Upgrading to dual GTX 590s

[omber]

EDIT 2:

I have much deliberation with help of the ever so helpful Anandtech forums (thanks guys!) I have decided to go with this setup:

Intel Core i5-2500K
ASUS SABERTOOTH P67
2x MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III PE/OC

With shipping this works out to just shy of $1100 CAD.

Thanks for all your input!

EDIT:

After seeing the input I see the point everyone is getting at.

First of all my current machine:

i5 750 @ 3.8 (air cooled)
Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3R
eVGA GTX 295
8GB of RAM (4x 2GB Patriot Viper II Sector 5)
Cooler Master Cosmos S case (its ginormous!)

I always preferred Nvidia cards because they generally were quieter. Based on your comments so far its probably well worth the wait for the 28nm cards. Is there some sort of timeline on when NVIDIA/AMD products fabricated using this technology are due?

ORIGINAL POST:

So I would like to drop some dough and upgrade my rig to last me another 3 years.

Question 1: Are dual air-cooled 590s even viable considering the noise and heat generated?

Question 2: Is i7 2600K sufficient to not bottleneck twin 590s?

Question 3: What motherboard would you recommend for twin 590s?

Basically, my 2 year old GTX 295 does really cut it anymore, considering its a DX9 card and everything coming out later this year (BF3, ESV, Crysis 2 I didnt even touch) is aimed at DX11.

 

[Jacky60]

I would get the 6990's if you can -cheaper and quicker and won't catch fire. If you can wait until the Autumn -Oct sort of time when new 28nm cards come out you'll get a lot more for your money. a 2600K at 4.8ghz probably bottlenecks the cards a bit but there's nothing much else to choose from at moment until Ivybridge/Bulldozer release.

 

[Borealis7]

dual 590s are a waste IMO, games do not scale that well beyond the 2nd "graphics core".
besides, a guy like you wouldnt want to be stuck with obsolete hardware in 6 months right?
get one 590/6990 and get dual (insert next gen top card here) when it comes out.

 

[TakeNoPrisoners]

That is a huge waste. One GTX 580 is all you ever need for 1080p.

 

[Grooveriding]

Terrible buy, terrible cards.

Get 3 GTX 580s or 2 6990s, forget the 590 altogether, it's a dungpile.

 

[Janus67]

Definitely not worth the price of admissions for two. One is probably still overboard and better off with SLI 580s (they are faster).

 

[omber]

Arent AMD cards a lot noisier though? What exactly is wrong with 590s?

EDIT: Sorry just noticed the 590 being slower than SLI 580s. Still though 580s are 600 each and 590 is 750 here.

EDIT #2: 3GB or 1.5GB GTX 580s?

I want to be able to play Witcher 2 at Ultra settings in 1080p.

 

[TakeNoPrisoners]

Arent AMD cards a lot noisier though? What exactly is wrong with 590s?

EDIT: Sorry just noticed the 590 being slower than SLI 580s. Still though 580s are 600 each and 590 is 750 here.

EDIT #2: 3GB or 1.5GB GTX 580s?

I want to be able to play Witcher 2 at Ultra settings in 1080p.

No, 1.5GB and I dont even think its possible with any sort of hardware. The Witcher 2 Ubersampling setting uses quite a bit of resources.

 

[omber]

Hahaha crap alright. When are the next gen cards due or expected?

 

[ViRGE]

1) Yes. But you'll need to have a beefy CPU, and a large, breezy case to handle the heat.

2) The 2600K is the fastest thing out there right now, so whether it bottlenecks or not, it's not as if you can do better.

3) Short of an XL-ATX board and case, what you want is a full-sized ATX board that offers 3 slots of space between PCIe x16 slots. Something like the Asus Maximus IV Extreme would work really well to this end. Depending on how much space you have in your case, there's even enough room to put the 2nd card 4 slots down to give the top card 2 slots of breathing room.

But like everyone has said, quad GPU scaling is really poor. Unless The Witcher 2 has proven to scale really well, it's probably not an effective strategy.

 

[sean1727]

these people are just saying not to get dual 590's because they're just jelious they do not have enough money to even get one get them there beast!

 

[nonameo]

With as much money as you intend to spend, get watercooling. Whisper quiet.

 

[Smartazz]

I'd much rather have 3 HD 6970s, but even that's absolutely ridiculous for 1080p. Even if you don't care about the money very much, I'd very much recommend waiting until 28nm GPUs hit later this year as they'll be much faster. If you're dead set on upgrading now, I'd go with 2 or 3 HD 6970s/6950s. AMD cards tend to generate less heat than their Nvidia counterparts and Crossfire scales better than Nvidia most of the time if I'm not mistaken.

 

[RussianSensation]

Terrible buy, terrible cards.

Get 3 GTX 580s or 2 6990s, forget the 590 altogether, it's a dungpile.

All of these are horrible to begin with. 590 doesn't have enough VRAM for resolutions it was designed. 3 GTX580s can't convincingly outperform 3 HD6950s unlocked into 6970s at 2560x1600 and above, but yet commands an almost 2x price premium. HD6990 is the 2nd loudest vidoecard of all time. So having 2 of them in your rig air cooled is like having 2 propeller airplanes taking off each day. No thanks!

I say he can just grab 2x HD6950s 2GB for $500. He'll get awesome performance and then in 6-8 months when 28nm GPUs come out, he can just toss these and upgrade again!

Witcher 2 Ultra Quality is such a BS setting. You can bring any modern game to a crawl if you apply SSAA. If we were to use that in Metro 2033, Crysis 1/Crysis 2, Stalker:COP, etc. we'd need 3 next generation videocards to be able to run those games with super sampling. Not happening this generation.

 

[Grooveriding]

All of these are horrible to begin with. 590 doesn't have enough VRAM for resolutions it was designed. 3 GTX580s can't convincingly outperform 3 HD6950s unlocked into 6970s at 2560x1600 and above, but yet commands an almost 2x price premium. HD6990 is the 2nd loudest vidoecard of all time. So having 2 of them in your rig air cooled is like having 2 propeller airplanes taking off each day. No thanks!

I say he can just grab 2x HD6950s 2GB for $500. He'll get awesome performance and then in 6-8 months when 28nm GPUs come out, he can just toss these and upgrade again!

Witcher 2 Ultra Quality is such a BS setting. You can bring any modern game to a crawl if you apply SSAA. If we were to use that in Metro 2033, Crysis 1/Crysis 2, Stalker:COP, etc. we'd need 3 next generation videocards to be able to run those games with super sampling. Not happening this generation.

Is that what the ubersampling is in Witcher 2 ? I had guessed it was full screen super-sampling from the ridiculous performance hit. Completely unplayable on my system. I was not sure though as Witcher 2 has poor SLI scaling and only shows about 65% GPU utilization for the most part.

Oh, and yes they are all expensive. But seemed the OP did not care about cost. I was putting forth much better expensive setups than the 590 choice.

 

[Dark Shroud]

these people are just saying not to get dual 590's because they're just jelious they do not have enough money to even get one get them there beast!

Quit thread crapping. Anyone who has done research will know that GTX 590s are not worth the price and HD 6990s are very loud, if you can find them.

 

[omber]

Is that what the ubersampling is in Witcher 2 ? I had guessed it was full screen super-sampling from the ridiculous performance hit. Completely unplayable on my system. I was not sure though as Witcher 2 has poor SLI scaling and only shows about 65% GPU utilization for the most part.

Oh, and yes they are all expensive. But seemed the OP did not care about cost. I was putting forth much better expensive setups than the 590 choice.

Can I get away with 1000W PSU for dual 580s / unlocked dual 6950s?

Dual 580s would cost me around 1800 dollars (keep in mind Im only buying Proc/Mobo/Graphics), where as the 6950s drop the price around 1300 (Canadian).

I was looking at eVGA for the 580s and MSI for the 6950s.

 

[notty22]

One gtx 590 should be considered IMO. But jumping to 4 gpu's is not. In many games, the scaling is not present. And you have an extra card making your top card hotter.
Also if you want gtx 580SLI performance, you should buy 580 sli and not try to overclock a gtx 590 to those levels.

 

[Grooveriding]

Can I get away with 1000W PSU for dual 580s / unlocked dual 6950s?

Dual 580s would cost me around 1800 dollars (keep in mind Im only buying Proc/Mobo/Graphics), where as the 6950s drop the price around 1300 (Canadian).

I was looking at eVGA for the 580s and MSI for the 6950s.

1000W is more than enough for 2 580s. Where are you shopping ? I'm in Canada as well, I think 580s are about $500 or so at ncix.com.

 

[omber]

1000W is more than enough for 2 580s. Where are you shopping ? I'm in Canada as well, I think 580s are about $500 or so at ncix.com.

Canadian NewEgg is slightly cheaper I think.

I am really torn between just dumping money into SLI 580s now or just waiting for the next set of products from both companies. But then again who can be sure if the products will be even out this year.

 

[Zap]

Basically, my 2 year old GTX 295 does really cut it anymore, considering its a DX9 card and everything coming out later this year (BF3, ESV, Crysis 2 I didnt even touch) is aimed at DX11.

My recommendation:

Core i5 2500K (overclocked to 4.5GHz-ish)
Don't get 2600K unless you absolutely know you need the Hyperthreading

aftermarket CPU cooling
Note that socket 1155 uses the same coolers as your current socket 1156, so if you already have a decent air cooler, just keep using it.

dual graphics capable and overclockable socket 1155 motherboard
If you want SLI capability, you have to get a board that explicitly mentions it.

Single GTX 580 or Radeon 6970
Either of these as a single card should already handily outperform your single GTX 295. The dual graphics capable motherboard is just in case... but you should still be fine at 1080p.

 

[RussianSensation]

Can I get away with 1000W PSU for dual 580s / unlocked dual 6950s?

Easily. Dual 6950s will probably even run on a 750-800W one.

Dual 580s would cost me around 1800 dollars (keep in mind Im only buying Proc/Mobo/Graphics), where as the 6950s drop the price around 1300 (Canadian).

Where are you shopping?

On Newegg.ca you can get an XFX 6950 for $270 a piece or so.
So that's less than $550 for 2 of such cards. Perfect setup to hold you over until 28nm GPUs arrive (if you need this much performance) while saving you a bucket of cash.

Performance wise 2x HD6950s destroy a single GTX580 and are even faster than a $700 GTX590.

 

[Grooveriding]

Canadian NewEgg is slightly cheaper I think.

I am really torn between just dumping money into SLI 580s now or just waiting for the next set of products from both companies. But then again who can be sure if the products will be even out this year.

I would wait it out. We are close enough now it is not worth it. I skipped the 69XX and 580 generation. I couldn't bring myself to pay out $1500 for cards that I would have to overclock above stock to get faster than my current overclocked cards.

The lower noise would be nice as my cards are really loud, but not $1500 nice.

I am likely going with 3 7970s, as it's shaping up to look like nvidia will be far behind AMD in the release of their 28nm cards.

In the interim an affordable card like a 6950 or a 570 would hold you over until they come out. The only way I could see 580s being a good choice was if you knew there was less than 3 months till nvidia releases their 28nm cards, and you bought EVGA so you could step up to them.

 

[TakeNoPrisoners]

these people are just saying not to get dual 590's because they're just jelious they do not have enough money to even get one get them there beast!

Yea whatever. I'm "jelious".

 

[RussianSensation]

The only way I could see 580s being a good choice was if you knew there was less than 3 months till nvidia releases their 28nm cards, and you bought EVGA so you could step up to them.

Agreed. 580s are horrible value and pretty much have been from the very beginning. The GTX480 got too much bed rep. in the beginning with less than stellar drivers (only 10-15% performance increase over the 5870) and for being hot/loud. The drivers have improved significantly since launch and the 480 is now more in line with the 6970.

The 'hot and loud' aspect is completely mitigated by Zotac and MSI Lightning aftermarket designs which can be had for $310 and $330, respectively. On top of that both cards are overclocked to 750mhz, which means they'll be 10% slower than a GTX580 for $150+ less, and have more VRAM than a 570. Either way, factory pre-overclocked 570s are also hovering in the $300 range are at 800mhz overclock are within a hair of the 580.

In comparison, a Zotac GTX580 is $550 CDN, a $240 price premium for identical design. Ouch.

You'd hope that with all the profits NV is taking in from the 580 they'd deliver Kepler by end of 2012.....right.