Graphics Card melee

Hi guys, I've been looking for graphics cards, and I've narrowed down the best to these ones: The Evga GTX 580 hydrocopper 2 in quad-sli, dual nvidia quadro plex 7000 (non-sli, just connected), AMD HD6970 in quad-crossfire (if it can support quad-crossfire), AMD HD6990 in dual-crossfire, AMD HD5970 in dual crossfire, AMD HD5870 in highest crossfire mode, Asus Ares 4GD5, Asus 6970 in highest crossfire mode, Asus 6870 in highest crossfire mode, and Asus 6990 in highest crossfire mode. Sorry, I know it's a lot to compare, but that's what I found. I also have a few questions: what is the highest overclock that the EVGA GTX 580 HV2 can get? (not just the regular speed) Note: I care most about speed and how good the card looks (not physically, but as in graphics perfomance) Here's some of the specs for the cards:

AMD Radeon™ HD 6970 Graphics (single)
Dual GPUs with a total of 4.3 billion 40nm transistors
TeraScale 2 Unified Processing Architecture
3200 Stream Processing Units
160 Texture Units
256 Z/Stencil ROP Units
64 Color ROP Units
GDDR5 memory interface
PCI Express 2.1 x16 bus interface
DirectX 11 support
Shader Model 5.0
DirectCompute 11
Programmable hardware tessellation unit
Accelerated multi-threading
HDR texture compression
Order-independent transparency
OpenGL 3.2 support8
Image quality enhancement technology
Up to 24x multi-sample and super-sample anti-aliasing modes
Adaptive anti-aliasing
Super AA
16x angle independent anisotropic texture filtering
128-bit floating point HDR rendering
ATI Eyefinity multi-display technology4,5
Three independent display controllers
Drive three displays simultaneously with independent resolutions, refresh rates, color controls, and video overlays
Display grouping
Combine multiple displays to behave like a single large display
ATI Stream acceleration technology
OpenCL support17
DirectCompute 11
Double precision floating point processing support
Accelerated video encoding, transcoding, and upscaling6,9
Native support for common video encoding instructions
ATI CrossFireX™ multi-GPU technology7
Dual card performance scaling
ATI Avivo™ HD video & display technology10
UVD 2 dedicated video playback accelerator
Advanced post-processing and scaling11
Dynamic contrast enhancement and color correction
Brighter whites processing (blue stretch)
Independent video gamma control
Dynamic video range control
Support for H.264, VC-1, and MPEG-2
Dual-stream 1080p playback support12,13
DXVA 1.0 & 2.0 support
Integrated dual-link DVI output with HDCP14
Max resolution: 2560x160015
Integrated DisplayPort output
Max resolution: 2560x160015
Integrated HDMI 1.3 output with Deep Color, xvYCC wide gamut support, and high bit-rate audio
Max resolution: 1920x120015
Integrated VGA output
Max resolution: 2048x153615
3D stereoscopic display/glasses support16
Integrated HD audio controller
Output protected high bit rate 7.1 channel surround sound over HDMI with no additional cables required
Supports AC-3, AAC, Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio formats
ATI PowerPlay™ power management technology10
Dynamic power management with low power idle state
Ultra-low power state support for single and multi-board configurations
Certified drivers for Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP
Speeds & Feeds

Engine clock speed: 725 MHz
Processing power (single precision): 4.64 TeraFLOPS
Processing power (double precision): 928 GigaFLOPS
Polygon throughput: 1.45 billion polygons/sec
Data fetch rate (32-bit): 464 billion fetches/sec
Texel fill rate (bilinear filtered): 116 Gigatexels/sec
Pixel fill rate: 46.4 Gigapixels/sec
Anti-aliased pixel fill rate: 185.6 Gigasamples/sec
Memory clock speed: 1.0 GHz
Memory data rate: 4.0 Gbps
Memory bandwidth: 256.0 GB/sec
Maximum board power: 294 Watts


AMD Radeon™ HD 6990 Graphics (single)
Default (BIOS1)
Up to 830MHz Engine Clock
5.10 TFLOPs Single Precision compute power
1.27 TFLOPs Double Precision Compute Power
Overclocked (BIOS2)
Up to 880MHz Engine Clock
5.40 TFLOPs Single Precision compute power o 1.37 TFLOPs Double Precision Compute Power
4GB GDDR5 Memory
1250MHz Memory Clock (5.0 Gbps GDDR5)
320 GB/s memory bandwidth (maximum)
TeraScale 3 Unified Processing Architecture
3072 Stream Processors
192 Texture Units
128 Z/Stencil ROP Units
64 Color ROP Units
Dual geometry and dual rendering engines
High Speed 256-bit GDDR5 memory interface
PCI Express 2.1 x16 bus interface
“Eye-Definition” graphics
Second generation DirectX® 11 graphics
Full DirectX® 11 support
Scalable geometry processing technology
Shader Model 5.0
DirectCompute 11 support
Quad advanced programmable hardware tessellation units
Accelerated multi-threading
HDR texture compression
Order-independent transparency
OpenGL 4.1 support
Image quality enhancement technology
Up to 24x multi-sample and super-sample anti-aliasing modes
Adaptive anti-aliasing
Enhanced Quality Anti-Aliasing (EQAA)
Morphological Anti-Aliasing (MLAA)
16x angle independent anisotropic texture filtering
128-bit floating point HDR rendering
AMD Eyefinity multi-display technology1
Native support for up to 5 simultaneous displays
Up to 6 displays supported with DisplayPort 1.2 Multi-Stream Transport
Independent resolutions, refresh rates, color controls, and video overlays
Display grouping
Combine multiple displays to behave like a single large display
AMD EyeSpeed visual acceleration technology2
OpenCL 1.1 Support
DirectCompute 11
Double Precision Floating Point
Accelerated video encoding, transcoding, and upscaling
UVD 3 dedicated video playback accelerator
MPEG-4 AVC/H.264
VC-1
MPEG-2 (SD & HD)
Multi-View Codec (MVC)
MPEG-4 part 2 (DivX, Xvid)
Adobe Flash
Enhanced Video Quality features
Advanced post-processing and scaling
Dynamic contrast enhancement and color correction
Brighter whites processing (Blue Stretch)
Independent video gamma control
Dynamic video range control
Dual-stream HD (1080p) playback support
DXVA 1.0 & 2.0 support
AMD HD3D technology4
Stereoscopic 3D display/glasses support
Blu-ray 3D support
Stereoscopic 3D gaming
3rd party Stereoscopic 3D middleware software support
AMD CrossFireX™ multi-GPU technology5
Dual card performance scaling
Cutting-edge display support
DisplayPort 1.2
Max resolution: 2560x1600 per display
Multi-Stream Transport
21.6 Gbps bandwidth
High bit-rate audio
HDMI 1.4a with Stereoscopic 3D Frame Packing Format, Deep Color, xvYCC wide gamut support, and high bit-rate audio
Max resolution: 1920x1200
Dual-link DVI with HDCP
Max resolution: 2560x1600
Integrated HD audio controller
Output protected high bit rate 7.1 channel surround sound over HDMI with no additional cables required
Supports AC-3, AAC, Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio formats
AMD PowerPlay™ power management technology3
AMD PowerTune technology7
Intelligent power management hardware
Dynamic power management with low power idle state
Ultra-low power state support for multi-GPU configurations
AMD Catalyst™ graphics and HD video configuration software
Software support for Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP
AMD Catalyst™ Control Center - AMD Catalyst™ software application and user interface for setup, configuration, and accessing features of AMD Radeon products.
Unified Graphics display driver - AMD Catalyst™ software enabling other PC programs and devices to use advanced graphics, video, and features of AMD Radeon™ products.


AMD Radeon HD5970 (single)
Dual GPUs with a total of 4.3 billion 40nm transistors
TeraScale 2 Unified Processing Architecture
3200 Stream Processing Units
160 Texture Units
256 Z/Stencil ROP Units
64 Color ROP Units
GDDR5 memory interface
PCI Express 2.1 x16 bus interface
DirectX 11 support
Shader Model 5.0
DirectCompute 11
Programmable hardware tessellation unit
Accelerated multi-threading
HDR texture compression
Order-independent transparency
OpenGL 3.2 support8
Image quality enhancement technology
Up to 24x multi-sample and super-sample anti-aliasing modes
Adaptive anti-aliasing
Super AA
16x angle independent anisotropic texture filtering
128-bit floating point HDR rendering
ATI Eyefinity multi-display technology4,5
Three independent display controllers
Drive three displays simultaneously with independent resolutions, refresh rates, color controls, and video overlays
Display grouping
Combine multiple displays to behave like a single large display
ATI Stream acceleration technology
OpenCL support17
DirectCompute 11
Double precision floating point processing support
Accelerated video encoding, transcoding, and upscaling6,9
Native support for common video encoding instructions
ATI CrossFireX™ multi-GPU technology7
Dual card performance scaling
ATI Avivo™ HD video & display technology10
UVD 2 dedicated video playback accelerator
Advanced post-processing and scaling11
Dynamic contrast enhancement and color correction
Brighter whites processing (blue stretch)
Independent video gamma control
Dynamic video range control
Support for H.264, VC-1, and MPEG-2
Dual-stream 1080p playback support12,13
DXVA 1.0 & 2.0 support
Integrated dual-link DVI output with HDCP14
Max resolution: 2560x160015
Integrated DisplayPort output
Max resolution: 2560x160015
Integrated HDMI 1.3 output with Deep Color, xvYCC wide gamut support, and high bit-rate audio
Max resolution: 1920x120015
Integrated VGA output
Max resolution: 2048x153615
3D stereoscopic display/glasses support16
Integrated HD audio controller
Output protected high bit rate 7.1 channel surround sound over HDMI with no additional cables required
Supports AC-3, AAC, Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio formats
ATI PowerPlay™ power management technology10
Dynamic power management with low power idle state
Ultra-low power state support for single and multi-board configurations
Certified drivers for Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP
Speeds & Feeds

Engine clock speed: 725 MHz
Processing power (single precision): 4.64 TeraFLOPS
Processing power (double precision): 928 GigaFLOPS
Polygon throughput: 1.45 billion polygons/sec
Data fetch rate (32-bit): 464 billion fetches/sec
Texel fill rate (bilinear filtered): 116 Gigatexels/sec
Pixel fill rate: 46.4 Gigapixels/sec
Anti-aliased pixel fill rate: 185.6 Gigasamples/sec
Memory clock speed: 1.0 GHz
Memory data rate: 4.0 Gbps
Memory bandwidth: 256.0 GB/sec
Maximum board power: 294 Watts


AMD Radeon HD5870
2.15 billion 40nm transistors
TeraScale 2 Unified Processing Architecture
1600 Stream Processing Units
80 Texture Units
128 Z/Stencil ROP Units
32 Color ROP Units
GDDR5 interface with 153.6 GB/sec of memory bandwidth
PCI Express 2.1 x16 bus interface
DirectX® 11 support
Shader Model 5.0
DirectCompute 11
Programmable hardware tessellation unit
Accelerated multi-threading
HDR texture compression
Order-independent transparency
OpenGL 3.2 support
Image quality enhancement technology
Up to 24x multi-sample and super-sample anti-aliasing modes
Adaptive anti-aliasing
16x angle independent anisotropic texture filtering
128-bit floating point HDR rendering
ATI Eyefinity multi-display technology1
Six independent display controllers
Drive up to six displays simultaneously with independent resolutions, refresh rates, color controls, and video overlays
Display grouping1
Combine multiple displays to behave like a single large display4
Bezel Compensation6
ATI Stream acceleration technology
OpenCL 1.0 compliant7
DirectCompute 11
Double precision floating point processing support
Accelerated video encoding, transcoding, and upscaling5,8
Native support for common video encoding instructions
ATI CrossFireX™ multi-GPU technology9
Dual, triple, and quad GPU scaling
Dual-channel bridge interconnect
ATI Avivo HD Video & Display technology10
UVD 2 dedicated video playback accelerator
Advanced post-processing and scaling11
Dynamic contrast enhancement and color correction
Brighter whites processing (blue stretch)
Independent video gamma control
Dynamic video range control
Support for H.264, VC-1, MPEG-2 and Adobe Flash12
Dual-stream 1080p playback support13,14
DXVA 1.0 & 2.0 support
Integrated dual-link DVI output with HDCP15
Max resolution: 2560x160016
Integrated DisplayPort output
Max resolution: 2560x160016
Integrated HDMI 1.3 output with Deep Color, xvYCC wide gamut support, and high bit-rate audio
Max resolution: 1920x120016
Integrated VGA output
Max resolution: 2048x153616
3D stereoscopic display/glasses support17
Integrated HD audio controller
Output protected high bit rate 7.1 channel surround sound over HDMI with no additional cables required
Supports AC-3, AAC, Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio formats
ATI PowerPlay™ power management technology10
Dynamic power management with low power idle state
Ultra-low power state support for multi-GPU configurations
Certified drivers for Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP
Speeds & Feeds
Engine clock speed: 850 MHz
Processing power (single precision): 2.72 TeraFLOPS
Processing power (double precision): 544 GigaFLOPS
Polygon throughput: 850M polygons/sec
Data fetch rate (32-bit): 272 billion fetches/sec
Texel fill rate (bilinear filtered): 68 Gigatexels/sec
Pixel fill rate: 27.2 Gigapixels/sec
Anti-aliased pixel fill rate: 108.8 Gigasamples/sec
Memory clock speed: 1.2 GHz
Memory data rate: 4.8 Gbps
Memory bandwidth: 153.6 GB/sec
Maximum board power: 228 Watts


EVGA GTX 580 Hydro Copper 2 (single)
850 MHz GPU (but there might be an overlock)
512 CUDA Cores
400 MHz RAMDAC
Memory
1536 MB, 384 bit GDDR5
4196 MHz (effective)
201.4 GB/s Memory Bandwidth
Interface
PCI-E 2.0 16x
DVI-I, DVI-I, Mini-HDMI
SLI Capable (quad-sli to be exact)
Resolution & Refresh
240Hz Max Refresh Rate
2048x1536 Max Analog
2560x1600 Max Digital


Nvidia Quadro Plex 7000 (single)
GPU Specs:
NVIDIA Quadro GPU Quadro 6000
# NVIDIA Quadro GPUs 2
CUDA Cores 896 (448 per GPU)
Form Factor Deskside System
GPU Memory Specs:
Total Frame Buffer 12 GB GDDR5 (6 GB/GPU)
Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec) 288 GB/sec (144 GB/sec per GPU)
Display Support:
Dual Link DVI-I 4 (2 per GPU)
# of Digital Outputs 4
# of Analog Outputs 4
Stereo (3-pin Mini-DIN) Yes
Maximum Display Resolution Digital @ 60Hz 2560x1600
Active Display Channels 4
3D Vision/3D Vision Pro
Feature Support:
Shader Model 5.0
OpenGL 4.1
Microsoft DirectX 11
SLI Mosaic Technology
NVIDIA CUDA Architecture
G-Sync Option
SLI Frame Rendering Support
NVIEW Display Management Software
FSAA (maximum) 64x (128x with SLI)
Thermal and Power Specs:
EnergyStar Enabling Yes (with 2:1 or better max/idle power ratio)
Maximum Power Consumption 600 W
PowerMizer Power Management 219
Acoustics < 32dB

Asus 6870
Graphics Engine AMD Radeon HD 6870
Bus Standard PCI Express 2.1
Video Memory GDDR5 1GB
Engine Clock 915 MHz
Memory Clock 4200 MHz ( 1050 MHz GDDR5 )
RAMDAC 400 MHz
Memory Interface 256-bit
Resolution D-Sub Max Resolution : 2048x1536
DVI Max Resolution : 2560x1600
Interface D-Sub Output : Yes x 1 (via DVI to D-Sub adaptor x 1)
DVI Output : Yes x 1 (DVI-I),Yes x 1 (DVI-D)
HDMI Output : Yes x 1 (via DVI to HDMI adaptor x 1 )
Display Port : Yes x 2 (Regular DP)
HDCP Support : Yes
Accessories 1 x CrossFire cable
1 x Power cable
1 x DVI to D-Sub adaptor
1 x DVI to HDMI adaptor
Software ASUS Utilities & Driver
ASUS Features DirectCU Series
Dimensions 11 " x 5 " Inch


Asus 6990
Graphics Engine AMD Radeon HD 6990
Bus Standard PCI Express 2.1
Video Memory GDDR5 4GB
Engine Clock 830 MHz
Memory Clock 5000 MHz ( 1250 MHz GDDR5 )
RAMDAC 400 MHz
Memory Interface 256-bit x2
Resolution D-Sub Max Resolution : 2048x1536
DVI Max Resolution : 2560x1600
Interface DVI Output : Yes x 1 (DVI-I),Yes x 2 (DVI-I)
HDMI Output : Yes x 1
Display Port : Yes x 4 (Mini DP)
HDCP Support : Yes
Accessories 2 x Mini DP to DVI adaptor
1 x Mini DP to HDMI adaptor
1 x Power cable
1 x CrossFire cable
Software Asus Driver & Utility
Dimensions 12.4 " x 5.1 " Inch


Asus 6970
Graphics Engine AMD Radeon HD 6970
Bus Standard PCI Express 2.1
Video Memory GDDR5 2GB
Engine Clock 890 MHz
Memory Clock 5500 MHz ( 1375 MHz GDDR5 )
RAMDAC 400 MHz
Memory Interface 256-bit
Interface DVI Output : Yes x 1 (DVI-I),Yes x 1 (DVI-D)
HDMI Output : Yes x 1
Display Port : Yes x 2 (Mini DP)
HDCP Support : Yes
Accessories 1 x CrossFire cable
1 x Power cable
Software ASUS Utilities & Driver
Dimensions 11 " x 5 " Inch

Asus Ares
Graphics Engine AMD Radeon HD 5870X2
Bus Standard PCI Express 2.1
Video Memory GDDR5 4GB
Engine Clock 850 MHz
Memory Clock 4800 MHz ( 1200 MHz GDDR5 )
RAMDAC 400 MHz
Memory Interface 256-bit x2
Resolution DVI Max Resolution : 2560x1600
Interface DVI Output : Yes x 1 (via HDMI to DVI adaptor x 1),Yes x 1 (DVI-I)
HDMI Output : Yes x 1
Display Port : Yes x 1 (Regular DP)
HDCP Support : Yes
Accessories 1 x CrossFire cable
2 x Power cable
Software ASUS Utilities & Driver
Dimensions 11 " x 5 " Inch
Note Special metal case
ROG gaming mouse bundled
8+8+6 pin Power connector is required

Phew! thats a lot of specs... thanks for any help guys

Welcome to the forums

I'd rule out the Quadro cards straight away: they are designed for CAD etc. rather than gaming performance. I'd also narrow things down by looking only at the latest ranges: so only AMD/ATi 6xxx series cards and nVidia 5xx series cards.

Personally, if money was no object, I'd be getting a pair of AMD 6990s, but you'll need a really good PSU to deal with them in crossfire (they can draw up to 450W PER CARD). Think 1200 W+ ...

+1 to David, but my question is WHY? How many monitors are these being attached to?

rule out the ares to, i doubt you will be able to track one down ( correct me if im wrong ) with the amount your looking to spend i would look at a dual 6990 setup, with a breeze block sized psu.

So you guys think AMD beats EVGA? (Sigh) I never thought I'd see the day...
But another factor is that the AMD 6990 supports dual crossfire, whereas the 6970 can apparently support quad crossfire. If using a single GPU, the 6990 is better, but if you had 4 6970s... I don't know how it would turn out. Also, do you think the number of GPU cores is more important than video memory? Is 6 GB of Video memory enough to run intense gaming applications? I'm asking this because the quadro has the most memory by far, with two plex 7000s you can get 24Gb of GDDR5, but it doesn;t have as many cores as the EVGA... I don't really know lol.

You have some learning to do...

1. AMD is a brand of cards while EVGA, MSI, are a makers of that AMD card. Like Ford is a brand and Escort, Fiesta, Taurus are a make of Ford.
2. 6990 is a dual GPU card so essentially it is quadfire runnign 2.
3. Memory doesnt work that like that. If a card has 2GB, even in Crossfire, each card has 2GB. it doesnt 'add up'.
3a. 1GB is plenty to run most games.

Please answer how many monitors and/or the resolution these will be pushing.

I'll probably be using 3 monitors maximum. I'm confused, though, because the nvidia site says that with a dual card setup (specifically the quadro plex 7000) the memory of GDDR5 has doubled. I guess they just stretched the truth.... a lot. Also, the resolution will be 2560 x 1600.

With 3 monitors, 2 580's or a single 590 or 2 6970's or a single 6990 will do. Resolution will be 7680x1600 in landscape mode.

As far as the memory goes, those are quadro cards and b/c of what they do that is why there is more memory on the cards and they are VERY expensive (along with enterprise level driver support). If you buy 2 cards like I mentioned above, each card still can only use its alloted memory, you do not add them up. So they didnt stretch the truth, at all.

EarthDog said:

With 3 monitors, 2 580's or a single 590 or 2 6970's or a single 6990 will do. Resolution will be 7680x1600 in landscape mode.

As far as the memory goes, those are quadro cards and b/c of what they do that is why there is more memory on the cards and they are VERY expensive (along with enterprise level driver support). If you buy 2 cards like I mentioned above, each card still can only use its alloted memory, you do not add them up. So they didnt stretch the truth, at all.

Click to expand...

i would also like to point out, to SLI quadro cards is difficult, because they dont just hand out drivers to every John Smith and his cat, they want quadro SLI set ups to be in quality machines so nvidia usually certify the machine first, not really worth the trouble to be honest.

If you can afford Quadros in SLI, most likely you will have a quality machine *facepalm*

You never know. And with the knowledge this person has shown so far, its a valid statement.

We need to know how the OP is using his PC.

I'll be using the card mostly for gaming, but if a quadro somehow manages to exceed a gaming card's performance, I'd go for that, regardless of what it's main purpose is. Also, the quadro plex 7000 can't do sli, you just connect them physically together. If you read the overview at http://www.nvidia.com/object/product-quadroplex-7000-us.html , though, it does say that with two 7000 cards (equivalent to four quadro 6000s) the memory is doubled from 12GB to 24GB... Still not so sure about this. Another part of my confusion is that the manufacturers don't always put the maximum overclock of the card on the site, just its default speed, so I can't know what its maximum performance is. I have another question, though, lol. Do all graphics cards have cuda cores? I'm just making sure because I think it's exclusive to nvidia. The best quadros have 64 less cores than the best geforce nvidia or evga card. Yet the quadros have way more memory... Which do you think is more important-- video memory or cuda cores?(the quadro 6000 has 6GB, evga gtx 580 has 1536MB (1.5GB), but the evga once again, has 64 more cores per GPU. One more clarification: the number of cores doubles when you connect two GPUs, right?

FORGET the Quadro based cards please and dont worry about its amount of memory as its irrelevent to your now known needs (gaming).

As far as maximum overclocks, no MFG knows as every single card overclocks to a different speed. So no MFG AFAIK posts its 'maximum overclock'.

With that in mind, saying you are ready to purchase this second I would do this in this order.

1. 2 580's in SLI.
2. 2 6970's in SLI.
3. 1 6990.

thanks for the info (and your opinions) earthdog, but I'm not in a rush to buy it... just asking a lot of questions. I can also assume by the consant "get rid of the quadro" that that isn't the best for gaming, even with more memory, just because it has less cores, I guess

For example, read some of this:

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-6990-review/

and this:

http://www.guru3d.com/article/asus-gtx580-directcu-ii-sli-review/

and you can flip to the pages with the overclocking results as well. Many of their graphs and benchmarks contain many cards, and if you peruse their site and look up other SLI reviews (unfortunately they have no 6990 SLI review up yet) you can get an idea what the cards do, and overclocked as well

Edit: The single 6990 is a bit shy of SLI 580s

Kowalski3500 said:

Edit: The single 6990 is a bit shy of SLI 580s

Click to expand...

Yes indeed.




Link to full review on HARDOCP : AMD Radeon HD 6990 "Antilles" Video Card Review

(Sli is a Nvidia tech., CrossFire (and CrossFireX) is an AMD tech.)

If you're still stuck on memory, then you probably don't know what GPU memory is for. GPU memory is utilized differently per game, and having less isn't always a huge deal as modern game engines can simply store information in normal RAM if needed. Game engines use GPU memory mostly to store uncompressed 3D models, shaders, textures, and other information used to render each scene. As of 2011, most games at sane resolutions use FAR less than even 1GB; 3 monitors in a Eyefinity setup (3x1 as you said) would probably benefit from 2GB, hence the Eyefinity edition cards with more connectors and memory.

I think you're under the impression that a 3x1 monitor setup requires intense amounts of GPU power that only insane setups can handle. This is not entirely true, in fact with Eyefinity coming out AMD GPU's in the high-end segment are more than enough for a 3x1 setup. Of course if you want max frame rates and detail, then maybe a multi-GPU setup is worth it.

Keep in mind I am only talking about gaming, I'll get to other things in a minute. Don't even worry about comparing numbers vs. numbers with GPUs unless you really know what you're talking about, just look at as many benchmarks you can with a grain of salt. GPUs like the Quadro and FirePro are made for workstations for HD audio/video editing, photo editing, CAD work, etc. Programs of this nature require tons of memory in contrast to a game. So unless you are doing something like that, don't worry about it too much. (I'd also like to nitpick and note that the Quadro Plex 7000 is not a card, but a deskside GPU and likely requires a rack mount and thousands of dollars to use).

The cards people have recommended so far should suit you well. Personally, I'd go with a 6990 as CrossFire/Sli can be a pain with some games to setup.

Also, what system is this going in? You need a high-end system for a high-end card, along with high-end cooling and power.

Alright, thank you guys! I have one more question, though. Because you're all pleading that the gtx 580 dual SLI beats a single 6990 card, would it still remain the same with a quad SLI (brands other than nvidia can do quad SLI) gtx 580 and a dual crossfire 6990? I'm hearing that SLI is better than crossfire, but I'm also hearing that with the more cards you have, the less difference it makes.(I'm a hardcore nvidia guy, so I have a hard time believing amd is better lol) So you think a quad SLI gtx 580 beats a dual crossfire 6990? And does nvidia have a similar technology to eyefinity (multi-monitor setup?) Alright, thanks again! Feel free to post if you have a different opinion! I'm always open to suggestions!

graphicscardboy said:

Alright, thank you guys! I have one more question, though. Because you're all pleading that the gtx 580 dual SLI beats a single 6990 card, would it still remain the same with a quad SLI (brands other than nvidia can do quad SLI) gtx 580 and a dual crossfire 6990? I'm hearing that SLI is better than crossfire, but I'm also hearing that with the more cards you have, the less difference it makes.(I'm a hardcore nvidia guy, so I have a hard time believing amd is better lol) So you think a quad SLI gtx 580 beats a dual crossfire 6990? And does nvidia have a similar technology to eyefinity (multi-monitor setup?) Alright, thanks again! Feel free to post if you have a different opinion! I'm always open to suggestions!

Click to expand...

Well 4 cards is really unnecessary IMHO... What motherboard, cpu, ram, power supply do you have? If you really really will not budge on 4x 580's then you better have one helluva system to feed them. When talking raw gaming performance, it's really hard to tell with such ridiculous setups since none of us have them to test and I don't know of too many review sites with 4x 580's and 2x 6990's. Do you have a budget or anything? There's always a best setup for someone, we just need more criteria before we can recommend something.

graphicscardboy said:

Alright, thank you guys! I have one more question, though. Because you're all pleading that the gtx 580 dual SLI beats a single 6990 card, would it still remain the same with a quad SLI (brands other than nvidia can do quad SLI) gtx 580 and a dual crossfire 6990? I'm hearing that SLI is better than crossfire, but I'm also hearing that with the more cards you have, the less difference it makes.(I'm a hardcore nvidia guy, so I have a hard time believing amd is better lol) So you think a quad SLI gtx 580 beats a dual crossfire 6990? And does nvidia have a similar technology to eyefinity (multi-monitor setup?) Alright, thanks again! Feel free to post if you have a different opinion! I'm always open to suggestions!

Click to expand...

Quad sli 580 gtx is overkill.. The only people running such setups are benchers. I don't think there is a game out there that would make 4 580 gtx's work hard. Nevermind the power usage also LOL! That being said its your money ultimately