Need info on adding a 3rd 670FTW

[Awesomehandle31]

Hello! I will try to keep this short and to the point... these statements are mostly in reference to performance in Farcry 3, Crysis 3, and the new 3DMARK (not 11)

I currently run 2 670FTW's on my MSI Z77A-G45 and I have been thinking about adding a 3rd 670FTW. My reasoning for wanting a 3rd card is a general lack of performance since upgrading to 5760x1080(27"x3) and honestly performance was not THAT great before the new monitors...

Is it wrong of me to expect Crysis 3 to run smooth @ 60fps at "very high" with 4x msaa on one 27 inch monitor with 2 670FTW's? Can some one explain 40FPS w/ 60% gpu usage and 50% mem usage? anyways the main question


Before anyone says "HEY YOU CANT DO THAT WITH THAT BOARD" I realize it would require upgrading my board, and it would be part of the the chunk of upgrades...

Question: Would i see any benefit from a 3rd 670 assuming i had a propper mobo with high end pci slots. From some short reading it sounds like it may require an i7 and a top of the line LGA2011 board to see much of a performance increase from tri-sli, but i'm no guru so that's why i seek info here.


PS: Also, if anyone has any first hand experience with the asus ROG mobos i would really like some non biased opinions. I really dont have time to go hiking in the dead thread jungle so any advice/info/1st hand experiences with my topic would be MOST helpful

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/290347

 

[MxPhenom 216]

I wouldn't since the G45 board the 3rd PCI slot is PCI 2.0 at only x4 speed, so on top of the poopy scaling after 2 cards, the 3rd would be useless at only x4. (LOL probably should have read the whole OP)

Adding a third GPU will not really benefit you, and I would think having to get a different board would be a waste, since scaling of sli after about 2 cards is only like 50-60%

 

[GamerGuy]

I have been busy with work, so I haven't fired up C3 on my main rig yet.....or, at least, I don't recall doing so. Anyway, I'll do it a little later and let you know, if my 3960X 4.5ghz + Asus R4E + 3x HD7970 (@1050/1425) can't max it out @5760x1200, I sincerely doubt a Tri-SLi GTX670 can do it as well. I'll be back later with my impression.....that is, gameplay with FRAPS running to monitor framerate. I'll let you know if it's smooth or not.....

 

[shaneduce]

I have 3 mon. and 3 GTX 680's. You will becouse each card will render to each mon. so you will get single mon/card proformance across all three mon. or very close to that. @ least that was the way Jacob F. from EVGA explaned it to me. that is the simple answer.

 

[Awesomehandle31]

thx!

thanks for the responses... i was wondering about that 3 monitors, 3 cards thing...1 for each monitor SHOULD almost work as such in programs that utilize multiple GPU's... IT IS 2013 after all...

Shaneduce what socket/mobo are you using for 3 680s? also, in theory cant an i7 handle more bandwith due to its 32lanes over the i5s 16lanes or w/e....

also, to 2nd poster...

I wouldn't since the G45 board the 3rd PCI slot is PCI 2.0 at only x4 speed, so on top of the poopy scaling after 2 cards, the 3rd would be useless at only x4. (LOL probably should have read the whole OP)

Adding a third GPU will not really benefit you, and I would think having to get a different board would be a waste, since scaling of sli after about 2 cards is only like 50-60%

my post says i would NOT be doing this on my current board... i would be looking to upgrade to top of the line lga1155/lga2011 to facilitate this upgrade... 16x8x AND a 2.0 4x would be sooo... lol! but yeah... i always thought anything over 2cards caused massives diminishing returns... but it also seems like 3monitors, 3 cards... should work well... specially when you are running one monitor from each card... all 3 digital =D no nasty splitter thingy

IT ALSO SEEMS LIKE I SHOULDNT HAVE TO SPEND 10,000$ TO PLAY CRYSIS 3 ON 3 MONITORS ON CLOSE TO MAX SETTINGS... but it seems the MSAA in crysis sucks a HUGE amount of vram... This is also why i brought up the prospect of 7970s having MORE ram at a HIGHER speed = better MSAA right?! i could get 300$ a piece for my 670s on ebay easy... which means i would only take a 200$ hit on an experiment that would be side grade at LEAST... though im pretty sure 7970 has been pulling ahead of 670 for awhile now right?

 

[radrok]

I think dual Titan would suit you better, it all depends on how much you are willing to drop for play that game.

 

[Awesomehandle31]

yeahh....

Newegg end of quarter deals are here! 670ftw 369$ after rebate... AND the new OCZ SSD 229$ for 256g... i should get one of those and make it my game drive... my vertex 4's are getting old!

the plot for distinct answers to my problems thickens

 

[digibucc]

but it also seems like 3monitors, 3 cards... should work well... specially when you are running one monitor from each card

I don't know about SLi, so this is more a question - but with Crossfire you don't hook a screen up to each card, you hook the cards together and all the screens to one card. I assumed SLi worked the same way but I may be wrong.

 

[shaneduce]

thanks for the responses... i was wondering about that 3 monitors, 3 cards thing...1 for each monitor SHOULD almost work as such in programs that utilize multiple GPU's... IT IS 2013 after all...

Shaneduce what socket/mobo are you using for 3 680s? also, in theory cant an i7 handle more bandwith due to its 32lanes over the i5s 16lanes or w/e....

I'm useing a ASUS P9X79 Pro board that is a socket 2011. The CPU I have is an Intell 3960X

also, to 2nd poster...

my post says i would NOT be doing this on my current board... i would be looking to upgrade to top of the line lga1155/lga2011 to facilitate this upgrade... 16x8x AND a 2.0 4x would be sooo... lol! but yeah... i always thought anything over 2cards caused massives diminishing returns... but it also seems like 3monitors, 3 cards... should work well... specially when you are running one monitor from each card... all 3 digital =D no nasty splitter thingy

IT ALSO SEEMS LIKE I SHOULDNT HAVE TO SPEND 10,000$ TO PLAY CRYSIS 3 ON 3 MONITORS ON CLOSE TO MAX SETTINGS... but it seems the MSAA in crysis sucks a HUGE amount of vram... This is also why i brought up the prospect of 7970s having MORE ram at a HIGHER speed = better MSAA right?! i could get 300$ a piece for my 670s on ebay easy... which means i would only take a 200$ hit on an experiment that would be side grade at LEAST... though im pretty sure 7970 has been pulling ahead of 670 for awhile now right?

Crysis 3 is very sentived to GPU OCing I've had to do a diferent OC just for Crysis 3.

 

[Awesomehandle31]

I don't know about SLi, so this is more a question - but with Crossfire you don't hook a screen up to each card, you hook the cards together and all the screens to one card. I assumed SLi worked the same way but I may be wrong.

how do you do that? do you have some sort of splitter box? or do you do one dvi 2 hdmi? cuz when i did that there was a HUGE difference in color schemes... i thought i remembered seeing some sort of device made that would be a "dvi/hdmi splitter" of some sort, but when i went to look again one did not exsist... so i currently have 2 monitors on one card and 1 monitor on the other... i assumed if i went to 3 cards i could hook 1 monitor to each one using all three of the good dvi slots

duce... yeah Crysis3 may be a bad example at this point in time with how new it is, but i too have noticed how touchy it is with overclocking... my best luck in crysis3 has been K-boost + the EVGA FPS setter... anything over 110% power target causes water/shadow artifacts and lower FPS... and i have yet to have much luck tweaking core/mem settings... if i had 680s i would waterblock them... but my 670s are basically place holders for next season.

With that said when on 5760x1080(27x3) i can only maintain 60fps w/ everything set to medium and FXAA, though i have not tweaked around with that much as i'm going for smooth>looks when shooting people online.

I wish i could get an answer as to if i understand the cpu/pci lanes thing... i5 only has 16 so it can only support (8x8x) (4x4x4x) where as i7 has 32 so it can support (16x16x) or (16x8x8x) or (8x8x8x8x)
because if so is true, it sounds like i may benefit from an i7 and 16x16x over a 3rd card on i5...but mostly i feel like im just confusing multiple diff things

 

[digibucc]

with amd there are versions of cards that can handle 6 displays. otherwise you would need 3rd party hardware. you don't want to split it as that just creates a mirror image, you need to actually extend the desktop. as for the color being different, if the monitors are the same model on the same color/temp profile they should look near-exact, indistinguishable to most people. if there is an obvious difference I would assume the guilty party to be in order

1)color profile on monitor
2)color profile on gpu control software
3)cable/connector
4/5) monitor/gpu

can you switch around inputs to test whether it's the monitor or gpu?

 

[Awesomehandle31]

ok so, 1st let me state since we are comparing apples and oranges... the only way for me to get all 3 displays to function on sli was to enable 3D-surround... (eyefinity) spanning 1,2,3 into one big #2


i know little about the eyefinity process so for now im going to assume its almost the same


as to the monitors. I went the super cheep route this time and got three AOC 27"... i got lucky no dead pixels... these 199$ monitors are not terrible but when you deal with things this big and cheep flaws are easy to come across.

i will plug my 2hdmi's back in and do some swapping IN THE NAME OF SCIENCE! let you know what happens

....so off topic... lol

 

[digibucc]

yes exactly the same, and to further divide our fruit up - when you talk about multi-gpu. Crossfire and I'm pretty sure SLi both work by having one card as a master, that actually connects to the displays - and the others as slaves that handle part of the workload. the only way to make a display work while connected to an additional video card is to disable crossfire/sli. by default when it's on video only goes out the primary card.

as for the monitors, again I only know amd. you'd think that doesn't matter - but for amd a third monitor requires an active displayport adapter for many cards. i don't even know if your card has a displayport port let alone if nvidia has the same requirement, but just a heads up.

 

[Awesomehandle31]

alt tabbing = better performance?

from what i understand the way i am hooking up my 3 monitors is proper when looking to span in 3d surround,

operating three independent monitors would require a 3rd card or some 3rd party hardware... but that is extremely off topic...

as to the hdmi/dvi visual differences i went back and tried 2dvi 1hdmi in 3dsurround and one monitor was extremely faded out (the hdmi monitor) to make sure it was not a bad port on my card i switched my cards and re-hooked... so either i have two bad ports, or these monitors have poorly designed hdmi hardware... i'm going to lean towards it being something with the monitors... but it looks fine when running 3 DVI so /shrug.. and all color settings on monitors and in invidia tool were all =

back to the main topic of lack of performance from 670sli in 3d surround... I ran into a strange anomaly just afew moments ago in crysis 3... I noticed that after alt tabbing in and out of the game my FPS had gone up to 60 running smooth as ice, and that my GPU usage had actually dropped slightly... ram usage stayed the same... can anyone explain this?

also, as to your statement about display ports... 670ftw has dvi-i dvi-d HDMI and display port