which is a better set up

[nvidia_for_life]

hey my friend wanted me 2 ask what set up or what gpu would be better ok he was thinking of eather 3 ASUS Rog Matrix Radeon HD 7970 Platinum in crossfire or 2 evga 680 classified 4gb in 2 way sli and he wanted 2 know if radeon had good drivers and if there cards are good at overclocking or would the evga be better or would 1 ASUS Rog Matrix Radeon HD 7970 Platinum be good or would 1 evga 680 classified 4g be better

[rhyseyness]

I would probably go for the 680, but to be honest I don't think there's much between the two. I just like the 680 for the 4gb memory (for multiple monitors) and CUDA. The 7970 is probably a better overclocker. I can't comment on the drivers with little experience. I think it really depends on your friends usage senario. Hope this helps

[the_devil52]

Generally I would say go with a single card setup but we really need more information. What is he using it for? What wattage is the power supply rated for? What resolution is he using?

If he's using the pc for gaming at 1920x1080 I would say go with a single ASUS matrix 7970.

If he's using it for gaming at 5760x1080 (triple monitors) go for the 680 just because it has 4GB memory but keep in mind that AMD's triple monitor solution is more mature than Nvidia's.

If he's gaming at 5760x1080 and wants to run demanding games like crysis or BF3 on max settings, go with dual or triple cards.

If he goes with triple cards he'll probably need at least an 80plus gold 1000W power supply and keep in mind that multi card solutions are notoriously buggy.

[nvidia_for_life]

well he has a corsair 1200i psu a i5 3570k plays bf3 cod stuff like that and has a asus PB Series PB278Q 27" 5ms

[h=1]2560 x 1440 monitor [/h]

[nvidia_for_life]

he was looking at a evga 680 classified 2 of them or 2 of the msi N680GTX Lightning GeForce GTX 680 2GB 256-bit

[the_devil52]

I would probably go with a single GPU setup. The 7970 is more powerful with the new drivers however the 680 has more memory which helps with higher resolutions. But at that resolution you probably wouldn't notice the difference between a 2gb 680 and a 4gb 680. 7970s are about $100 cheaper where I live and they perform about as well or better than a 680. And if you need more performance you can just grab a second one later on.

[nvidia_for_life]

he side he prob go with a 680 over the 7970 now he just needs to figer out 2gb or 4gb lol

[nvidia_for_life]

he likes the evga 680 classified 4gb he wants 2 of them

[the_devil52]

Ok. If he really wants a 680, go with a 2gb version. They're cheaper and at that resolution there's going to be barely any difference in performance unless hes planning to get more monitors. Also I would REALLY recommend a single card. SLI and Crossfire are really buggy. Some games aren't even playable with multi GPUs and in other games you can get no performance increase at all. I reckon start with one card and if he's not getting enough FPS, you can easily just get another one.

[nvidia_for_life]

Ok. If he really wants a 680, go with a 2gb version. They're cheaper and at that resolution there's going to be barely any difference in performance unless hes planning to get more monitors. Also I would REALLY recommend a single card. SLI and Crossfire are really buggy. Some games aren't even playable with multi GPUs and in other games you can get no performance increase at all. I reckon start with one card and if he's not getting enough FPS, you can easily just get another one.

ok thanks for your help