GPU[s] for 1080 gaming

[Gomezie]

Hey folks,

Quite torn at the moment on what graphics upgrade route to take, so I wanted to gather your opinions.. I currently game at 1080 resolutions, and with as high quality as I can.. but I also just keep a side monitor for web browsing, Team-speak etc.

My budget currently allows for either:

2x AMD HD 6950 2gb
or
580 phantom 3gb

Im thinking that a single card would be the best bet comparability wise, but am also aware that the 6950's scale well and spank the 580 in a number of benchmarks.

I would prefer not to deal with micro stuttering when using multiple GPU's.. but I guess this is pretty much resolved in the 6900 series cards?

Given my gaming habits above, and the fact that I run on a Antec TP 750W PSU... what do you guys recommend to purchase? Im looking to play things like BF3 and Skyrim in as best detail as possible, via one monitor

For those wanting to know about potential bottlenecks for the GPU's, I run a i5 2500k with 8gb ram and will happily OC it

Cheers in advance

[kalniel]

Wait for BF3 to come out, and for drivers to be optimised, then look at the benchmarks. Don't try and do anything before then. Skyrim will run maxed on a single card, no need for crossfire.

[CivilDrone]

I'd recommend single 580. Don't think u'd need 3gig though, i am using 1.5 on 24in monitor - 1920x1080 resolution with no problems, i am pretty sure it will run skyrim and bf3. Altho 6950x2 will be better, they take more power, space and not really essential

[Hoonigan]

I'd follow Kalniel's advice, wait for the 25th of October, look at benchmarks and decide from there..

If you really can't wait, I'd get a GTX580.

[teejay73]

A single gtx580 or crossfired 6950`s is a bit overkill for that res really and as mentioned before, wait until BF3 is out until you make that decision and also the 7 series cards will be out at some point in the near future, personally I think there will be big savings to be made then for the cards you are currently looking at, you might even save enough by then to invest in a higher res monitor that will make better use of those cards.

Of course if you have a bad case of upgradious hardwaresifilous then there is no helping you!!

[shaithis]

GTX580 @ 1080p is completely wasted.

I run mine @ 2560x1600 and also have a 1GB GTX460 in my HTPC which I have yet to find a game that stresses @ 1080p.

Maybe BF3 will change that, maybe not.....either way you might as wait a bit to see what happens.

The recent benchmarks someone posted from BF3 seem wrong as well, every system I have cross-referenced them with runs considerably faster then the benchmarks showed.

[mikeo01]

Super overkill.

For your monitor (Same resolution as mine) you could get a much cheaper lower down card (single) and run latest games easily.

Although my RAM, CPU and GPU (HD 4830) isn't that high up on the benchmark, it can actually handle most games pretty well. Its average 3DMark score.

To be honest for standard monitors, and decent CPU and memory specifications an average card would do, HD 5770/6xxx series would do.

Higher HD 6xxx series is overkill for a small monitor, and double overkill for dual GPUs. thats for extreme gamers with 2-3 monitors OR people using media

[Gomezie]

Nice one guys

Will wait