Best set-up for 5760 x 1200 Eyefinity???

[rcs2k4]

I have spent the last few weeks sourcing matching monitors for the one I already have to set-up a nice Eyefinity gaming rig. My monitor is nice (and very rare), but was discontinued some time ago. Much googling, eBay, and a dubious payment method for one of them - I now have 3 Samsung SyncMaster T260HD screens.

That's 3 screens in all their 1920 x 1200 goodness. Imagine my disappointment then when I fire up some of my most popular games and I'm seeing a slideshow at the 5760 x 1200 resolution. My current system is in the sig, and I had always thought it was pretty decent among gaming computers, CPU excluded. Seems I was wrong, so guys - Help us out here...

...I can budget a further £400-500 max before the "better half", as she says, will blow one. Something in this PC is causing a bottleneck somewhere, but i don't know if it's graphics related, CPU or a bit of both? I want smooth gameplay at decent quality settings, at native res. I'm playing a lot of BF:3, Black Ops II and NFS: Most Wanted at the moment.

Where's the money best going? New, fast single GPU, multiple cards (my mobo takes Crossfire and SLI), new processor and mobo? I've read so many articles on what's best I am starting to get confused.

[Black Applesauce]

This may be slight overkill, but the Asus radeon 7970 DirectCU II Top edition should work wonders with your setup.

[rcs2k4]

Had thought of one of those, but it's 3 slot wide. If it's plenty fast on it's own (and I dont need 2 of them - they won't fit anyway) then I will stick it to a shortlist.

I've just got some doubts over the FX-8150 holding my existing cards back a bit already, or is that likley to be a non-issue?

[Black Applesauce]

I completely forgot to put your CPU into the equation; would a slight upgrade be possible? The CPU shouldn't bottleneck it too much, but in some cases you will really be wanting a new CPU.

[rcs2k4]

Unless I change the motheroard too, upgrade path in the CPU dept is a little limited. The FX 8350 is only the next "step-up" from where I am now. Should mention, my FX-8150 has had the overclocking living hell stuffed out of it to 4.8 Ghz in normal use @ 1.565v. My attempt to mitigate against any slowdown as much as possible.

A friend of mine has also mentioned that a pair of 6950's should be ok, but they are probably running out of video ram. I had not considered this...

[JustAnEngineer]

A friend of mine has also mentioned that a pair of 6950's should be ok, but they are probably running out of video ram. I had not considered this...

They have 2 GiB of memory, correct? Try turning down anti-aliasing to save a bit of graphics memory and see if you notice a major difference in frame rates.

[Black Applesauce]

I was reading online that two 6950s should definitely suffice; I just assumed your pair were faulty/aging. Try engineer's idea. Turning down AA should help.

[rcs2k4]

A friend of mine has also mentioned that a pair of 6950's should be ok, but they are probably running out of video ram. I had not considered this...

They have 2 GiB of memory, correct? Try turning down anti-aliasing to save a bit of graphics memory and see if you notice a major difference in frame rates.

Yes they do. To keep things short, i've tinkered with AA and texture res and LOD in some games I still play and have got smooth frame rates in NFS: Most Wanted (2012), Crysis 2 and Black Ops II.

Battlefield 3 is another matter. I'm at a mixture of low and medium detail and it doesn't feel smooth enough? The reported FPS hovers between 18-36, so there's noticable jitter and it has crashed on occasion. It never used to, but i've noticed it's pushing all 8 modules of the dozer to near 100% usage, but crucially not loading both GPU's 100%. It actually only uses 60-70% across both, so if logic is right - im being held back elsewhere?

I also think the OC might not be 100% stable 24/7 when all modules are fully loaded, but i'll look into that as a seperate issue.

It's only one game, so no biggie I guess - but i'm always curious to tinker and find out why performance is "off a cliff" so much.

[mortifiedPenguin]

Try turning down anti-aliasing to save a bit of graphics memory and see if you notice a major difference in frame rates.

My experience with Eyefinity is that the experience tends to be better when sitting back slightly farther (similar to how you might do with a console and a TV but not quite that far back). AA should be somewhat less of an issue at this range so I'd try that first, though I'm sure a few games with poor alpha transparency may still look a little jagged at times.

Battlefield 3 is another matter. I'm at a mixture of low and medium detail and it doesn't feel smooth enough? The reported FPS hovers between 18-36, so there's noticable jitter and it has crashed on occasion. It never used to, but i've noticed it's pushing all 8 modules of the dozer to near 100% usage, but crucially not loading both GPU's 100%. It actually only uses 60-70% across both, so if logic is right - im being held back elsewhere?

It's been a few months since I've actively played BF3 but when I upgraded my rig last year, I made a few observations:
1. My brother's 6950x2 config was also a stutterfest even on medium/high settings
2. Three 6950's won't do the trick either - only a marginal (nearly imperceptable) improvement
3. A single 7950 isn't enough to run BF3 at 6408x1200 smoothly on Ultra but is okay-ish on medium/high
4. A single 7970 also isn't enough to run BF3 at 6408x1200 smoothly on Ultra but good on high
5. Two 7950's will almost run Ultra smoothly but better on high (70-80% scaling)
6. Two 7970's will run Ultra just fine (90-100% scaling)

Our conclusions were that XFire scaling on 79xx cards is far better than 69xx cards for BF3. Admittedly, I don't have any hard numbers any more but perhaps that helps.

[StuG]

Your CPU will always bottleneck you a bit, but it shouldn't be anything too extreme.

[auxy]

Sooo, let's start here:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/GPU12/477

Closest thing they have to your setup is a 6990, which is not really too far from what you have. The 6990 pulls ~36FPS (average!) in triple-wide 1200p with High settings, so clearly it's going to be a stutterfest -- remember, the 6990 is a crossfire-on-a-stick board. I think BF3 is just too demanding for your GPUs. ｡：ﾟ(｡ﾉω＼｡)ﾟ･｡

Within your budget, a single 7970GE or 680 would be a lot better. While the average framerate (as you can see on Anandtech Bench) isn't going to be much higher, doing it with a single GPU will make the "felt" framerate effectively double, as you will be eliminating most stutter. (＾▽＾)

Of course, a GTX TITAN would be the *best* option, heh-heh!. (*・艸・)