3 Screens, 120 fps and a GTX 680

A

auluftwaffles

New Member
So here is what I want:
1 screen with 120 hz, I'm going to buy the samsung S27A950D
2. 2x 24" screens, already have them
3. The 120hz screen will be used for gaming, and I want games to output 120 fps

So to achieve this here is the plan:

1. Buy a nVidia GTX 680
2. Hook up the 120 hz to the 680
3. Hook up the other 2 24" screens to the 660 I have

Here is my question:
Will this setup do what I want?

Also, could I just sell the 660 and hook up the 3 creens to the 680 without a big performance hit?
 
I do not think that you can run 2 active video cards at once like that. By active, I mean outputting display from both. The only 2 ways that I know of to run double video cards is SLI and Physx. Neither of which would help you.

You can run 3 displays from your 680 easy enough, but if all three are not 120hz I am not sure if they would play nice together.
 
You wont get 120 fps from a single 680 with 3 monitors. You would struggle with SLi.

You cannot run two graphics card in the way you describe.

You will be forced to run all at 60hz and you may get that FPS.
 
all comments posted thus far are incorrect. you can run any nvidia card with any other nvidia card, just not in sli, and do not connect the sli bridge to the cards. in the nvidia controle panel, under "comfigure surround, physx" it will display both cards that your running. in here you will be able to dedicate the 680 as the primary where it should show your 120hz monitor hooked up to it. and then the 660 showing the 2 x 24 in screens. you will be able to keep this defualt config for what you are wanting to do. under "change resolution", you will see all three of your screens, and can click each icon, and then set the resolution accordingly. i strongly recommend using a 1080p resolution for all 3 screens.

now, in regaurds to me knowing this, its because i currently am running a gtx 670 and a gtx 480 together on the same motherboard, but with no sli bridge connected. (doing this would fry my cards possibly). i have my 480 dedicated as physx, and have just my 40in hd tv hooked up to the 670. but i have also used a configuration the same as what the OP is describing, and if he checks what i described above he will be good to go.

as far as the 680 being able to run the 120hz screen at 120 fps consistantly? well, deffinatly not with 3 screens connected to it, but i know thats not what your wanting to do. hooking up your 2x24in screens (1080p) to the 660,should pose no performance hit, and your good here, even if they are 60hz, since when you game, they wont be displaying any game graphics. they will either be blank, or display your desktop, which is what the 660 is meant to do for you. but however, assuming that the 120hz screen is a 1080p resolution, in most games it should maintane 120fps, especialy if you can use evga card and precision x, cuase it has a feature in it that lets you set a sort of fps goal, and digitally overclocks the card as needed in order to acheive said goal. works pretty well that ive seen so far. but it doesnt alwasy work, so their will be games that will keep it under 120 fps, but turning down a few settings just a tad, will resolve this issue.
and lastly, the reason i say it would be adeal if you ran 1080p on all 3 screens is for 1, to simply make all 3 screens look consistant, and 2, running a resolution higher than 1080p on the 680 and wanting 120fps would not happen.

also, if you hook all 3 screens up to the 680, i do not think it would degrade performance, cuz the 680 should display them as blank or your desktop, and keep the 120hz screen on as your gaming screen. you may have to adjust a setting in the nvidia conrole panel inder "configure surround, physx" settings, and be sure nvidia surround is turned off. you should try it like this with out the 660 in the computer, and see if there is a difference compared to the 2 x 24 in hooked up to the 660. if not, which im thinking there wont be a difference since i once had this 40in and a 25 in hooked up to the 480 alone at one point, and all the games i played , layed the same if i had the 25 in plugged in or not, then id say you could probably sell the 660.

hope all this info helped some people out there.
and if any one thinks i may be incorrect about anything please comment.
 
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To the above poster...the 192 bit memory bus on the 660 series cards is a heavy bottleneck. It will not perform as well as the 670 or 680 and by no means will hit 120fps in most games, espically with AA enabled and espically with multiple screens.
 
reread his post. hes not going to be using the 660 for gaming. he is simply using it to run 2 screens that will display his desktop. so there for the 192 bit bus has no bearing whatsoever when gaming since the 680 will be the only card rendering the game on the 120hz screen, which will be the only screen hooked up to the 680. since the sli bridge is not connected, plus the fact that they arnt even compatible in that respect, each card will run independant of the other when he puts a game on. nvidia controle panel will configure the cards to allow the 680 to run the rendering of games since its the primary card, and will also dedicate the other card (660) to run the 2 screens as desktops only, so while playing a goame on the 120hz screen which is hooked up to the 680, the 660 will display his desktop on the 2 x 24 in screens. he could then have for example, windows media player playing music up on one 24 in screen, and say temp monitors ect on the other 24 in screen. since the 680 is the only card responsible for the rendering of the game, since it sthe only primary card, it will have no obligation to the other 2 screens. the 660's job is to handle the 2x24 in screens, the 680 job id to handle the 120hz screen and any rendering of games. i really wish people would read thouroughly through original posts, cuz yet another one responded with misunderstanding of what this thread is about.
 
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Playing EVERY game at a constant 120FPS may be the only problem here..... even with overclocking.

The 680 is a beast of a card, but there are a few games that it doesnt like.... in my case, its Arma2, GTA4, and Shift 2. All of these games will only run at around 45FPS constant at 1080p (no AA on GTA4 since its not supported, and 32x AA on the other 2). But, pretty much all my other games run at 100FPS or above. Also, Crysis may pose as a problem. I only get 80FPS constant in the Forest demo (which should be equal or close to what we will see in Crysis 3) so dont expect 120FPS out of that either without turning down settings. Metro 2033 almost forgot..... that will probably never run at 120FPS until the next generation of graphics cards.... its just not optimized all that well.
 
i agree, after running some tests. i too get around 42fps constant in crysis 2, and about 45fps in bf3 all settings turned up, with the nvidia control panel settings under 3d turned all the way up. so maintaining 120fps regularly will be pretty much never, but going with a 120hz screen is a win in my book no matter if you can get 120 fps or not. you will eventualy get a card that can, and it will benefit then. but hd and blue ray content should look a bit more smoother with the 120 hz screen.i have the 4 gig card though, and i easily get 2.7gigs used. i thought the 2 gig version of cards may have a hard time in the next year and after with newer games that will be released, so i figured since games currently can use up to or close to a 2 gig card now, if im spending $450+ for a card, i want it to keep up as much as possible for the next 2 years, so i chose the 4 gig, since it will handle the aa and af a bit better.
 
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what cpu are you using and at what speed. also whats the speed of your ram? what motherboard are you using as well
 
kdfresh09 said:
i agree, after running some tests. i too get around 42fps constant in crysis 2, and about 45fps in bf3 all settings turned up, with the nvidia control panel settings under 3d turned all the way up. so maintaining 120fps regularly will be pretty much never, but going with a 120hz screen is a win in my book no matter if you can get 120 fps or not. you will eventualy get a card that can, and it will benefit then. but hd and blue ray content should look a bit more smoother with the 120 hz screen.i have the 4 gig card though, and i easily get 2.7gigs used. i thought the 2 gig version of cards may have a hard time in the next year and after with newer games that will be released, so i figured since games currently can use up to or close to a 2 gig card now, if im spending $450+ for a card, i want it to keep up as much as possible for the next 2 years, so i chose the 4 gig, since it will handle the aa and af a bit better.
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120FPS shouldnt really be a concern. Because even if you average 45FPS, it will still be alot smoother on the 120hz TV as opposed to a 60hz or 29hz TV.

Why, I have no idea. Im running my Vizio at 1080p 60hz and you would think a 24FPS movie would look as smooth as possible since the refresh rate on the TV is much faster than the frame rate being displayed. But that doesnt seem to be the case.

Perhaps someone here could explain how a 120hz TV really makes things smoother and appear faster..... if movies are still being shot and played back at 24FPS then how is there is a huge difference from 60hz and 120hz? Do 120hz TVs actually playback faster?
 
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G80FTW said:
120FPS shouldnt really be a concern. Because even if you average 45FPS, it will still be alot smoother on the 120hz TV as opposed to a 60hz or 29hz TV.

Why, I have no idea. Im running my Vizio at 1080p 60hz and you would think a 24FPS movie would look as smooth as possible since the refresh rate on the TV is much faster than the frame rate being displayed. But that doesnt seem to be the case.

Perhaps someone here could explain how a 120hz TV really makes things smoother and appear faster..... if movies are still being shot and played back at 24FPS then how is there is a huge difference from 60hz and 120hz? Do 120hz TVs actually playback faster?
Click to expand...

Simple. Its in your head.
 
bigfellla said:
Simple. Its in your head.
Click to expand...

But its not. Anyone can see that 120hz is a ton smoother than 60hz. And what Im saying is that doesnt make sense if the video is only 24-29FPS then there shouldnt be any blur on a 60hz screen versus a 120hz screen.

It may be all in our heads, but there has to be a scientific reason behind why then.

All Im saying is, even at 30FPS it will look better on the 120hz screen versus the 60hz.

When I first saw them coming out with 120hz TVs I was like "why?". Since we dont record or play anything back at 120 frames per second so why the need for 120hz right? But then when I finally saw what a 120hz TV looks like (about 2 years ago) I was blown away. Night and day.

Googled and found this for anyone else interested:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2379206,00.asp
 
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i think of it like this. when we walk around and interact with real world thing, seeing all of it from our eyes, its all real time, sometimes with blur, but most times with clarity, real time clarity. some of the things we see happens much faster than 60fps, even 120fps. such as a bullet being fires, or an explasion, or simply taking your hand 12" from your face, and waving it back and forth in short strokes has its own range of fps that you are seeing. so when you take a 60hz screen and compare it to a 120hz screen, the 120hz screen will look better because its closer to what we truly see in reality.

as far as content being recorded at 24fps or 29fps ect ect, and them still looking better on a 120hz over a 60hz screen still evades me. i dont know if that content is recorded that way to gain more detail and motion clarity to make it HD quality? imnot sure how that works.
 
120FPS / Hz monitors are made to enable 60FPS per eye for 3D.

You're kidding yourself if you think you can see smoother video when no matter what you do it will only output the recorded FPS.
 
hmm, yeah, i suppose i was a little out there on my explanation. but really this is out of my expertise. i know what looks good and thats all i look for when the time is needed for an upgrade on screens.:D
 
bigfellla said:
120FPS / Hz monitors are made to enable 60FPS per eye for 3D.

You're kidding yourself if you think you can see smoother video when no matter what you do it will only output the recorded FPS.
Click to expand...

But Im not kidding myself. If you read the link I posted, it says that 120hz TVs actually do a process to increase the framerate being displayed. Which is why it seems faster and smoother on 120hz versus 60hz. It says some blu ray actually play at 60 fps as well.
 
Id be surprised if the processor on a television had any impact on the frame rate, not really buying that. They may have a video accelerator but its not going to do more than a desktop graphics card.
 
They can increase the fps all they like, but that can only mean it repeats frames at a division of X/120. Means nothing.
 
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