the games only?

But what's fair? When you buy an HP server you are buying equipment from a company that you know will be there and provide warranty support and upgrade options should you want or need them. Nvidia is not some kind of premium company compared to AMD, so the analogy doesn't apply anyway.

So what's a fair comparrison? I don't remember too many members of the Green team crying foul because the GTX580 uses a wider connection to the memory, or that Nvidia uses a hefty amount of silicon compared to AMD, or that the GTX470 had 1.2GB of memory compared to 1GB for the 5870. But now the fact that you can get a 6990 and 6970 for the same price of two GTX580's you are going to call it unfair?

The fact is most of us buy with a rough budget in mind. If I had $1000 to spend on just GPU's for my shiney new system, it would appear that the AMD 6990+6970 would be a better buy than two GTX580's. I wouldn't say, "Hold on there... that's not fair to Nvidia! I have to only use two AMD GPU's in my comparrisions!"

The fact is that Nvidia did not have much flexibility with the GTX590 because Fermi is so hot and power hungry. They were not able to use two GTX570 GPU's as they would likely be slower than the 6990. And who would want 1.2GB of video memory on one of these cards anyway? On the other hand they really can't SLI it with a GTX580 as the GTX580 would have to down clock so far, and we all know it wouldn't be wise to try and bump the voltage and raise the clocks on the GTX590.

So in the end we are left with the GTX590 that has to stand alone or with another GTX590, that's it. AMD on the other hand allows the 6970 to CF with the 6990 should someone want to do so. So if we are talking about a $1000 budget and Eyefinity resolutions, AMD seems to be the better option. I don't see how anyone can have a problem with this comparrison.

 

[SolMiester]

I don't buy GPUs. I buy cards. And those cost me money.

About the servers I'm not sure if HP gets that premium due to better costumer service/quality or just by brand recognition.

I don't buy brand recognition but I can surely pay a premium for reliability or for certainty that my hardware will work for a reasonable time frame - I've never experienced any major problems with either AMD or NVIDIA so no preference there.



Seems like it and to driver support - it seems SLI and CF work fine but tri fire and tri sli not so well.

Civ V, Dirt2, ME2 go for NVIDIA. Wolfenstein also goes for NVIDIA simply because while 3xGTX580 are no better than 2xGTX580, with 3x6970 the game crashes.

AMD takes BFBC2 and Stalker:Cop.

But that is just looking at performance.

If you look at price and power consumption some people preferences will vary.

I buy cards BASED on GPU, and yes in most cases, price is the major consideration....however I have never and will never buy a dual GPU card...
When it comes to brand recognition, yes, in some cases I do take that into consideration just like many posters do here when selecting which manufacturer to go with.....
Ah, i dont know, just seems a stitch up to me, 3 GPUs against 2, 6GB of vRam against 3!!

 

[SlowSpyder]

I buy cards BASED on GPU, and yes in most cases, price is the major consideration....however I have never and will never buy a dual GPU card...
When it comes to brand recognition, yes, in some cases I do take that into consideration just like many posters do here when selecting which manufacturer to go with.....
Ah, i dont know, just seems a stitch up to me, 3 GPUs against 2, 6GB of vRam against 3!!

Many people are only interestined in single GPU's for whatever reason. But this comparrison is multi-GPU vs. multi-GPU, so whatever advantages a single GPU has over multiple GPU's doesn't apply here.

And it is not 6GB vs. 3GB. The memory has to mirror everything in each per-GPU bank. So it's still just the 2GB of the AMD system vs. the 1.5GB of the Nvidia system.

 

[SolMiester]

Many people are only interestined in single GPU's for whatever reason. But this comparrison is multi-GPU vs. multi-GPU, so whatever advantages a single GPU has over multiple GPU's doesn't apply here.

And it is not 6GB vs. 3GB. The memory has to mirror everything in each per-GPU bank. So it's still just the 2GB of the AMD system vs. the 1.5GB of the Nvidia system.

Yeah, whatever bud!

 

[pw38]

So in the end we are left with the GTX590 that has to stand alone or with another GTX590, that's it. AMD on the other hand allows the 6970 to CF with the 6990 should someone want to do so. So if we are talking about a $1000 budget and Eyefinity resolutions, AMD seems to be the better option. I don't see how anyone can have a problem with this comparrison.

You know and I know and everyone else knows it's just about brand loyalty. It's not hard to spot, no need to be pragmatic about it. If there's a test that favors Nvidia the AMD diehards will cry foul and vice versa. Just the nature of competition. It is humorous though to watch people get so bent out of shape over something so seemingly innocuous as a reasoned testing with pretty well defined parameters. Apparently it's easy to get your panties in a bind. Who knew...

 

[cotak13]

You know and I know and everyone else knows it's just about brand loyalty. It's not hard to spot, no need to be pragmatic about it. If there's a test that favors Nvidia the AMD diehards will cry foul and vice versa. Just the nature of competition. It is humorous though to watch people get so bent out of shape over something so seemingly innocuous as a reasoned testing with pretty well defined parameters. Apparently it's easy to get your panties in a bind. Who knew...

It's what men do We tie our twig and berries to sports teams, the car we drive, the GPUs we own or GPU brand we have a boyish attachment for.

Unfortunately, it also why we make stupid decisions too. I mean who here actually research what's being said by politicians before they vote vs voting as they are used to or because somehow they got convinced by one catch ideology? I actually try to dig deeper last federal election (in Canada, I am canadian) and frankly, there wasn't anything deeper. All the platforms was just word, no facts no numbers about how they would achieve what they say they could.

 

[Dark Shroud]

Even if you could Tri-SLI a GTX 590 & GTX 580 it wouldn't be as cheap as the HD 6990 HD 6970 combo nor would it perform as well. Because the GTX 590 can not over clock to match the speeds of the GTX 580. Where as you flip the AUSUM switch on the HD 6990 and you're done.

 

[Mistwalker]

I buy cards BASED on GPU, and yes in most cases, price is the major consideration....however I have never and will never buy a dual GPU card...
When it comes to brand recognition, yes, in some cases I do take that into consideration just like many posters do here when selecting which manufacturer to go with.....
Ah, i dont know, just seems a stitch up to me, 3 GPUs against 2, 6GB of vRam against 3!!

This is the hardware equivalent of complaining about certain games being included in benchmarks because they perform better on one architecture ("...but it's a TWIMTBP title, no fair!" Gamers don't care). Most people don't care how the card gets them a certain FPS, they just care about resulting performance.

As for the vRAM, blame Nvidia for not putting more on their cards (or if you prefer, for going with an architecture that made it difficult/unfeasible).

This is a cost-based comparison. Or, if you prefer, a value-based comparison at a certain price point. A niche one at that! AMD tends to show some additional flexibility there, but nothing to go crazy over.

Personally I'd like to see that 3x6970 vs 3x570 (are they close in price now? has the 6970 come down to match the 570? they're pretty close in any case) as a similar price/performance/scaling point comparison if you care about the number of GPUs, which a. is not the point of the HardOCP article and b. almost completely useless as a metric all by itself.

 

[LiuKangBakinPie]

This is the hardware equivalent of complaining about certain games being included in benchmarks because they perform better on one architecture ("...but it's a TWIMTBP title, no fair!" Gamers don't care). Most people don't care how the card gets them a certain FPS, they just care about resulting performance.

As for the vRAM, blame Nvidia for not putting more on their cards (or if you prefer, for going with an architecture that made it difficult/unfeasible).

This is a cost-based comparison. Or, if you prefer, a value-based comparison at a certain price point. A niche one at that! AMD tends to show some additional flexibility there, but nothing to go crazy over.

Personally I'd like to see that 3x6970 vs 3x570 (are they close in price now? has the 6970 come down to match the 570? they're pretty close in any case) as a similar price/performance/scaling point comparison if you care about the number of GPUs, which a. is not the point of the HardOCP article and b. almost completely useless as a metric all by itself.

That's correct certain things will have a influence on your system and performance. The only setup that comes close to match 4x or 3x Gtx 580s was a 3x6950 setup.
http://hwbot.org/rankings/benchmark/3dmark11_-_extreme/world_records
Just have a look where the 6950 setup is phenomenal score lol

That article doesn't beat the BFBC 2 2600k post they got on there as being useless. Some guy with taskmanager screenshots came to the conclusion that the I7 9xx series and other quads ain't fast enough for the game. And believe it or not some noobs dropped their I7 rigs for 2600k just due to that lol

 

[SlowSpyder]

Yeah, whatever bud!

SolMiester, I'm trying to help you with something that I think you are confused about.

When you CF/SLI cards the memory is not additive. That is, 2 GTX580's do not have the same amount of frame buffer as a single 3GB GTX580. Three 6970's do not have 6GB of frame buffer available. Whatever data is in the bank of memory for the first GPU has to be replicated in the other memory as well. I have two 1GB 5870's in CF, I effectively have 1GB of video memory, not 2GB. The 2xGTX580 vs. 3x6970 comparrison is 1.5GB vs. 2GB.

 

[wahdangun]

It isnt a similar number of GPU's!...

Once again though, you are looking at only price performance....HP servers are a premium for the same performance, yet sell more!

Edit for your graphs, 2 to AMD and 3 to NV, does it come down to the games only?

so you are basically saying nvdia a premium brand? Are you joking? I never know a premium brand have a fragile card like gtx 590, its even blow up in many reviewer hand, or bumpgate problem that fried many laptop gpu or a driver that can kill a card, I don't know about you but its look more like cheap brand to me

 

[thilanliyan]

I don't see how anyone can have a problem with this comparrison.

You must be new here.

On topic:
The comparison IS fair if at the same price point. There may be certain features that people need that will make you swing one way rather than the other (waterblock compatibility in my case), but review sites at least need to compare performance at the same price point...it would be too subjective otherwise, and I'm glad this is the way they do it.

6GB of vRam against 3!!

It's not 6GB vs 3GB.

 

[SolMiester]

so you are basically saying nvdia a premium brand? Are you joking? I never know a premium brand have a fragile card like gtx 590, its even blow up in many reviewer hand, or bumpgate problem that fried many laptop gpu or a driver that can kill a card, I don't know about you but its look more like cheap brand to me

And you are saying a premuim brand never has a dud!

 

[SolMiester]

SolMiester, I'm trying to help you with something that I think you are confused about.

When you CF/SLI cards the memory is not additive. That is, 2 GTX580's do not have the same amount of frame buffer as a single 3GB GTX580. Three 6970's do not have 6GB of frame buffer available. Whatever data is in the bank of memory for the first GPU has to be replicated in the other memory as well. I have two 1GB 5870's in CF, I effectively have 1GB of video memory, not 2GB. The 2xGTX580 vs. 3x6970 comparrison is 1.5GB vs. 2GB.

I am well aware of how CF works thanks!.....I was making a point about apples to apples!

 

[3DVagabond]

The problem the 2 positions have here is they are talking two different parameters. It's not a fair competition, three GPU against two. The other is that it's a fair comparison at the same price point. We could have always had this same basic level of performance for $1000 from both manufacturers. 3x 570 or 6950 will give you similar performance for even less money (at least the 6950 will cost you less). The difference now is that you can get that performance from AMD with only 2 slots on your mobo, which is a valid point. Lots of people don't have 3x pci-e available to run tri fire/SLI. With a 6990/6970 crossfire-X setup you can get more performance for $1000 than from a 2 slot SLI setup.

 

[LiuKangBakinPie]

You can is the word. But will anyone take a 1000usd and go with a Amd tri setup knowing every driver update is a gamble that may reduce your 1000usd setup to nothing but a pile of stuttering silicone and metal.

 

[GaiaHunter]

The problem the 2 positions have here is they are talking two different parameters. It's not a fair competition, three GPU against two. The other is that it's a fair comparison at the same price point. We could have always had this same basic level of performance for $1000 from both manufacturers. 3x 570 or 6950 will give you similar performance for even less money (at least the 6950 will cost you less). The difference now is that you can get that performance from AMD with only 2 slots on your mobo, which is a valid point. Lots of people don't have 3x pci-e available to run tri fire/SLI. With a 6990/6970 crossfire-X setup you can get more performance for $1000 than from a 2 slot SLI setup.

You can fit 3x6970 on the $1000 budget as well.

 

[Dark Shroud]

You can is the word. But will anyone take a 1000usd and go with a Amd tri setup knowing every driver update is a gamble that may reduce your 1000usd setup to nothing but a pile of stuttering silicone and metal.

As oppsed to Nvidia driver updates that reduce your setup to nothing but a pile of smoldering silicone and metal?

 

[LiuKangBakinPie]

As oppsed to Nvidia driver updates that reduce your setup to nothing but a pile of smoldering silicone and metal?

Lmoa lol nvidia drivers are way better than Amd ones

 

[3DVagabond]

You can is the word. But will anyone take a 1000usd and go with a Amd tri setup knowing every driver update is a gamble that may reduce your 1000usd setup to nothing but a pile of stuttering silicone and metal.

If you update your drivers and it breaks something, an intelligent person rolls back to the drivers that were working with his setup and informs AMD/nVidia of the bug. Someone with an agenda comes onto forums whining about nonexistent issues to push their position.

Both company's drivers are very good. Both company's drivers occasionally have bugs. If you don't want to deal with that, buy a console.

 

[dakU7]

Lmoa lol nvidia drivers are way better than Amd ones

lol, I can't even repeat that with a straight face.

 

[LiuKangBakinPie]

lol, I can't even repeat that with a straight face.

ok lets look at the costs. 1000usd setup you guys say. Mmm adding the 6970 did anyone look at their cooling they used? Was it stock or did they spend extra on it?
I always believe you buy a gpu to match your monitor setup. Now lets say you want to play at 1600p. 1x Gtx 580 3gb version on nvidia side.
Amd side 6990.

Now if you got a setup and run 3x 1080p then to see the value of that you need what 6990 plus a 6970 cf config or 2x Gtx 580 3gb versions.

I don't see 2gb vram cutting it with 3x 6970s with 3x 1080p. So you'll need the 6990.
Now we are in the LCD era so we will only see 120fps or 60fps per resolution max.
Did they look at it logical or did they just throw 3 high end cards together and test it on a couple of games? What's the price of 3 x 1080p LCDs vs a 1600p LCD. What about the 6990 running 105 degrees in some games. Running that gpu alone on the reference cooler make it sound like a hoover and it still run hot. You'll need to add extra cooling cost aswell.