Widescreen Gaming Forum

I recently put together a budget eyefinity setup using a fairly strong computer I built 2 years ago.

Sapphire 6850x2 (CCC 11.10, latest drivers) - $275
AMD PhenomII x4 @ 3.8 (Was a 3.1x2 BE) - $100
Corsair H50 cooler - $50 on sale
Gigabyte 16/8 (8/8) 790gpt mobo - $125
8GB Corsair memory - $50
Spinpoint F1 1T - $60
Old case and dvd drive
Dell 22" refurb monitors x2 ($230) + Dell 22" monitor I already had.
Ebay displayport -> VGA adapter - $10

Monitors are DP->VGA, DVI->VGA, HDMI->VGA. All montors are running in VGA. Display is smooth without any oddities.

The system is working amazingly! I am not having a single glitch or problem, although the only eyefinity game i have is Dirt3. I am getting 60+ fps on HIGH detail, but when I go to ULTRA, the fps goes to 30ish.

I can already see the writing on the wall, the system can't run ultra now on a mid level title, in a year, I will lucky to get by with low or medium on a demanding title. I want to get BF3 and skyrim.

I am thinking about returning the video cards, spending $150 more for a pair of 6950s. Anything more is out of my price range.

If I upgrade to 6950x2 1GB , will this take me to the next level (high->ultra) with same framerates, or is something else the bottleneck?

I am concerned that maybe the cpu or the limited video memory (1gb each card) is going to limit my eyefinity performance. If so, I will stay with what I have.

I think 1GB VRAM will be the problem.

IF you're not sure what limits your computer install MSI Afterburner! Then you can see in the Log/Graphs if you always have more then 95% GPU Load, and if your Framerates Drop if you have 1024gb VRam used! Just because it needs 1024mb doesn't mean its Vram limited... most games just use all of the VRAM they can get, but you wont see a performance drop.

_________________
We gonna send it to outa space!

Thanks for the test suggestion.

If VRAM is the bottleneck, then I will probably stick with the 6850s I have now and upgrade later to 2G cards, when the price comes down.

The 2G 6950/70s are currently $50 more than the 1G models, and getting two of them would be $600.