It depends how smooth an experience you want. If you want perfect 60fps on all the latest games, then no.
I don't have surround, but I know that adding "supersampling" to certain games such as Tomb Raider or Metro Last Light (which I believe has a similar effect on performance to surround, since it essentially increases the rendering resolution by quite a lot) takes my fps to below 60, and I have two Titans.
But if you don't mind frames in the 40s and 50s sometimes, and/or don't mind dialing the settings a little down from max, then I'd think you'll be ok.
Though there are others here who actually use surround who'll probably be able to tell you for sure.
It depends how smooth an experience you want. If you want perfect 60fps on all the latest games, then no.
I don't have surround, but I know that adding "supersampling" to certain games such as Tomb Raider or Metro Last Light (which I believe has a similar effect on performance to surround, since it essentially increases the rendering resolution by quite a lot) takes my fps to below 60, and I have two Titans.
But if you don't mind frames in the 40s and 50s sometimes, and/or don't mind dialing the settings a little down from max, then I'd think you'll be ok.
Though there are others here who actually use surround who'll probably be able to tell you for sure.
Yeah, depends. What games are you most interested in running? What resolution? What is an acceptable frame rate to you?
(Also, is it the same rig in your signature? That CPU isn't going to work well for 3D Vision Surround.)
Mainly games like need for speed, far cry 3 crysis 3, tomb raider. 3x1080p 40fps seems fair. if the experience can tune it that would be great. This is for a 4770k build
Mainly games like need for speed, far cry 3 crysis 3, tomb raider. 3x1080p 40fps seems fair. if the experience can tune it that would be great. This is for a 4770k build
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 @ 4.25GHz|MB: XFX 790i Ultra 3-way SLI|GPU: 2x XFX 9800GT|RAM: 4x 2GB Kingston DDR3|PSU: 1000w Silverstone|Storage: 2x WD 500GB in RAID 0|Storage: 3x WD 1TB in RAID 5|Monitor: Viewsonic PJD6531w 3D Projector w/ 800p 3D Fix|TV Card: 2x AVer Media Hybrid Duo|OS: Windows 8 ProWMC x64
By chance, we were just talking about GTX 760 SLI. Here are some tests:
[img]http://www.guru3d.com/index.php?ct=articles&action=file&id=5149&admin=0a8fcaad6b03da6a6895d1ada2e171002a287bc1[/img]
from: [url]http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/geforce_gtx_760_sli_review,8.html[/url]
2560x1600 is about 4M pixels, 1080 Surround is about 6.2M pixels. Sort of in the same ballpark. For this example of Tomb Raider, SLI 760 runs at 95 FPS, so you are possibly OK there. 95/2 = 45 for 3D Vision. We are definitely getting close to the edge with the extra resolution.
2560x1600 is about 4M pixels, 1080 Surround is about 6.2M pixels. Sort of in the same ballpark. For this example of Tomb Raider, SLI 760 runs at 95 FPS, so you are possibly OK there. 95/2 = 45 for 3D Vision. We are definitely getting close to the edge with the extra resolution.
Acer H5360 (1280x720@120Hz) - ASUS VG248QE with GSync mod - 3D Vision 1&2 - Driver 372.54
GTX 970 - i5-4670K@4.2GHz - 12GB RAM - Win7x64+evilKB2670838 - 4 Disk X25 RAID
SAGER NP9870-S - GTX 980 - i7-6700K - Win10 Pro 1607 Latest 3Dmigoto Release Bo3b's School for ShaderHackers
Hmm, I don't like the look of that. 45 fps for 4M pixels is probably something like 35-40 FPS for 6.2M pixels. Crysis 3 is even more intensive, so you're probably looking at 25-35 FPS. And we're mere months away from a jump in tech requirements (next-gen games).
3Dvision Surround is pretty extravagant. I think it's going to take a more extravagant graphics card (and CPU) solution for you to get consistently satisfying results.
Hmm, I don't like the look of that. 45 fps for 4M pixels is probably something like 35-40 FPS for 6.2M pixels. Crysis 3 is even more intensive, so you're probably looking at 25-35 FPS. And we're mere months away from a jump in tech requirements (next-gen games).
3Dvision Surround is pretty extravagant. I think it's going to take a more extravagant graphics card (and CPU) solution for you to get consistently satisfying results.
[quote="hatharry"]Mainly games like need for speed, far cry 3 crysis 3, tomb raider. 3x1080p 40fps seems fair. if the experience can tune it that would be great. This is for a 4770k build[/quote]I'm looking at my next build too, and Haswell. I'm going with 4670K though, because HyperThreading is rarely useful for gaming and tends to limit your overclock.
What motherboard are you looking at? I'm trying to understand if the PCI limit of x8 for SLI cards will be a problem or not.
Pretty much agree with Volnaiskra that SLI 760 is not going to be sufficient for 1080p Surround. For Crysis 3 and Far Cry 3, you will definitely need to turn down the quality, which would be a deal breaker for me.
hatharry said:Mainly games like need for speed, far cry 3 crysis 3, tomb raider. 3x1080p 40fps seems fair. if the experience can tune it that would be great. This is for a 4770k build
I'm looking at my next build too, and Haswell. I'm going with 4670K though, because HyperThreading is rarely useful for gaming and tends to limit your overclock.
What motherboard are you looking at? I'm trying to understand if the PCI limit of x8 for SLI cards will be a problem or not.
Pretty much agree with Volnaiskra that SLI 760 is not going to be sufficient for 1080p Surround. For Crysis 3 and Far Cry 3, you will definitely need to turn down the quality, which would be a deal breaker for me.
Acer H5360 (1280x720@120Hz) - ASUS VG248QE with GSync mod - 3D Vision 1&2 - Driver 372.54
GTX 970 - i5-4670K@4.2GHz - 12GB RAM - Win7x64+evilKB2670838 - 4 Disk X25 RAID
SAGER NP9870-S - GTX 980 - i7-6700K - Win10 Pro 1607 Latest 3Dmigoto Release Bo3b's School for ShaderHackers
I don't expect to be running the games at maximum settings. Anyone know if experience supports surround? The board is ga-z87x-ud5. The cards have 4gb of ram which is what surround needs. Stepping up to the 770 is a huge dif in price. Could look for a 3way ski board and get an extra card if I need more power
I don't expect to be running the games at maximum settings. Anyone know if experience supports surround? The board is ga-z87x-ud5. The cards have 4gb of ram which is what surround needs. Stepping up to the 770 is a huge dif in price. Could look for a 3way ski board and get an extra card if I need more power
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 @ 4.25GHz|MB: XFX 790i Ultra 3-way SLI|GPU: 2x XFX 9800GT|RAM: 4x 2GB Kingston DDR3|PSU: 1000w Silverstone|Storage: 2x WD 500GB in RAID 0|Storage: 3x WD 1TB in RAID 5|Monitor: Viewsonic PJD6531w 3D Projector w/ 800p 3D Fix|TV Card: 2x AVer Media Hybrid Duo|OS: Windows 8 ProWMC x64
I was hoping Helifax would pop in to talk performance. He probably knows the most about Surround of anyone here. Probably worth pinging him via PM.
BTW, you'll probably like his site:
[url]http://www.3dsurroundgaming.com/index.html[/url]
[quote="bo3b"]I was hoping Helifax would pop in to talk performance. He probably knows the most about Surround of anyone here. Probably worth pinging him via PM.
BTW, you'll probably like his site:
[url]http://www.3dsurroundgaming.com/index.html[/url][/quote]
Hahaha:)) Sorry about that I saw the post yesterday night (actually this morning at around 3 am and said I will comment in the morning) :)) But is so nice to be loved :)))
Anyway my experience and recommendation (based from experience and testing it):
1. You definitely want SLI for 3D Vision in general, moreover for Surround.
2. About SLI, here it gets a bit complicated.
Case 1.
2 Cards = 2x amount of power(electricity) your PSU needs to give.
Based on your PC case and mobo configuration chances are one card will blow the hear into the other card and thus overheating the other one. Temperature is key in this scenario, the more hot your card gets the more power it will draw from your PSU
So I highly highly highly recommend water cooling for SLI or a MOBO that has the PCI-E lanes further away one from the other.
Next BIG important thing is your MOBO. It features 2 PCI-Express (2.0 or 3.0) lanes. There are some mobos that when you put 2 cards in SLI the lanes will work at dual 8x speed so in total it gives you back the 16x speed of a single lane. To some this might be a problem as you they think it will be a performance cut. In practice this is not true!!! Based on tests and result comparison.
Some mobos are better than others. From my own experience I can definitely recommend the Asus Maximus Series mobo for its robust performance and solid performance, but ofc other mobos might do it as well:)
Case 2.
Dual-GPU (SLI on board)
Here we currently have only 2 cards: The GTX 590 and GTX690.
It is only one physical card and thus:
- 1 PCI-E lane slot running at 16x speed (the data is split between the 2 GPUs so theoretically each GPU uses the PCI-E at 8x ;)) )
- The maximum TPD for the card is lesser than the TPD of 2 card and it requires a smaller PSU
- No problems with one card blowing heat in the other
- I STILL recommend water cooling.
- Performance might be a bit lower than that of regular SLI(but not a huge deal)
- You don't actually need a high performance mobo for it to work properly (like in the case of a SLI config)
Back to Surround now after saying what the benefit and non-benefits are of each config.
I still have my GTX590 for a number of reasons.
Funny and true facts:
- In 3D Surround your GPUs will ALWAYS and I mean ALWAYS run at 99% (if there is a driver and works properly) utilization. The amount of HEAT it will generate will be huge. Since you are pushing basically 3 OR 2 OR Single monitor resolution = 6 Time the single monitor resolution.
This is the reason I said water cooling is a must.
- You don't need converters or adapters to make surround working. 3D Surround requires THREE (3) Dual Link DVI(DVD) connections, no Hdmi, possibly DisplayPort(haven't checked it). Now with a SLI config this is not needed, but is a big problem if you want to run 3D Surround on a single card and is not a 690 or 590.
Besides this, in 3D Surround:
- You need alot of VRAM memory. The 590 barely makes it (although the higher I go with the resolution the higher the performance is dropping)
- In both Dual-GPU and SLI configs the VRAM of the cards is mirrored:
for example 2GTX 760 with 1.5GB VRAM each will actually give you 1.5GB VRAM that you can use. Is not 3GB of Vram, since the same polygons, textures etc LOAD on each GPU so that each GPU can render different frames from the game/environment.
- In 3D Surround you DON"T give a F about Anti-aliasing ( put it on 2x) and you are golden or FXAA with newer games don't bother with MSAA and so on or all the VRAM in the world will not be enough for you:))
- Don't expect to TROW all the crap at it like:
- MAX Tessellation
- MAX Ambient Occlusion (SSAO or even the new HBAO+)
- MAX PhysX and so on
- and most important MAX SHADOW quality especially the Dynamic Soft Shadow algorithms (such as you can see in Bioshock infinite for example)
However, you can safely PUSH max view distance (LOD), texture quality and so on.
In 3D Vision Surround you will be capped at 60fps by default, but maintaining this FPS will not be always possible. However you will have no problem of getting 30-45fps CONSTANT in all games (this is on a GTX 590 and a GTX 690 theoretically is twice as powerful).
So bottom line:
- I would definitely get a 690 and watercool, or if your budget permits it I would get 2x780 and water-cool + aditional costs like a bigger PSU (if you don't have it already, waterblocks and so on)
As for 2x760 is simple. It will be "enough" in some games with some settings, but it will require tweaking those settings and possibly alot of sacrifices. Even a 690 will not work "out-of the box" with everything maxed so tweaking is again required. Again, in 3D Surround you definitely want to TARGET the BEST of the BEST 690, 780, Titans. It makes NO SENSE in buying a SLI config for one monitor in 2D. It makes sense for SLI in 3D Vision and IS A MUST in 3D Surround. I know the price for such a card is steep but once you have it and see it you can safely say the price is justified.
I think I talked enough now (lol), but I hope I highlighted a couple of important aspects about 3D Vision Surround.
Also take into consideration your CPU. Get a CPU that is unlocked and it must be overclocked (again watercooling helps) to above 4.0GHz. I have tested with my i5 3570K at 4.5Ghz and 5.0Ghz. In my case, I couldn't see any difference in performance when going from 4.5Ghz to 5.0Ghz, but I did saw a performance increase when going from 3.4ghz(stock) to 4.5ghz. So the CPU is also important.
If you have any questions let me know.
Best Regards,
Helifax
bo3b said:I was hoping Helifax would pop in to talk performance. He probably knows the most about Surround of anyone here. Probably worth pinging him via PM.
Hahaha:)) Sorry about that I saw the post yesterday night (actually this morning at around 3 am and said I will comment in the morning) :)) But is so nice to be loved :)))
Anyway my experience and recommendation (based from experience and testing it):
1. You definitely want SLI for 3D Vision in general, moreover for Surround.
2. About SLI, here it gets a bit complicated.
Case 1.
2 Cards = 2x amount of power(electricity) your PSU needs to give.
Based on your PC case and mobo configuration chances are one card will blow the hear into the other card and thus overheating the other one. Temperature is key in this scenario, the more hot your card gets the more power it will draw from your PSU
So I highly highly highly recommend water cooling for SLI or a MOBO that has the PCI-E lanes further away one from the other.
Next BIG important thing is your MOBO. It features 2 PCI-Express (2.0 or 3.0) lanes. There are some mobos that when you put 2 cards in SLI the lanes will work at dual 8x speed so in total it gives you back the 16x speed of a single lane. To some this might be a problem as you they think it will be a performance cut. In practice this is not true!!! Based on tests and result comparison.
Some mobos are better than others. From my own experience I can definitely recommend the Asus Maximus Series mobo for its robust performance and solid performance, but ofc other mobos might do it as well:)
Case 2.
Dual-GPU (SLI on board)
Here we currently have only 2 cards: The GTX 590 and GTX690.
It is only one physical card and thus:
- 1 PCI-E lane slot running at 16x speed (the data is split between the 2 GPUs so theoretically each GPU uses the PCI-E at 8x ;)) )
- The maximum TPD for the card is lesser than the TPD of 2 card and it requires a smaller PSU
- No problems with one card blowing heat in the other
- I STILL recommend water cooling.
- Performance might be a bit lower than that of regular SLI(but not a huge deal)
- You don't actually need a high performance mobo for it to work properly (like in the case of a SLI config)
Back to Surround now after saying what the benefit and non-benefits are of each config.
I still have my GTX590 for a number of reasons.
Funny and true facts:
- In 3D Surround your GPUs will ALWAYS and I mean ALWAYS run at 99% (if there is a driver and works properly) utilization. The amount of HEAT it will generate will be huge. Since you are pushing basically 3 OR 2 OR Single monitor resolution = 6 Time the single monitor resolution.
This is the reason I said water cooling is a must.
- You don't need converters or adapters to make surround working. 3D Surround requires THREE (3) Dual Link DVI(DVD) connections, no Hdmi, possibly DisplayPort(haven't checked it). Now with a SLI config this is not needed, but is a big problem if you want to run 3D Surround on a single card and is not a 690 or 590.
Besides this, in 3D Surround:
- You need alot of VRAM memory. The 590 barely makes it (although the higher I go with the resolution the higher the performance is dropping)
- In both Dual-GPU and SLI configs the VRAM of the cards is mirrored:
for example 2GTX 760 with 1.5GB VRAM each will actually give you 1.5GB VRAM that you can use. Is not 3GB of Vram, since the same polygons, textures etc LOAD on each GPU so that each GPU can render different frames from the game/environment.
- In 3D Surround you DON"T give a F about Anti-aliasing ( put it on 2x) and you are golden or FXAA with newer games don't bother with MSAA and so on or all the VRAM in the world will not be enough for you:))
- Don't expect to TROW all the crap at it like:
- MAX Tessellation
- MAX Ambient Occlusion (SSAO or even the new HBAO+)
- MAX PhysX and so on
- and most important MAX SHADOW quality especially the Dynamic Soft Shadow algorithms (such as you can see in Bioshock infinite for example)
However, you can safely PUSH max view distance (LOD), texture quality and so on.
In 3D Vision Surround you will be capped at 60fps by default, but maintaining this FPS will not be always possible. However you will have no problem of getting 30-45fps CONSTANT in all games (this is on a GTX 590 and a GTX 690 theoretically is twice as powerful).
So bottom line:
- I would definitely get a 690 and watercool, or if your budget permits it I would get 2x780 and water-cool + aditional costs like a bigger PSU (if you don't have it already, waterblocks and so on)
As for 2x760 is simple. It will be "enough" in some games with some settings, but it will require tweaking those settings and possibly alot of sacrifices. Even a 690 will not work "out-of the box" with everything maxed so tweaking is again required. Again, in 3D Surround you definitely want to TARGET the BEST of the BEST 690, 780, Titans. It makes NO SENSE in buying a SLI config for one monitor in 2D. It makes sense for SLI in 3D Vision and IS A MUST in 3D Surround. I know the price for such a card is steep but once you have it and see it you can safely say the price is justified.
I think I talked enough now (lol), but I hope I highlighted a couple of important aspects about 3D Vision Surround.
Also take into consideration your CPU. Get a CPU that is unlocked and it must be overclocked (again watercooling helps) to above 4.0GHz. I have tested with my i5 3570K at 4.5Ghz and 5.0Ghz. In my case, I couldn't see any difference in performance when going from 4.5Ghz to 5.0Ghz, but I did saw a performance increase when going from 3.4ghz(stock) to 4.5ghz. So the CPU is also important.
If you have any questions let me know.
Best Regards,
Helifax
1x Palit RTX 2080Ti Pro Gaming OC(watercooled and overclocked to hell)
3x 3D Vision Ready Asus VG278HE monitors (5760x1080).
Intel i9 9900K (overclocked to 5.3 and watercooled ofc).
Asus Maximus XI Hero Mobo.
16 GB Team Group T-Force Dark Pro DDR4 @ 3600.
Lots of Disks:
- Raid 0 - 256GB Sandisk Extreme SSD.
- Raid 0 - WD Black - 2TB.
- SanDisk SSD PLUS 480 GB.
- Intel 760p 256GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD.
Creative Sound Blaster Z.
Windows 10 x64 Pro.
etc
Helifax, could you elaborate on the sort of performance gains you get from a quality mobo like the Maximus? Do you actually get higher FPS? Or is it something else, like less microstuttering or spikes, etc?
Also, just to clarify: Are you saying that it doesn't make any substantial difference whether a card uses 16x or 8x?
Helifax, could you elaborate on the sort of performance gains you get from a quality mobo like the Maximus? Do you actually get higher FPS? Or is it something else, like less microstuttering or spikes, etc?
Also, just to clarify: Are you saying that it doesn't make any substantial difference whether a card uses 16x or 8x?
[quote="Volnaiskra"]
Also, just to clarify: Are you saying that it doesn't make any substantial difference whether a card uses 16x or 8x? [/quote]
It doesn`t matter whatsoever. I`ve made my own tests on three different motherboards and did not see any fps improvements between 8x8x, 16x-8x or 16x16 (gtx580 and gtx680) - so it doesn`t matter how you put them on you MB (use whatever PCI-E you want).
Volnaiskra said:
Also, just to clarify: Are you saying that it doesn't make any substantial difference whether a card uses 16x or 8x?
It doesn`t matter whatsoever. I`ve made my own tests on three different motherboards and did not see any fps improvements between 8x8x, 16x-8x or 16x16 (gtx580 and gtx680) - so it doesn`t matter how you put them on you MB (use whatever PCI-E you want).
[quote="SKAUT"][quote="Volnaiskra"]
Also, just to clarify: Are you saying that it doesn't make any substantial difference whether a card uses 16x or 8x? [/quote]
It doesn`t matter whatsoever. I`ve made my own tests on three different motherboards and did not see any fps improvements between 8x8x, 16x-8x or 16x16 (gtx580 and gtx680) - so it doesn`t matter how you put them on you MB (use whatever PCI-E you want).[/quote]Was that PCI-e 2.0 or 3.0?
Volnaiskra said:
Also, just to clarify: Are you saying that it doesn't make any substantial difference whether a card uses 16x or 8x?
It doesn`t matter whatsoever. I`ve made my own tests on three different motherboards and did not see any fps improvements between 8x8x, 16x-8x or 16x16 (gtx580 and gtx680) - so it doesn`t matter how you put them on you MB (use whatever PCI-E you want).
Was that PCI-e 2.0 or 3.0?
Acer H5360 (1280x720@120Hz) - ASUS VG248QE with GSync mod - 3D Vision 1&2 - Driver 372.54
GTX 970 - i5-4670K@4.2GHz - 12GB RAM - Win7x64+evilKB2670838 - 4 Disk X25 RAID
SAGER NP9870-S - GTX 980 - i7-6700K - Win10 Pro 1607 Latest 3Dmigoto Release Bo3b's School for ShaderHackers
I did gtx680 on 3.0 with 16x-8x and 16x-16x and gtx580 on 2.0 with all mentioned variations. Didn`t see the difference at all. Quite disappointing since i spent a lot of money to get full 3.0 supported MB and GPU.
Also i believe i did some tests between 2.0 and 3.0 wit gtx680 and didn`t get any good results as well. I just don`t remember to honest - so don`t mind me.
I did gtx680 on 3.0 with 16x-8x and 16x-16x and gtx580 on 2.0 with all mentioned variations. Didn`t see the difference at all. Quite disappointing since i spent a lot of money to get full 3.0 supported MB and GPU.
Also i believe i did some tests between 2.0 and 3.0 wit gtx680 and didn`t get any good results as well. I just don`t remember to honest - so don`t mind me.
[quote="Volnaiskra"]
Also, just to clarify: Are you saying that it doesn't make any substantial difference whether a card uses 16x or 8x? [/quote]
That is exactly what I said;)) No visual difference will be seen between 16x and 8x. However, using synthetic tests you will be able to see a difference in bandwidth. It is hard to actually say if this difference will actually benefit at 3D Surround resolutions ( 6 times the actual one screen resolution) since it has to push..well much more data and could potentially be a bottleneck. Again, the only diff I saw was in synthetic tests and not actual performance. I do believe the diff is there in actual performance also...but just so hard to see with the naked eye:)
For the 2nd question:
"Helifax, could you elaborate on the sort of performance gains you get from a quality mobo like the Maximus? Do you actually get higher FPS? Or is it something else, like less microstuttering or spikes, etc?"
First of all you get the benefits of a rock solid motherboard that supports PROPER voltages and overclocking. The Maximus series have special connectors on-board where you can attach your multimeter to it. I have done quite some tests in overclocking the bus and I did saw some improvements in the performance. At this point is critical for the voltages to be STABLE and not oscillate. If they do oscillate in time it will kill your GPU. Now the funny part is that even at STOCK some motherboards CANNOT give proper voltage on the PCI-E lane and that's why you see alot of people yelling around about performance and stability issues(including micro-stuttering) or random crashes, their GPU's frying up and so on or just simply poor performance.
To be clear, I am not reffering ONLY to the Maximus series. There are other mobos out there that are awesome and PROPERLY designed (from hw perspective). MSI has some, Asus, ASROCK I believe. The problem is that you will not know how good your MOBO is until you put the multimeter on it. Ofc you also need a rock solid PSU with a high grade of efficiency.
What is special about these mobos is :the voltage phases. Not only for the CPU but for the whole bus lane. Also some Intel controllers are better than others and thus they play a role.
So to be short: You definitely want a stable and good mobo if you go surround. You will most likely need to overclock your CPU above 4.0ghz and probably you will overclock the GPU as well. The increase of mhz (from the frequency) is directly translated from voltage increase. If your mobo isn't designed properly you will get in alot of crappy stuff (drivers not installing properly or crashing etc)
Previously I had a standard Mobo from Asus with 2xGTX 590. Almost two years ago it fried one of my GPUs (that's why now I have only one). So I decided to get a proper Mobo this time. Before the actual hardware change I did some tests:
- Launched a game (be sure the GPUs are 99%) and left it staying there
- Launched Prime95 and put it on the most intensive test(CPU+Memory)
- Left it like this. 3hours later it crashed (and in the process also it managed to corrupt my windows install..)
- Changed the Mobo (same components for the rest)
- Redid the test.
- The test lasted 22hours (went to sleep, then to work and back home)
- When I decided to stop it, it was still running...
You can draw the conclusions yourselves;))
Bottom line is: Don't expect a 50-100 euro Mobo to work flawless in 3D Surround (like I did initially) since in 3D Surround your GPU will mostly be 99% loaded and your CPU(based on the app)
Hope this clarifies what I was referring to originally;))
Best Regards,
Helifax
Volnaiskra said:
Also, just to clarify: Are you saying that it doesn't make any substantial difference whether a card uses 16x or 8x?
That is exactly what I said;)) No visual difference will be seen between 16x and 8x. However, using synthetic tests you will be able to see a difference in bandwidth. It is hard to actually say if this difference will actually benefit at 3D Surround resolutions ( 6 times the actual one screen resolution) since it has to push..well much more data and could potentially be a bottleneck. Again, the only diff I saw was in synthetic tests and not actual performance. I do believe the diff is there in actual performance also...but just so hard to see with the naked eye:)
For the 2nd question:
"Helifax, could you elaborate on the sort of performance gains you get from a quality mobo like the Maximus? Do you actually get higher FPS? Or is it something else, like less microstuttering or spikes, etc?"
First of all you get the benefits of a rock solid motherboard that supports PROPER voltages and overclocking. The Maximus series have special connectors on-board where you can attach your multimeter to it. I have done quite some tests in overclocking the bus and I did saw some improvements in the performance. At this point is critical for the voltages to be STABLE and not oscillate. If they do oscillate in time it will kill your GPU. Now the funny part is that even at STOCK some motherboards CANNOT give proper voltage on the PCI-E lane and that's why you see alot of people yelling around about performance and stability issues(including micro-stuttering) or random crashes, their GPU's frying up and so on or just simply poor performance.
To be clear, I am not reffering ONLY to the Maximus series. There are other mobos out there that are awesome and PROPERLY designed (from hw perspective). MSI has some, Asus, ASROCK I believe. The problem is that you will not know how good your MOBO is until you put the multimeter on it. Ofc you also need a rock solid PSU with a high grade of efficiency.
What is special about these mobos is :the voltage phases. Not only for the CPU but for the whole bus lane. Also some Intel controllers are better than others and thus they play a role.
So to be short: You definitely want a stable and good mobo if you go surround. You will most likely need to overclock your CPU above 4.0ghz and probably you will overclock the GPU as well. The increase of mhz (from the frequency) is directly translated from voltage increase. If your mobo isn't designed properly you will get in alot of crappy stuff (drivers not installing properly or crashing etc)
Previously I had a standard Mobo from Asus with 2xGTX 590. Almost two years ago it fried one of my GPUs (that's why now I have only one). So I decided to get a proper Mobo this time. Before the actual hardware change I did some tests:
- Launched a game (be sure the GPUs are 99%) and left it staying there
- Launched Prime95 and put it on the most intensive test(CPU+Memory)
- Left it like this. 3hours later it crashed (and in the process also it managed to corrupt my windows install..)
- Changed the Mobo (same components for the rest)
- Redid the test.
- The test lasted 22hours (went to sleep, then to work and back home)
- When I decided to stop it, it was still running...
You can draw the conclusions yourselves;))
Bottom line is: Don't expect a 50-100 euro Mobo to work flawless in 3D Surround (like I did initially) since in 3D Surround your GPU will mostly be 99% loaded and your CPU(based on the app)
Hope this clarifies what I was referring to originally;))
Best Regards,
Helifax
1x Palit RTX 2080Ti Pro Gaming OC(watercooled and overclocked to hell)
3x 3D Vision Ready Asus VG278HE monitors (5760x1080).
Intel i9 9900K (overclocked to 5.3 and watercooled ofc).
Asus Maximus XI Hero Mobo.
16 GB Team Group T-Force Dark Pro DDR4 @ 3600.
Lots of Disks:
- Raid 0 - 256GB Sandisk Extreme SSD.
- Raid 0 - WD Black - 2TB.
- SanDisk SSD PLUS 480 GB.
- Intel 760p 256GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD.
Creative Sound Blaster Z.
Windows 10 x64 Pro.
etc
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 @ 4.25GHz|MB: XFX 790i Ultra 3-way SLI|GPU: 2x XFX 9800GT|RAM: 4x 2GB Kingston DDR3|PSU: 1000w Silverstone|Storage: 2x WD 500GB in RAID 0|Storage: 3x WD 1TB in RAID 5|Monitor: Viewsonic PJD6531w 3D Projector w/ 800p 3D Fix|TV Card: 2x AVer Media Hybrid Duo|OS: Windows 8 ProWMC x64
I don't have surround, but I know that adding "supersampling" to certain games such as Tomb Raider or Metro Last Light (which I believe has a similar effect on performance to surround, since it essentially increases the rendering resolution by quite a lot) takes my fps to below 60, and I have two Titans.
But if you don't mind frames in the 40s and 50s sometimes, and/or don't mind dialing the settings a little down from max, then I'd think you'll be ok.
Though there are others here who actually use surround who'll probably be able to tell you for sure.
(Also, is it the same rig in your signature? That CPU isn't going to work well for 3D Vision Surround.)
Acer H5360 (1280x720@120Hz) - ASUS VG248QE with GSync mod - 3D Vision 1&2 - Driver 372.54
GTX 970 - i5-4670K@4.2GHz - 12GB RAM - Win7x64+evilKB2670838 - 4 Disk X25 RAID
SAGER NP9870-S - GTX 980 - i7-6700K - Win10 Pro 1607
Latest 3Dmigoto Release
Bo3b's School for ShaderHackers
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 @ 4.25GHz|MB: XFX 790i Ultra 3-way SLI|GPU: 2x XFX 9800GT|RAM: 4x 2GB Kingston DDR3|PSU: 1000w Silverstone|Storage: 2x WD 500GB in RAID 0|Storage: 3x WD 1TB in RAID 5|Monitor: Viewsonic PJD6531w 3D Projector w/ 800p 3D Fix|TV Card: 2x AVer Media Hybrid Duo|OS: Windows 8 ProWMC x64
from: http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/geforce_gtx_760_sli_review,8.html
2560x1600 is about 4M pixels, 1080 Surround is about 6.2M pixels. Sort of in the same ballpark. For this example of Tomb Raider, SLI 760 runs at 95 FPS, so you are possibly OK there. 95/2 = 45 for 3D Vision. We are definitely getting close to the edge with the extra resolution.
Acer H5360 (1280x720@120Hz) - ASUS VG248QE with GSync mod - 3D Vision 1&2 - Driver 372.54
GTX 970 - i5-4670K@4.2GHz - 12GB RAM - Win7x64+evilKB2670838 - 4 Disk X25 RAID
SAGER NP9870-S - GTX 980 - i7-6700K - Win10 Pro 1607
Latest 3Dmigoto Release
Bo3b's School for ShaderHackers
3Dvision Surround is pretty extravagant. I think it's going to take a more extravagant graphics card (and CPU) solution for you to get consistently satisfying results.
What motherboard are you looking at? I'm trying to understand if the PCI limit of x8 for SLI cards will be a problem or not.
Pretty much agree with Volnaiskra that SLI 760 is not going to be sufficient for 1080p Surround. For Crysis 3 and Far Cry 3, you will definitely need to turn down the quality, which would be a deal breaker for me.
Acer H5360 (1280x720@120Hz) - ASUS VG248QE with GSync mod - 3D Vision 1&2 - Driver 372.54
GTX 970 - i5-4670K@4.2GHz - 12GB RAM - Win7x64+evilKB2670838 - 4 Disk X25 RAID
SAGER NP9870-S - GTX 980 - i7-6700K - Win10 Pro 1607
Latest 3Dmigoto Release
Bo3b's School for ShaderHackers
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 @ 4.25GHz|MB: XFX 790i Ultra 3-way SLI|GPU: 2x XFX 9800GT|RAM: 4x 2GB Kingston DDR3|PSU: 1000w Silverstone|Storage: 2x WD 500GB in RAID 0|Storage: 3x WD 1TB in RAID 5|Monitor: Viewsonic PJD6531w 3D Projector w/ 800p 3D Fix|TV Card: 2x AVer Media Hybrid Duo|OS: Windows 8 ProWMC x64
BTW, you'll probably like his site:
http://www.3dsurroundgaming.com/index.html
Acer H5360 (1280x720@120Hz) - ASUS VG248QE with GSync mod - 3D Vision 1&2 - Driver 372.54
GTX 970 - i5-4670K@4.2GHz - 12GB RAM - Win7x64+evilKB2670838 - 4 Disk X25 RAID
SAGER NP9870-S - GTX 980 - i7-6700K - Win10 Pro 1607
Latest 3Dmigoto Release
Bo3b's School for ShaderHackers
Hahaha:)) Sorry about that I saw the post yesterday night (actually this morning at around 3 am and said I will comment in the morning) :)) But is so nice to be loved :)))
Anyway my experience and recommendation (based from experience and testing it):
1. You definitely want SLI for 3D Vision in general, moreover for Surround.
2. About SLI, here it gets a bit complicated.
Case 1.
2 Cards = 2x amount of power(electricity) your PSU needs to give.
Based on your PC case and mobo configuration chances are one card will blow the hear into the other card and thus overheating the other one. Temperature is key in this scenario, the more hot your card gets the more power it will draw from your PSU
So I highly highly highly recommend water cooling for SLI or a MOBO that has the PCI-E lanes further away one from the other.
Next BIG important thing is your MOBO. It features 2 PCI-Express (2.0 or 3.0) lanes. There are some mobos that when you put 2 cards in SLI the lanes will work at dual 8x speed so in total it gives you back the 16x speed of a single lane. To some this might be a problem as you they think it will be a performance cut. In practice this is not true!!! Based on tests and result comparison.
Some mobos are better than others. From my own experience I can definitely recommend the Asus Maximus Series mobo for its robust performance and solid performance, but ofc other mobos might do it as well:)
Case 2.
Dual-GPU (SLI on board)
Here we currently have only 2 cards: The GTX 590 and GTX690.
It is only one physical card and thus:
- 1 PCI-E lane slot running at 16x speed (the data is split between the 2 GPUs so theoretically each GPU uses the PCI-E at 8x ;)) )
- The maximum TPD for the card is lesser than the TPD of 2 card and it requires a smaller PSU
- No problems with one card blowing heat in the other
- I STILL recommend water cooling.
- Performance might be a bit lower than that of regular SLI(but not a huge deal)
- You don't actually need a high performance mobo for it to work properly (like in the case of a SLI config)
Back to Surround now after saying what the benefit and non-benefits are of each config.
I still have my GTX590 for a number of reasons.
Funny and true facts:
- In 3D Surround your GPUs will ALWAYS and I mean ALWAYS run at 99% (if there is a driver and works properly) utilization. The amount of HEAT it will generate will be huge. Since you are pushing basically 3 OR 2 OR Single monitor resolution = 6 Time the single monitor resolution.
This is the reason I said water cooling is a must.
- You don't need converters or adapters to make surround working. 3D Surround requires THREE (3) Dual Link DVI(DVD) connections, no Hdmi, possibly DisplayPort(haven't checked it). Now with a SLI config this is not needed, but is a big problem if you want to run 3D Surround on a single card and is not a 690 or 590.
Besides this, in 3D Surround:
- You need alot of VRAM memory. The 590 barely makes it (although the higher I go with the resolution the higher the performance is dropping)
- In both Dual-GPU and SLI configs the VRAM of the cards is mirrored:
for example 2GTX 760 with 1.5GB VRAM each will actually give you 1.5GB VRAM that you can use. Is not 3GB of Vram, since the same polygons, textures etc LOAD on each GPU so that each GPU can render different frames from the game/environment.
- In 3D Surround you DON"T give a F about Anti-aliasing ( put it on 2x) and you are golden or FXAA with newer games don't bother with MSAA and so on or all the VRAM in the world will not be enough for you:))
- Don't expect to TROW all the crap at it like:
- MAX Tessellation
- MAX Ambient Occlusion (SSAO or even the new HBAO+)
- MAX PhysX and so on
- and most important MAX SHADOW quality especially the Dynamic Soft Shadow algorithms (such as you can see in Bioshock infinite for example)
However, you can safely PUSH max view distance (LOD), texture quality and so on.
In 3D Vision Surround you will be capped at 60fps by default, but maintaining this FPS will not be always possible. However you will have no problem of getting 30-45fps CONSTANT in all games (this is on a GTX 590 and a GTX 690 theoretically is twice as powerful).
So bottom line:
- I would definitely get a 690 and watercool, or if your budget permits it I would get 2x780 and water-cool + aditional costs like a bigger PSU (if you don't have it already, waterblocks and so on)
As for 2x760 is simple. It will be "enough" in some games with some settings, but it will require tweaking those settings and possibly alot of sacrifices. Even a 690 will not work "out-of the box" with everything maxed so tweaking is again required. Again, in 3D Surround you definitely want to TARGET the BEST of the BEST 690, 780, Titans. It makes NO SENSE in buying a SLI config for one monitor in 2D. It makes sense for SLI in 3D Vision and IS A MUST in 3D Surround. I know the price for such a card is steep but once you have it and see it you can safely say the price is justified.
I think I talked enough now (lol), but I hope I highlighted a couple of important aspects about 3D Vision Surround.
Also take into consideration your CPU. Get a CPU that is unlocked and it must be overclocked (again watercooling helps) to above 4.0GHz. I have tested with my i5 3570K at 4.5Ghz and 5.0Ghz. In my case, I couldn't see any difference in performance when going from 4.5Ghz to 5.0Ghz, but I did saw a performance increase when going from 3.4ghz(stock) to 4.5ghz. So the CPU is also important.
If you have any questions let me know.
Best Regards,
Helifax
1x Palit RTX 2080Ti Pro Gaming OC(watercooled and overclocked to hell)
3x 3D Vision Ready Asus VG278HE monitors (5760x1080).
Intel i9 9900K (overclocked to 5.3 and watercooled ofc).
Asus Maximus XI Hero Mobo.
16 GB Team Group T-Force Dark Pro DDR4 @ 3600.
Lots of Disks:
- Raid 0 - 256GB Sandisk Extreme SSD.
- Raid 0 - WD Black - 2TB.
- SanDisk SSD PLUS 480 GB.
- Intel 760p 256GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD.
Creative Sound Blaster Z.
Windows 10 x64 Pro.
etc
My website with my fixes and OpenGL to 3D Vision wrapper:
http://3dsurroundgaming.com
(If you like some of the stuff that I've done and want to donate something, you can do it with PayPal at tavyhome@gmail.com)
Also, just to clarify: Are you saying that it doesn't make any substantial difference whether a card uses 16x or 8x?
It doesn`t matter whatsoever. I`ve made my own tests on three different motherboards and did not see any fps improvements between 8x8x, 16x-8x or 16x16 (gtx580 and gtx680) - so it doesn`t matter how you put them on you MB (use whatever PCI-E you want).
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198014296177/
Acer H5360 (1280x720@120Hz) - ASUS VG248QE with GSync mod - 3D Vision 1&2 - Driver 372.54
GTX 970 - i5-4670K@4.2GHz - 12GB RAM - Win7x64+evilKB2670838 - 4 Disk X25 RAID
SAGER NP9870-S - GTX 980 - i7-6700K - Win10 Pro 1607
Latest 3Dmigoto Release
Bo3b's School for ShaderHackers
Also i believe i did some tests between 2.0 and 3.0 wit gtx680 and didn`t get any good results as well. I just don`t remember to honest - so don`t mind me.
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198014296177/
That is exactly what I said;)) No visual difference will be seen between 16x and 8x. However, using synthetic tests you will be able to see a difference in bandwidth. It is hard to actually say if this difference will actually benefit at 3D Surround resolutions ( 6 times the actual one screen resolution) since it has to push..well much more data and could potentially be a bottleneck. Again, the only diff I saw was in synthetic tests and not actual performance. I do believe the diff is there in actual performance also...but just so hard to see with the naked eye:)
For the 2nd question:
"Helifax, could you elaborate on the sort of performance gains you get from a quality mobo like the Maximus? Do you actually get higher FPS? Or is it something else, like less microstuttering or spikes, etc?"
First of all you get the benefits of a rock solid motherboard that supports PROPER voltages and overclocking. The Maximus series have special connectors on-board where you can attach your multimeter to it. I have done quite some tests in overclocking the bus and I did saw some improvements in the performance. At this point is critical for the voltages to be STABLE and not oscillate. If they do oscillate in time it will kill your GPU. Now the funny part is that even at STOCK some motherboards CANNOT give proper voltage on the PCI-E lane and that's why you see alot of people yelling around about performance and stability issues(including micro-stuttering) or random crashes, their GPU's frying up and so on or just simply poor performance.
To be clear, I am not reffering ONLY to the Maximus series. There are other mobos out there that are awesome and PROPERLY designed (from hw perspective). MSI has some, Asus, ASROCK I believe. The problem is that you will not know how good your MOBO is until you put the multimeter on it. Ofc you also need a rock solid PSU with a high grade of efficiency.
What is special about these mobos is :the voltage phases. Not only for the CPU but for the whole bus lane. Also some Intel controllers are better than others and thus they play a role.
So to be short: You definitely want a stable and good mobo if you go surround. You will most likely need to overclock your CPU above 4.0ghz and probably you will overclock the GPU as well. The increase of mhz (from the frequency) is directly translated from voltage increase. If your mobo isn't designed properly you will get in alot of crappy stuff (drivers not installing properly or crashing etc)
Previously I had a standard Mobo from Asus with 2xGTX 590. Almost two years ago it fried one of my GPUs (that's why now I have only one). So I decided to get a proper Mobo this time. Before the actual hardware change I did some tests:
- Launched a game (be sure the GPUs are 99%) and left it staying there
- Launched Prime95 and put it on the most intensive test(CPU+Memory)
- Left it like this. 3hours later it crashed (and in the process also it managed to corrupt my windows install..)
- Changed the Mobo (same components for the rest)
- Redid the test.
- The test lasted 22hours (went to sleep, then to work and back home)
- When I decided to stop it, it was still running...
You can draw the conclusions yourselves;))
Bottom line is: Don't expect a 50-100 euro Mobo to work flawless in 3D Surround (like I did initially) since in 3D Surround your GPU will mostly be 99% loaded and your CPU(based on the app)
Hope this clarifies what I was referring to originally;))
Best Regards,
Helifax
1x Palit RTX 2080Ti Pro Gaming OC(watercooled and overclocked to hell)
3x 3D Vision Ready Asus VG278HE monitors (5760x1080).
Intel i9 9900K (overclocked to 5.3 and watercooled ofc).
Asus Maximus XI Hero Mobo.
16 GB Team Group T-Force Dark Pro DDR4 @ 3600.
Lots of Disks:
- Raid 0 - 256GB Sandisk Extreme SSD.
- Raid 0 - WD Black - 2TB.
- SanDisk SSD PLUS 480 GB.
- Intel 760p 256GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD.
Creative Sound Blaster Z.
Windows 10 x64 Pro.
etc
My website with my fixes and OpenGL to 3D Vision wrapper:
http://3dsurroundgaming.com
(If you like some of the stuff that I've done and want to donate something, you can do it with PayPal at tavyhome@gmail.com)