Multi GPU and Multi Monitor

[supremor]

So I'm planning a new rig to replace my current prehistoric setup.
I will be running triple 24 inchers at 5760x1200.

With those little details out of the way, the choices that best suit my budget are either a pair of 7950's (most likely Sapphire 950mhz OC edition with 2 fans) or GTX 670 SLI (Probably Gigabyte Windforce cards).

Now I know the general sentiments on this forum is that 670 > 7950 but keep in my mind they don't cost the same where I live. A pair of 7950's will cost me 1040$ whereas a pair of 670's 1200$. I can afford either but obviously I'd like to keep costs down as much as possible.
Another big thing to consider is how Eyefinity fares against Surround. From what I know AMD seems to have better multi monitor support but I hear Nvidia has done a lot to step up their game in that department lately. And then there is the all too familiar driver issue, now I've used AMD before and in fact am using a 4870 as we speak and have never had any issue with AMD but I also never ran a dual GPU setup.

So with all things considered what do you guys think would be the better choice?

 

[tulx]

the general sentiment on this forum is

... a bad thing to follow.
I would coose the AMD cards if I'd be spending my money. I have a crossfire setup of two 5870ies curently and have never encounted driver issues. Missing multi-gpu support in games is another question. Some games are simply not designed for Crossfire and SLI and show various weird issues. That is mostly the games fault, though.
Just make sure you have lots of VRAM, since you'll be running high resolutions. I think most of those cards have 3GB, which should be enough.

 

[msparrow88]

I would go with AMD as well.
Have owned many of their cards and never encountered the driver issues many talk about.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I would go with AMD as well.
Have owned many of their cards and never encountered the driver issues many talk about.

I've been hearing the "nVidia's drivers are better" argument for, like, 10 years. And it was out of date then.

The last time I had a problem with an ATI driver was when Homeworld 2 came out. The next patch fixed it.

Next, people will be saying that Windows 7 is junk because NT 4 didn't support USB.

 

[guskline]

I am running 3 24inch 1920 x1080 monitors with a single GTX 680 Very well. The combined resolution is 5760 x 1080. I used to run the setup with a single Radeon 6970 but needed more fps. The GTX 680 fits the bill. I will not speak badly of the 7950, never owned it. The 7950 does have 3g Vram versus 2g Vram for the GTX 670 or 680.

I used Eyefinity for awhile and it was easy to setup. However, the Nvidia Surround was just as easy and on the new GTX 670/680 was a snap to setup.

If you are running either CF or SLI you will have plenty of horsepower either way you go. I went Nvidia with a single high end card and I'm extremely pleased.

 

[caboob]

I used to own 3 7970s powering 3 27" 120Hz monitors but sold them off because of flickering and stuttering in games due to bad drivers. I hear that the June 6 AMD driver fixes this now (6 months late IMO) but my triple 670s worked right out of the box. The 7970s were good cards in single screen but I will never go AMD again.

 

[BrightCandle]

I have for the last 5 months been running 2x 7970 with 3x 1920x1200 monitors, so I had a system very much like what you are considering. I wouldn't go AMD.

1) I had 2D performance problems. There is an odd bug where high pixel count extended/eyefinity screens, combined with crossfire (enabled or disabled) combines to give you about 250ms of input lag and a maximum frame rate of about 20fps. This is just in normal Windows. Its some sort of power saving bug and everyone suffers from it a little bit once they get to 3 screens. Some people just see tearing on one monitor, some see tearing on all monitors, some see poor video playback, some have slight performance problems and some see a lot. But there is definitely a problem here and there is no dependable workaround the issue.
2) In crossfire I have had everything from Bluescreens through to negative scaling. Only a couple of games have actually worked over the period and I have found myself running crossfire disabled about 80% of the time. 12.4 improved things immensely for me but many games still weren't scaling very well if at all.
3) The microstuttering is bad on this generation, really bad. I found any frame rate below 60 fps to be painfully jittery. For whatever reason the 7970's suffered everytime it went below 60. I have had crossfire solutions before (5970 and 4870X2) and never saw anything remotely as bad as this. This wasn't games I hadn't previously seen, this was in older games as well that even now run smooth on a 5970.

Many people are very happy with the crossfired 7950's. I was very unhappy for 5 months due to the 3 above issues, the first one was especially irritating as it was like moving my mouse through cement. I just can't recommend an AMD crossfire/eyefinity solution on the 7000 series, because its pretty broken.

I have only had a pair of 680's for a few days and I can tell you I suffer from none of the above. Infact the 680's feel smooth all the way down to about 25 fps which is the way it should be. People talk about fps but really its about frame times and consistency of frame times and it appears NVidia is vastly superior in this way. I wouldn't go back and I couldn't recommend anyone risk those sorts of problems for the saving of a few benjamins.

 

[supremor]

I have to say I'm still undecided. While I have no brand loyalty I do tend to lean more towards AMD in general. I don't really mind having to wait a couple of weeks for proper CF support, but I'm worried of issues like excessive microstutter or flickering or what have you like the poster above me had. No stores here have a decent return policy and reselling will probably make me eat a pretty hefty loss (used parts market here isn't that great even if its barely used items). But you can't really anticipate those kinds of issues I guess.

Another point I forgot to mention is that my PSU is a Seasonic X-750 and I will not be replacing it so whichever setup I end up getting needs to be able to run off it. I know it's plenty to run either setup stock but what about 1-1.1ghz 7950's and a mildly OC'd IB (4.0-4.2)?

Temperatures are also of some concern mainly because it's very hot here most of the year and the summers can get pretty toasty. I'm talking ambient's that can rise up to the 30-32 range during the peak of summer, so having cards that are cooler running off the bat would be quite a big plus.

 

[caboob]

I used to own 3 7970s powering 3 27" 120Hz monitors but sold them off because of flickering and stuttering in games due to bad drivers. I hear that the June 6 AMD driver fixes this now (6 months late IMO) but my triple 670s worked right out of the box. The 7970s were good cards in single screen but I will never go AMD again.

With that said, I just didn't have the patience to wait months for proper the CF support that is now available. It's prolly OK now to jump in and get the 7950s. I really should have waited for "published" confirmation that my tri-fired 7970s would have been good to go.

 

[mtnd3vil]

In citing 5760x1200 as the display resolution does that mean you're going to be spanning the desktop across all monitors? Start menu on display 1, tray icons on display 3 or Display 2 primary, displays 1+3 extended desktop? Will your display utilization differ for gaming?

I have zero experience with CF or SLI.

I doubt my setup has much applicability to your question, but using two different AMD HD video cards with display 2 on the HD6870 and displays 1+3 on the 5670 I have nothing but positive things to say about the AMD cards, driver and Catalyst Control Center. Display 2 is 2048x1152 but 1+3 are only 1280x1024 and this precludes me from eyefinity which I don't think I would use anyways.