Is Nvidia Surround really that bad?

[wizpig64]

Linus has in the past said that AMD's Eyefinity software is superior to Nvidia's Surround solution, mostly because Eyefinity has been around much longer. However, I'm pretty set on running dual GPUs, and it's also the case that AMD's Crossfire is pretty inferior to SLI, due to the similar case of Nvidia having a much more mature solution with regards to frame pacing. I not yet convinced that shelling out for a GTX 780 is the right solution, because it will have lower performance than dual GK104/Tahiti chips, depending on game engines and whatnot. (also I admit that the black and white EVGA 670 would look killer with the rest of my system)

 

One odd thing I do know is that Nvidia recommends identical monitors, and I already own two of my eventual three monitors that are close but not identical (Dell U2211H, U2212HM 21.5" IPS screens). They have pretty similar specs though (same response time etc) so would this really matter? I would think this is really only an issue for stereoscopic 3d surround, which I am not interested in.

 

Specifically asking for opinions from people who have tried Nvidia's setup, or both, at 5760x1080 resolutions. I've asked on reddit but most of the responses are "Crossfire seems fine to me" and then they shrug when I show them the PCPer frame rating graphs. So hopefully someone here can give me a straight answer regarding triple monitors without defaulting to "AMD can do no wrong, they'll come out with drivers to fix that in 8 months"? /rant

 

And in case anyone asks, I'm planning on getting a Haswell i5, or an i7 for video editing if I can get the microcenter price, and I'm most interested in shooter performance like BF3/4.

 

Thanks!

[Hyydrah]

I'm not so sure about Crossfire being inferior to SLI. It tends to have better frame rate scaling. As for Nvidia Surround versus Eyefinity, I can't comment on that.

[HatlessChimp]

Ive had sli titans and sli 680s both in surround and Ive never ever had a problem. Here is my rig now

 

http://www.overclock.net/products/asus-vg248qe-24-144hz-1ms-gtg-widescreen-led-backlight-lcd-3d-monitor-built-in-speakers/reviews/6056

 

 

Ive only heard bad things about AMD but dont take things people say for real on the net. You basically have to do a heap of research from different sites then decide. Im currently looking to go 5x1 portrait when the 8970s arrive but I will have to wait and see if they still have issues with this.

[mvitkun]

Nvidia Surround is by no means bad,Linus never claims it to be.He simply claims that AMD Eyefinity is easier to work with,and set up.both work fine.

 

as to the monitors,most likely they want you to have similar monitors to avoid discrepancies with refresh rate. (so that your not trying to run one in 75 Hz, another in 60 Hz,and another in 120Hz).pretty sure yours are fine.

 

as to the color scheme thing,the ACX cooler is black and white as well.so a GTX 780 would look pretty sweet as well.

you may also want to consider a GTX 770,$50 more than a GTX 670 with a good amount of extra performance.

[wizpig64]

Thank you all for your insight!

 

Ive had sli titans and sli 680s both in surround and Ive never ever had a problem. Here is my rig now

 

http://www.overclock.net/products/asus-vg248qe-24-144hz-1ms-gtg-widescreen-led-backlight-lcd-3d-monitor-built-in-speakers/reviews/6056

 

 

Ive only heard bad things about AMD but dont take things people say for real on the net. You basically have to do a heap of research from different sites then decide. Im currently looking to go 5x1 portrait when the 8970s arrive but I will have to wait and see if they still have issues with this.

 

Yeah the problem is that when I google for this kind of stuff, 80% of the results are forum posts where there's no way of telling who's being a fanboy and who's speaking from actual experience. And the other 20% are articles that don't go into the depth I want anyway! That is a pretty sweet setup, I'm glad I got monitors that also swivel, though debezelling them seems scary.

 

Nvidia Surround is by no means bad,Linus never claims it to be.He simply claims that AMD Eyefinity is easier to work with,and set up.both work fine.

 

as to the monitors,most likely they want you to have similar monitors to avoid discrepancies with refresh rate. (so that your not trying to run one in 75 Hz, another in 60 Hz,and another in 120Hz).pretty sure yours are fine.

 

as to the color scheme thing,the ACX cooler is black and white as well.so a GTX 780 would look pretty sweet as well.

you may also want to consider a GTX 770,$50 more than a GTX 670 with a good amount of extra performance.

 

 

I'm pretty sure the ACX is black and silver, not white, but it honestly still would look great. I'm excited to see what manufactures will do with the upcoming 760 Ti too, depending on whether they stick to the 670 PCB or if they bring down the titan PCB yet again. I'm definitely liking the extra features that have come with the 700 series, like fan speed smoothing and potentially game capture.

 

[ALXAndy]

I ran surround about 18 months ago and it was a pain. It was a pain because you had to use SLI to use it (unless you had a 295 dual PCB that was SLI any way) and that meant relying on SLI *and* game support.

 

I've not tried it since but I heard it has improved loads, however, there are few games that support it (or Eyefinity) properly and most need hacking around and look pretty dire.

 

I couldn't get my head around the stretched look on the side monitors either. Some love it, I hated it. Made everything look closer than it was which was a nightmare for games like Fallout 3.

[mvitkun]

I'm pretty sure the ACX is black and silver, not white, but it honestly still would look great. I'm excited to see what manufactures will do with the upcoming 760 Ti too, depending on whether they stick to the 670 PCB or if they bring down the titan PCB yet again. I'm definitely liking the extra features that have come with the 700 series, like fan speed smoothing and potentially game capture.

game capture will extend throughout all of kepler,600 and 700 series

[david cassar]

I ran surround about 18 months ago and it was a pain. It was a pain because you had to use SLI to use it (unless you had a 295 dual PCB that was SLI any way) and that meant relying on SLI *and* game support.

 

I've not tried it since but I heard it has improved loads, however, there are few games that support it (or Eyefinity) properly and most need hacking around and look pretty dire.

 

I couldn't get my head around the stretched look on the side monitors either. Some love it, I hated it. Made everything look closer than it was which was a nightmare for games like Fallout 3.

The 600 and 700 series allow you to use a single cards finally.

[ALXAndy]

The 600 and 700 series allow you to use a single cards finally.

 

Yeah I know :)

 

They also fix the issue with the start button being all the way over to the left and allow you to use the middle screen as the main screen with the two side ones as extensions. It didn't do that before so at a desktop level it was a nightmare :S

[R4STABAN]

It's mostly ok for productivity - most applications will maximise to a single screen (even though windows sees all 3 as one big monitor), although some others (usually video) will span across all 3 when maximised which is naff.

 

The only game I have played that didn't look rubbish was GRID (original), but I don't have time to play many games. The menu in the game was ruined though.

 

Playing any game involves first spending AGES making it compatible with surround/eyefinity by tweaking files or downloading 'fixes'.

 

Basically, the game experience is a load of overhyped rubbish.

[klepp0906]

YES!

 

i built my newest pc as a dream pc type build.  Was stuck with a Q6600 and 8800gtx for FAR too long.

 

I spent 10,000 on this set up and i have never had buyers remorse like this.  To be fair, it would work perfectly if it werent for the surround.  The surround does work ok in some games when you can GET it TO work in said games ;p

 

Full of bugs, performance clashing between windows 8.1, specific games, surround, and sli.  Nviidia charges  you a monster price premium and provides next to 0 customer relations/support and has awful quality control/upper management - the prioritization is unfathomable (lack thereof rather)

 

I cant say enough about how negative the experience has been and thats coming from an NVIDIA FANBOY.  (this was before I built this pc lol. had always ran single display, single card)

 

To that end, if anyone wants to swap some titans for some r2xxxx straight up or with cash or partial or w/e depending on h/w obviously, im open to it. 

 

I built this pc specifically for ffxiv and im done playing it at 25fps with 4 titans.   Nvidia has confirmed they can reproduce the issue, but have stopped all contact with me. (last heard from/got a reply from a conversation i initiated about a month ago)  Here I am 3 driver releases since it was confirmed and they dnot touch it.   

They have added 3d profiles for games ive never heard of though.   Very very thoughtful of them.  Meanwhlie my cards have just become outdated and ive yet to use them properly one time. 

 

(guess im not making the best case for buying them eh? LOL) 

 

To be honest, less than 4 should be ok, and non surround should be excellent.  But if your running SLI AND surround.. stay far far away from nvidia (atleast w/ windows 8.1)  I'm hearing windows 7 has no problems but are we seriously supposed to run an old OS to get an ancient technology working properly?

(final note: fire whomever at microsoft thought it was a good idea to only allow you to boot to safe mode FROM WITHIN WINDOWS on 8/8.1 wth!?)