G'day all. Seems to be a month of upgrades at the moment.

 

I'm gonna get on this band wagon as mine has been giving me grief for a couple of months now with a few issues but is now

starting to become intolerable.

 

Am looking to spend around the $2.5k mark and the biggest question I have is am I better off buying one large GPU or 2

smaller ones? The two I'm considering is the Gigabyte GeForece GTX-580 (2 of @ 1.5Gb) or a single Gigabyte GeForce GTX-590

(3Gb @ $990).

 

Hard-drives, PSU and case will all be rolled over from the current build. Have 3 monitors connected to the GPU which is why

I'm looking towards the high level of GPU as I like eye candy and lots of it.

 

[ATTACH]584.vB[/ATTACH]

 

Any advice regarding this would be much appreciated.

 

Cheers,

Nuf

hehe, we are all hyping up for bf3...... money seems to be no object for you lol.....

 

through my adventure's, looks good afaik. but im waiting for closer to release (prices and/or new tech)!!

 

pretty much what you have seems to be the ceiling for current tech (cpu ram mobo - within reason).higher speed ram is becoming obsolete (useless)??

mobos vary with features? maybe one of you tech'ies can point out the very best mobo (price vs perf vs build Q). seems to trip ppl up a bit cos theres soooooooooooooo many...

 

as for 2x gpu's id say 1. but 2 will certainly spread the load. i dont know how they push info about.

 

 

 

i dont think you could go wrong either way - lucky sod!:blowup:

i can only offer advice in terms of GPU..

 

when you look at the 590, both of the chips have been throttled back to bring the TDP down.. compared to the 6990, both chips are the same as a 6970..

 

how are you going to use this computer?? triple monitors??

Might be a silly q, but you sure the mobo has 6 DIMM slots? If not, you could save a few coins and get 2x8Gb kits instead.

 

[edit] - if this is the one,

http://www.gigabyte.com.au/fileupload/product/2/3851/4270.jpg

then yeah, revisit your ram choice as you'll have a couple of sticks left over and be all like

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRmxcs-aFQAW5FvzTIRxBMwYGaOyn-MjZu6Gek7OU_U2Y7xyogd9g

 

[editedit] - brain fart, saw the quantity is only 1, so you'll be able to use all 3 DIMMs, but you wont be able to take advantage of dual channel as you'll have one left over.

just one of the things i dont get, how is 2 graphics cards better than one, is it one for each screen or something?

just one of the things i dont get, how is 2 graphics cards better than one, is it one for each screen or something?

 

they work together and improves performance of about 50%?? idk correct me if im wrong

they work together and improves performance of about 50%?? idk correct me if im wrong

yeah something like that. they split the load between themselves (kinda like a dual core cpu) to help speed up work. you dont get a 100% improvement like some people think, its more like what you suggest there, around 50-65% generally

I would go 2 x GTX580

 

apparently a GTX590 aint that much better than a 580

Change ram to a 2x4gb kit, which will allow you to run it in dual channel, as the motherboard supports. The kits with 3 sticks are for the x58 chipset (i7 920, 950, etc) which run triple channel memory. I highly doubt you will need more than 8gb of ram. I have 6gb and even when running intensive games such as Metro have never topped more than 70% usage.

 

Change SSD to an Intel 320 series, they are more reliable than the corsair units and have a 5 year warranty over corsairs 2.

 

If you are running 3 monitors it would be worth while looking into a 3gb GTX580. That is a GTX580 with 3gb of ram rather than 1.5. The reason for this is at larger resolutions more gfx memory is required to provide high frame rates with AA enabled. As far as brand I would suggest EVGA. 2-3 months ago I was choosing between a 590, 6990, 2x580's and 2x570's. The 590 has too many issues with heat and generally crappy performance. The 6990, while good, is too hot and noisy. I narrowed it down to SLI580's or 570's, and only ended up with the 580's because I got them for a very good price. If you need to meet a budget SLI570's will give 90-95% the performance of SLI580's while being a couple hundred dollars cheaper.

 

You can also drop the cpu back to a 2500k. In gaming there is only a very, very small difference between the 2500k and 2600k, which is not justified by the price increase. The only real benefit you would see with the 2600k would be if you were doing lots of graphics rendering, photo shopping and alike.

 

I notice you currently do not have a power supply listed, what unit are you planning on using? Two 580's, if you go that route, draw quite a bit of power.

 

You should also look into an aftermarket cpu cooler so you can overclock the 2500k and get the most out of it.

Point taken about the RAM, have updated to a dual channel kit.

 

The PSU is a ThermalTake 1200W picked up for a bargain not too long ago.

 

Primary use at the moment is gaming, though in the near future will be turning towards graphic design/rendering as another career path.