20 replies to this topic

[Thor.]

Hey everybody i just bought myself a sweet Sabertooth 990fx motherboard with Quad sli and Quad crossfire support. I was thinking can you help me find the best and cheapest video cards that you can find. I might even go Quad Crossfire . I am not biased i think they are just as good, any suggestions would be great




Possible build after Christmas

Look at my Profile for more details.

Edited by Thor., 02 December 2011 - 06:31 AM.

[BeyondTom]

By Quad sli and Quad Crossfire are you talking about 8 different graphics cards . (Or do you mean 4-way sli, or quadfire?). Either way that is a lot of heat generated . From what I know I believe that Nvidia cards are the way to go if you want over 2 of em' in your computer. Somewhere I read that AMD doesn't scale quite as well after crossfire (2 cards) but that may just be a rumor, though if you want 2 cards I would definitely recommend AMD. Not a big Nvidia guy myself. For the best "cheapest cards" I would probably recommend getting a high end older series like amd 4870 or 5870 (as there pretty heat to performance effective and even a single one is very good) or the nvidia 280-290 series (Just because those cards were,and still are beasts). You could always get new cards, but with 4 of them I have no idea what your temps would be like if not cooled extremely well . Good luck with it, and I wish I had some spare money to throw at a huge build like that but between my laptop and college I am pretty tapped out .

[Fonger]

back to established heuristics

first heruistic-->

one super card works better than any 2 video cards in SLI costing 1/2 as much as the super card

therefore

one super card will work better than any 4 video cards in SLI costing 1/4 as much as the super card


second established heruistic ->

SLI/Crossfire only useful if you have super duper uber resolution monitor(s)

so to use quad SLI/Crossfire you would need a display that would make Darpa green with envy

[Vecna6667]

I wouldn't go with any 4 GPU setup as they haven't scaled very well in the past or even in the present. MaximumPC and a few other PC publications have had better performance with 3 GPU setups. If you want to go with 4 GPUs though, Quad SLI scales better than Quad Crossfire. This article does a head to head between two XFX Radeon HD 6990s in Quad Crossfire vs two Asus GeForce GTX 590s in Quad SLI. The Asus card won in all categories.

http://www.maximumpc...quad_crossfirex

Edited by Vecna6667, 02 December 2011 - 09:24 PM.

[BeyondTom]

back to established heuristics

first heruistic-->

one super card works better than any 2 video cards in SLI costing 1/2 as much as the super card

therefore

one super card will work better than any 4 video cards in SLI costing 1/4 as much as the super card


second established heruistic ->

SLI/Crossfire only useful if you have super duper uber resolution monitor(s)

so to use quad SLI/Crossfire you would need a display that would make Darpa green with envy

Fonger, what do you mean by a "super card". Unless you are talking Firepro or Quadro you will not outperform a crossfire or sli combination with a single card unless you are making a ridiculous comparison like Sli cuda based Nvida cards vs a 6990 6gb card. As for the price of a workstation card, it far surpass gaming price/performance ratio as that isn't the intent of such a card. Or, if by super cards you mean dual gpu cards than they are not better performance wise, and most certainly are not half the price. If you crossfire 2 HD 6970 2gb cards you will get more performance than one 6990 4gb card, and will probably only around 25-35% more. Sli/Crossfire are not only for larger display either. The extra vram which comes with having 2 cards allows for you to handle higher resolutions much better as well as give the ability for proper multi monitor support, but the performance of crossfire is still better on a regular sized monitor. You don't loose performance if you are running it on a regular monitor, the card just isn't worked nearly enough.

A comparison chart with 6970 crossfire and 6990 4gb from "hardwarecanucks" :


And as for pricing (newegg), a "GIGABYTE" HD 6970 is around Now: $349.99 (x2 would come to $700+tax)
a "GIGABYTE" HD 6990 4gb is $739.99, so the pricing is around the same.
I am slightly confused as to what point you are stating. The only negative to crossfire and sli over a dual gpu card is the extra heat generated, but if you are putting multiple cards in your computer it would be assumed that you know about the temps generated.

Anyway, like I said before... Have a great time building your super machine Thor. Make sure you post up a picture of what the insides look like while its shiny and new, and let me know some benchmarks (or at least the fps in some of your games ).

[Thor.]

Its quad as of 4 2x quad sli or four standard video cards in a row. It has 4 pci slots.


Also I have a beast of a case, i can handle 2 gtx470's witch are conidered to run very hot and i get great temps with it.



this is the case i have, its a monster.


Thanks for your suggestions everyone



Or i am very tempted of getting two more gtx470 in Quad sli and brake a new gtx470 record lol.
I may have to get them off of amazon, finding the one with the same serial number can be a pain.

Also i have a 1000watt psu so i think i can pull it off

if you can convince me otherwise be my guesst, I might try to find several minimum power Consumption cards, like the gtx560. 250watt a peace.

Edited by Thor., 03 December 2011 - 08:17 AM.

[hoofhearted4]

is that the antec twelve hundred?

[Thor.]

Yes it is hoofhearted4

[BeyondTom]

That is a very nice case indeed , and with a 1000 watt psu I would also think you would be fine. What ever card you choose you can't really go wrong with as you definitely seem to know a ton about computers .

[hoofhearted4]

Yes it is hoofhearted4

please call me Hoof

and ive heard some good things about this case, but its just a little too expensive, with the HAF 932 >= Antec Twelve Hundred