The crazy steam deals that have been going on have really gotten me in the mood for gaming. Sadly, my nVidia 7600GT has not been up to the challenge. I was looking at this guy to replace it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150448&nm_mc=OTC-pr1c3grabb3r&cm_mmc=OTC-pr1c3grabb3r-_-Video+Cards-_-XFX-_-14150448

Any thoughts on it? I've been itching to get a 3 monitor setup going.

Looks nice to me, and it seems to have decent reviews. How are you proposing to go trimonitor, pairing this with your current card? As per my recent back-and-forth with Kllrnohj, you're aware that won't permit tri-monitor fullscreening, right?

XFX cards ftw!

I'm thinking about upgrading from my pair of 9800GTX+s & build a 3-monitor setup whenever I next come across a large sum of cash.

Uh, Kerm? That is a 5xxx series card - it has Eyefinity. It CAN do triple monitor fullscreen gaming. Just like your 5970 you won't freaking run can.

@Foamy: The 5750 is a little weak, the 5770 is pretty good though, for around the same amount: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131328&cm_re=5770-_-14-131-328-_-Product

That said, don't expect to run modern games at triple screen resolutions. That is just a crap ton of pixels to ask of that card. Older and less demanding games would be fine (like, say, Source engine games, or games from a couple of years ago), but anything more demanding will struggle. If you want to do modern games at triple screen resolutions, a 5850 is the cheapest you could go (~$300), but you'd be forced to turn down some settings.

Also note that one of the 3 monitors *MUST* be connected via DisplayPort, which gives you 3 options:

1) Use a monitor with native DisplayPort. They aren't as common, but this is the least troublesome method
2) Use a DP->DVI adapter. *Must* be an active adapter, which costs about $100.
3) Use a DP->VGA adapter. All of these are active adapters, start at about $20. Cheapest option, but it is VGA.

The 5770 only has 512mb while the 5750 is 1gb. Is that to be any concern?



Oh, my monitors don't match, so I wasn't planning on gaming across all 3. I just want them for work. I'm more than happy just gaming on one.



You mean this just for the 5750, not the 5770, right?

That's another thing that bugs me about my 5970. I don't understand why they can't have a third set of timing hardware so you can use a passive DP->DVI adapter.

@Kllrnohj: Would one of these two be better than the one you posted?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150447
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150462

Double the memory for $10 seemed like a good idea. And what is the difference between the those two?



Also, it's been a while since I've done hardware upgrades. Would anyone mind idiot-checking my specs to make sure it'll work?

mobo: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131025
proc: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?item=n82e16819115004
power supply: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817103941
RAM: (I think I'm going to order the same set again when I get the graphics card to take me up to 4gb) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231098

Nice, that's my exact motherboard! I've been very happy with it, except that the second PCIe slot is very very close to the PSU in my case, and the third PCIe slot is unusably close. It has two physical BIOS chips, one of which is a spare, so when I torched my BIOS with a bad Flash, the fix was as simple as swapping two 8-pin chips out of their sockets.

Cool. I'll have one of these aswell in my new computer (though it's not XFX).

My bad - get the 1GB model.



What is the resolution of the monitor you'll be gaming on?



No, that is for *ALL* 5xxx series cards. If you want triple monitors hooked up to a single 5xxx series card, you *MUST* use either a native DP monitor or an *active* adapter.



The difference looks to simply be one of cooling. Get the cheaper one. And yes, those are both better than the one I posted. Seems you really want XFX, huh?



Is that what you currently have or what? If so, the 5770 will work just fine. You could even keep your current card to run your 3rd (or 4th) monitor to avoid using an adapter if you want.



No die space available. If Eyefinity hadn't been secretly developed, it too would have gotten the axe for a smaller die.

1920 x 1080


Not necessarily. The first one I posted was linked to from tom's hardware. Then UD seemed to be a fan of them, so that's why I chose the other 2.


Yeah, that's what I have.


Well, my current card is an nVidia. Won't that give me some funky driver issues?

Not if you have Windows 7. I've spent the past 13 months with a 9800GTX and a Radeon x1950 sitting side-by-side in my Win 7 x64 Enterprise machine with only a bluescreen every two or three days.

A single 5770 1GB can drive that acceptably as long as you aren't expecting high levels of AA and 60FPS+

I assume ~$150 is more or less the limit of what you want to spend?

Also, have you OC'd your CPU?



XFX is a good company, but you can save a little by getting a different brand.



Ideally no, but it would be better to stick with a single vendor from roughly the same generation. If you are OK with running one of your monitors from VGA, sell your Nvidia card and spend $20 for the DP->VGA adapter.

Yeah, I really can't go much over that.


No. I have a pretty nice CPU cooler on it, though, so that's definitely an option if it seems to be bottlenecking my system.



Most likely what I'll do; thanks.

I guess that would have to be my solution for the 5970 as well. :/

Really? I would think the adapter would be worth it if you already dropped $700 on the video card..

What if your lab had been the one experimenting with different GPGPUs?

Ahh... so THAT'S how/why you got a 5970, it all makes sense now.

How's ATI graphics card support under Linux these days? I might end up buying foamy3's card after seeing the price & specs...

Before the 5xxx series came out I was running a 4850 under Linux - worked great. Closed source driver works good, and the open source one is coming along very nicely - even has 3d acceleration on some cards fast enough for Compiz and the like. The drivers are also now on the same monthly release cycle as the Windows drivers.