6990-6970 Trifire VS GTX580 Tri-SLI CLASHED

[skeletor]

Gtx 580 hits the limit due to its 1.5gb vram (only at ultra high resolutions beyond 1080p) and many reviewers have stated this.

All tests are done in apples-to-apples configuration at the exact same settings. Please note that the resolution and AA settings used were not a bottleneck to any setup here. We made sure we were not running into VRAM capacity limitations at these settings, so performance is being correctly compared and we are not hitting any VRAM walls at these tested settings.

read this. ^^

 

[Skud]

Skud also mentioned that CF will settle down to the lowest GPU clock frequency of the two cards. This thing is not true, both of them can work on their separate freq
Skud is right about the Vram allocation...each of the card will have their own memory to access.

If I remember properly, you can change the clock frequencies separately, most probably since 4000 series, but that will open the door to more micro stuttering and ultimately hamper gameplay performance.

 

[vickybat]

Okay i just want to know how can they say its not hitting the vram wall? Afaik not only aa and other post rendering effects require vram but also its a necessity when you render shader heavy games at ultra high resolutions.

The gpu fetches more and more instructions from a larger vram and renders simultaneously thus reducing performance downtime. Now increasing a resolution significantly hampers this directly and vram shortage will lead to gpu bottleneck.

My question is 3 gtx 580 1.5gb can beat 3 6970 cfx at 1920x1080 or even 2560x 1200.

But why it can't perform as well in 5760x1200? Forget aa , ssao and others. I think vram matters here. Those guys can test a 3gb trisli versions and prove us all wrong that vram doesn't matter here. But they won't.

I am not saying the review is unfair cause the 1.5 gb version of 580 is available widely and not the 3gb one as it wasn't part of nvidia's reference model.

Gpu scaling largely depends on alternate frame rendering, supertiling (cfx only) , split frame rendering and vram. All these factors matter and vram has a large role to play.

Compare a 6950 2gb trifire with a 6950 1g trifire and you will know. The 2gb version will lead significantly @ 5760x1200 despite both of them sharing same die. Tomshardware mentioned in their review that 580 was running into vram limitations at 2560x1200. So there's no doubt that 5760x1200 is too much for it for competing against 6970 trifire.

Check the following:

[YOUTUBE]WpC_4JH05Yk[/YOUTUBE]

Two 6990 in cfx vs evga 580 3 way sli @ 2560x1600

[YOUTUBE]yzb_fjjVlYQ[/YOUTUBE]

^^ That's 4gpu's vs 3 If we put some simple logic here rather than blindly believing those hardocp guys, we find that 3gf110 dies are putting well against 4 cayman dies at 2560x1600. They will definitely beat a 6990+6970 trifire at these resolutions. But its performance goes down when 3 monitors come into play. So i see a clear vram deficit that hampers scaling of the 580's while rendering shader heavy games like metro, crysis etc.
I am not the one thats gonna blindly believe those hardocp people that vram isn't a bottleneck because they are saying so and not even those silly user comments in that site.

 

[tkin]

VRAM is actually the bottleneck here, no doubt about that, and in multi gpu mode the game does not see the total memory, just the vram of the primary card, so the vram is the only issue here, not scaling.

See the review numbers:
HD6970:
Newegg.com - Computer Hardware, Video Cards & Video Devices, Desktop Graphics / Video Cards, Radeon HD 6000 series, Radeon HD 6970
GTX580:
Newegg.com - Computer Hardware, Video Cards & Video Devices, Desktop Graphics / Video Cards, GeForce GTX 500 series, GeForce GTX 580 (Fermi)

The most reviewed 580 has more reviews(hence I think better sales) than the top two 6970s combined, so despite the price considerations the 580s are outselling the 6970.

Again:
HD6950:
Newegg.com - Computer Hardware, Video Cards & Video Devices, Desktop Graphics / Video Cards, Radeon HD 6000 series, Radeon HD 6950
GTX570:
Newegg.com - Computer Hardware, Video Cards & Video Devices, Desktop Graphics / Video Cards, GeForce GTX 500 series, GeForce GTX 570 (Fermi)

Now before anyone jumps up and says reviews do not means sales or vice versa, I've observed before that the most sold products have more reviews.

 

[Joker]

many gtx 570 reviews might be about vrm failures lol.

reviewer has said that he didnt let vram bottleneck come into place in sli..so no point in arguing abt this.

all what matters is rawpower which is a combination of everything. nvidia just got thrashed in this review every way u look at it - power consumption, performance, price, value etc.

also wait for hd 6990 cfx drivers to mature before posting videos.

 

[tkin]

I don't remember any review that said 570 vrm failing, maybe you mean 590? If you push vcores to abnormal levels vrms will fail, true for any card, my 5850's vrm failed when I was Oc'ing it.

 

[damngoodman999]

I don't remember any review that said 570 vrm failing, maybe you mean 590? If you push vcores to abnormal levels vrms will fail, true for any card, my 5850's vrm failed when I was Oc'ing it.

Yes , GTX 570 VRM is very poor which is old one @ the time of release Due to OCing / heat , now the new ones are well which comes with aftermarket cooler !

Source - Dead 570's (Have you killed yours?) - XtremeSystems Forums

 

[vickybat]

many gtx 570 reviews might be about vrm failures lol.

reviewer has said that he didnt let vram bottleneck come into place in sli..so no point in arguing abt this.

all what matters is rawpower which is a combination of everything. nvidia just got thrashed in this review every way u look at it - power consumption, performance, price, value etc.

also wait for hd 6990 cfx drivers to mature before posting videos.

Check the following thread:

Gtx 580 3gb sli VS 6970 2gb trifire

The guys is a member of hardforum and tested in a 3x30inch multimonitor setup. See it for yourself if you have any doubt on sli scaling.

Scaling has nothing to do with that hardocp review. It was clearly a vram bottleneck.

A small quote from that guy :

My largest complaints originally with the 580s was the severe lack of VRAM and the DX9 portrait mode FPS limit bug. Those were total deal killers. I am glad to report that both are solved with these latest cards and drivers! I've included a few Tri-6970 benchmarks that did run but deleted the Quad-6970 line as everything besides Resident Evil 5 crashed (RE5 also allowed the sole Quad-Xfire benchmark). The Palit 3GB 580's where modestly clocked to 840/2050. Afterburner 2.1.0 Beta 7 can adjust voltages on these non-reference cards. All benchmarks are with driver texture quality settings at maximum, 16x AF forced with 2x MSAA.

 

[tkin]

Yes , GTX 570 VRM is very poor which is old one @ the time of release Due to OCing / heat , now the new ones are well which comes with aftermarket cooler !

Source - Dead 570's (Have you killed yours?) - XtremeSystems Forums

LOL, the first post says the guy took a soldering iron to his 570 and volt modded it, maybe that's why it popped? Try volt modding your 6970 and see how long it survives when you add, say 0.5 volt to it. When building gpu they don't keep in mind that some people want to run their gpus from the wall using a 110v input

 

[damngoodman999]

LOL, the first post says the guy took a soldering iron to his 570 and volt modded it, maybe that's why it popped? Try volt modding your 6970 and see how long it survives when you add, say 0.5 volt to it. When building gpu they don't keep in mind that some people want to run their gpus from the wall using a 110v input

Not only that but lot

[Solved] Fried Palit GTX 570 and poor warranty response - any advice? - Graphics-Cards - Graphic-Displays

GTX 570: VRM phase issue and brands : buildapc

But trust me These issues are not with the Asus Direct CU II , Twin Frozr II/III , etc ... These VRM are really gr8 runs excellent when its OCed

 

[vickybat]

^^ Yes 570 has been for a while now and lot of board makers have come out with their non-reference version of the card which has good vrm design.

So any buyer going for 570 should stick with a non-reference card like palit sonic, msi twin frozr series, asus direct cu II, Zotac amp etc.

 

[Skud]

Some Quad GFX slug-fest @ HardwareHeaven:-

Zotac NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 - Quad SLI Review - Introduction


And some triple monitor gaming performance @ TechSpot:-

Triple Monitor Gaming: GeForce GTX 590 vs. Radeon HD 6990 - TechSpot Reviews


HardOCP has updated the tri-SLI/triFire results with with a Sandy Bridge 4.8 GHz system, Check it out:-

NVIDIA 3-Way SLI and AMD Tri-Fire Redux

And the discussions on the same can be found here (its already running at 20 pages!!!):-

NVIDIA GeForce 3-Way SLI and Radeon Tri-Fire Review @ [H]

 

[skeletor]

so, it seems like VRAM wasn't the factor after all. For some reason GTX 580 SLI gained hugely from the i7-2600k @ 4.8ghz and wins. Crossfire faced a penalty in some games.

Verdict: Don't compare until you have mature drivers out. True for both.

 

[vickybat]

^^ The nf200 chip also mattered somewhat in terms of available bandwidth. The extra lanes really helped multigpu setups. Nvidia architecture is clearly favouring sandybridge and we have seen some whooping performance increments from the 580 trisli setup.

Talking about drivers, the tests included the same drivers as the previous test. They were unchanged.

 

[mohiuddin]

Why so confused?
Not only vram making them (580) weak,
it is know fact that amd cards (both in single and cfx) get a bit less hit with resolution increase.
In case of 6850 1gb vs gtx460 1gb, at below hd resolution 460 did well, but in hd or more high resolution 6850 do better and with 11.4 driver at high aa and res, it (along with 6870,69xxhd) got 8~20% performance in many titles.cheers, we hope more in 11.5

 

[vickybat]

^^ That's not the case with gtx 580. It scales well and equal to its amd counterpart.

 

[damngoodman999]

so, it seems like VRAM wasn't the factor after all. For some reason GTX 580 SLI gained hugely from the i7-2600k @ 4.8ghz and wins. Crossfire faced a penalty in some games.

Verdict: Don't compare until you have mature drivers out. True for both.

Bingo ! Ati if they release the best drivers for any of their cards they can hold the phenom for the GPU also !

 

[mohiuddin]

^^ That's not the case with gtx 580. It scales well and equal to its amd counterpart.

care to explain why? Why 580 scale better than other structurally similer fermi series?
Common meet the fact, 6xxx just became awesome defeating sli at highres indeed.amit it.

 

[tkin]

care to explain why? Why 580 scale better than other structurally similer fermi series?
Common meet the fact, 6xxx just became awesome defeating sli at highres indeed.amit it.

Only applicable for 699x due to 2GB VRAM, else fermi is faster.

 

[rchi84]

Anyone who denies that Nvidia holds the performance crown, is floating in a cloud of denial.

Where AMD is beating Nvidia is in the value segment. And going by the updated tests, if it costs 400 $ more to get 30% better frame rates(when compared to the 6990-6970 Xfire), then it's a huge difference, in terms of budgets.

Man, I wish Nvidia allowed vendors to slap on 1.5 Gb Vram on a 570. Would love to see a fight between the 6990-6970 combo against a 570 Tri-SLI setup..