Vega's *Heavyweight* display and computer; edition 2012

[Callsign_Vega]

oooooooh, pure sex, lol. looks good man!!!

EDIT: plus a quick question, can't remember if i asked this before but can you rotate the far right screen 180* and overlap the smaller edge of right screen over the middle screens bezel. that little angle difference you get by always overlapping the right edge just drives me nuts, i know its such a nit picky thing but that stuff gets to me. if you can't surely it would only take a small driver change by AMD or Nividia to achieve this, as you can already rotate displays any way you want for portrait right, so should be able to have them in opposite rotation and just change the specific monitors settings. not sure how that works in eyefinity or surround though.

The small overlap only changes the angle of the screen a few degrees. With IPS great viewing angles it is no problem. Sure it would be optimal not to have an overlap but you will never be able to get as small of bezel gaps.

As for the AMD/NVIDIA driver change, that made me chuckle! They can barely hold on to functioning drivers for Eyefinity/Surround let alone make large changes like that. They do not allow what you propose, but it would be nice in the future. Although with more than two screens you will run into something that has to overlap when using non-symmetrical monitors like these.

Nice monitors! Any update on the amazing cooling system you planning to install?

Somewhat on a pause right now as I will be moving in the not-so-distant future.

[Callsign_Vega]

Two GTX 680's are just awful trying to run these three Catleap's. Ton's of stuttering and slow-downs in BF3. I have two MSI Lightning 7970's inbound to see if they fair better. If two of those can't run three of these screens, I don't think two X2 7970's will run five catleap's any better and I might have to re-evaluate my display setup. Pushing this many pixels at this high of a refresh rate is seriously demanding.

[Church]

at this high of refresh rate OR fps?

[defect9]

this thread is like watching NASA design and test something

[Callsign_Vega]

at this high of refresh rate OR fps?

Both, I like to keep the min FPS at the refresh rate.

[MadHacker]

Looking at these benchmarks i don't think the 7970's will do better... i think worse
Battlefield 3 DirectX 11 [C] Extreme on Toms harware.

looks like you will need 1 video card per monitor. with a bigger board, watercooled video cards so they only take 1 slot per card.
its posible to do.
I had 6 6970's in 1 mining rig.

[Callsign_Vega]

Those Tom's benchmarks really don't apply. I am interested in Eyefinity benchmarks in cross-fire with the new June drivers. Pretty impossible to find. All of the GHz edition 7970 reviews are single card.

[MadHacker]

I don't think they will be that much faster then regular 7970's in single mode. They are only 12% faster for a single card.
what about dual GTX 690s?

[LeoAndrade]

Man, you are planning to install five of those monsters? And you plan to handle everything on 102fps minimum? You should wait for the new keplers to arrive, maybe on the end of this year. Since we don't have big asses keblers right now, you should look Quad 7970's 6gb and overclock them to hell

[Callsign_Vega]

Man, you are planning to install five of those monsters? And you plan to handle everything on 102fps minimum? You should wait for the new keplers to arrive, maybe on the end of this year. Since we don't have big asses keblers right now, you should look Quad 7970's 6gb and overclock them to hell

There are no 6GB cards out, and the only one that is suppose to come out has absolute fail outputs connections that cannot do what I need.




VS





Who will win this struggle? Pure brute power versus high resolution and high refresh rate?

Stay tuned for 2x GTX 680's vs 2x Lightning 7970's vs 4x Lightning 7970's running three 2B Catleap's at 4320x2560 @ 110 Hz benchmarks.

[Callsign_Vega]

Still doing some more testing. Seems there are a ton of quirks. Like Crysis 2 crashes with DX11 but runs pretty good DX9. BF3 seems a little better with 12.6 vs 12.7 but I wouldn't call it very smooth.

Witcher 2 is just abysmal with both. Shows 100 FPS but plays like 15 FPS. WoW in quad-fire gets less FPS than 2 cards and has unplayable hitching. In 2 cards it runs great though. Skyrim will only use a max of 2 GPU's no matter what I do.

Diablo 3 runs great though In Quad fire LOL I get over 220 FPS with all settings maxed.

So far a mixed bag, not overly impressed. Also might be a bit of me losing interest in multi-screen gaming. Eyefinity was a pain to set up. Had to use the custom .sys file to get past the pixel clock limit and I found out the 330 MHz Accel adapters don't all overclock the same. Then I get the standard AMD "DP link degradation blah blah" with the adapter 6 inches from the DP output. Don't even know how that's possible. Then the monitor goes black and/or glitches show up.

I might just pick the two fastest Lightnings and run those single screen. Going to try tr-fire now and see what I get.

In testing 2x 7970's beat out 2x 680's at this resolution besides Skyrim (first number is FPS, second VRAM usage):

Skyrim - All Ultra/4x MSAA

2x 680- 72/1863
2x 7970- 55/1942
4x 7970- Doesn't work


BF3 - Texture H/Shadow M/Effects L/Mesh L/Terrain L/Decor L/MSAA 0X/FXAA H/BLur Off/AF 16X/HBAO

2x 680- 59/1848
2x 7970- 69/1876


Diabo III - All in-game settings maxed

2x 680- 109/1242
2x 7970- 112/1247
4x 7970- 224


Metro2033 - Normal/0x MSAA

2x 680- 82/1323
2x 7970- 93/1342


Witcher 2 Enhanced - Medium

2x 680- 39/1491
2x 7970- 49/1377
4x 7970- 92 - Stuttering mess unplayable


Crysis 2 - High/DX11/Texture Pack

2x 680- 60/2025
2x 7970- 63/2515
4x 7970- DX11 Crash, DX9 works well 110 FPS


WoW - Max/4x MSAA

2x 680- 107/1702
2x 7970- 134/1675
4x 7970- 126 - Low GPU usage and hitching


I'd say 2x 7970's at stock average around 5-20% faster speed than 2x 680's at stock. :thumb:

[Callsign_Vega]

Two 7970's are working REALLY well on a single overclocked catleap. Super smooth. They also run the 3x1 portrait setup in WoW really well. I don't play WoW, just testing for Guild Wars 2 as they run about the same.

I've noticed this stand has a really nice feature. The hinges rotate so I can switch from a 3x1 portrait setup to a 1x landscape center screen setup really easy! So basically I can have a 1x landscape screen for game like BF3 that don't work so well on the monster setup, and can convert to the 3x1 portrait setup for game like GW2 in less than 30 seconds. That combined with the super smoothness and simplicity of 2x 7970's is working well so far.

5x1 portrait is definitely out of the question. I don't know what I was smoking considering that idea LOL.

But if I go with this 3x1 portrait, 1x landscape overclocked Catleap hybrid I will get rid of the Lightnings (thank you Amazon easy return policy) and get two Asus ROG Matrix 7970's. The logic behind this is that the Lightnings only have single link DVI ports, so even on the single Catleap I have to run the DP to DVI adapter which limits me to around 109 Hz. With the Matrix 7970's dual-link DVI port I can run my best Catleap at 125+ Hz in the center and run the two side Catleaps off of two of the DP's at the ~109 Hz. Since I guarantee no one with make a water block for the Matrix, I would just do a custom GPU water block and put heatsink's on all the memory and VRMs.

[st0ned]

Two 7970's are working REALLY well on a single overclocked catleap. Super smooth. They also run the 3x1 portrait setup in WoW really well. I don't play WoW, just testing for Guild Wars 2 as they run about the same.

I've noticed this stand has a really nice feature. The hinges rotate so I can switch from a 3x1 portrait setup to a 1x landscape center screen setup really easy! So basically I can have a 1x landscape screen for game like BF3 that don't work so well on the monster setup, and can convert to the 3x1 portrait setup for game like GW2 in less than 30 seconds. That combined with the super smoothness and simplicity of 2x 7970's is working well so far.

5x1 portrait is definitely out of the question. I don't know what I was smoking considering that idea LOL.

But if I go with this 3x1 portrait, 1x landscape overclocked Catleap hybrid I will get rid of the Lightnings (thank you Amazon easy return policy) and get two Asus ROG Matrix 7970's. The logic behind this is that the Lightnings only have single link DVI ports, so even on the single Catleap I have to run the DP to DVI adapter which limits me to around 109 Hz. With the Matrix 7970's dual-link DVI port I can run my best Catleap at 125+ Hz in the center and run the two side Catleaps off of two of the DP's at the ~109 Hz. Since I guarantee no one with make a water block for the Matrix, I would just do a custom GPU water block and put heatsink's on all the memory and VRMs.

Don't do that. Running this cards with passiv heatsinks ( even with a fan pointed out there ) will run you frustrated, belive me. The difference when I had my system running 2x 7970 with one of them with the FC and the other with a GPU-only block vs 2x FC was huge. I believe it's because the VRMs will heatup like there's no tomorrow. VRAM will get pretty hot too, sadly this will greatly reduce your overclock.

Wouldn't you be better with a 109HZ refreshrate but with lightnings with FC blocks ?

[Callsign_Vega]

Don't do that. Running this cards with passiv heatsinks ( even with a fan pointed out there ) will run you frustrated, belive me. The difference when I had my system running 2x 7970 with one of them with the FC and the other with a GPU-only block vs 2x FC was huge. I believe it's because the VRMs will heatup like there's no tomorrow. VRAM will get pretty hot too, sadly this will greatly reduce your overclock.

Wouldn't you be better with a 109HZ refreshrate but with lightnings with FC blocks ?

You really think the VRM's and such really get that hot? Even with air heat sinks on each one and a strong fan blowing on them? Not going to be looking for LN2 world records, just 1.35-1.40v on the GPU to run ~1350 MHz core or so. The Matrix has 20 phase VRM, I just couldn't imagine all 20 of those would get hot enough to throttle down and effect the overclock.

I'm thinking something like this:



or this:



With a heatsink on every single memory chip and VRM/Choke. You think they would still get really hot (throttling hot) even with a 200mm fan blowing down on the two cards with 20 phases per card? I mean the stock heatsink does fairly well and that's just an air heat sink and also has to deal with the GPU chip heat.


Forgot to mention that with the Catleaps and the DP-DVI adapters the BIOS and post process does not show up. Another reason to go with a card that has a native DL-DVI connection like the Matrix 7970. I'm not having a separate monitor on my desk just to be able to get into the BIOS, that's retarded.

[st0ned]

Well I had mine like this



mounted:



With more 2 120mm fans on my V2000 side. And even pushing 1.25v was an adventure. I also had to forget about memory OC. I could only run around 1.2v 1200Mhz Core and 1400Mhz memory, something else would run in to heat problems and fail soon or later. Now I can push 1.4v and 1300Mhz with no problem ( on both cards, both with a FC block ).


Now

(yeah I know tube coloring is bad bad bad but I had to finish some reviews and I noticed too late I was low on tube so I had to use everything I had laying around ><

[Manicdan]

few questions about those monitors:
how much did it cost you to get one guaranteed for overclocking the framerate.
how fast can it go if i only have 1x 680. i dont know if its a port limit, gpu limit, or monitor limit.
and how are the colors compared to your old 30" screens, i love my current IPS and can notice how good the colors are compared to other screens, and definitly not wanting to downgrade it.

thanks, and incredible work

[Callsign_Vega]

Not entirely convinced on Z77 16x lanes being split into four 8x lanes with the PLX chip. Just to rule that out I bought a gun to play with my four 7970 Lightning's:





Oh, and five of these on the right:




The screen setup was right at the time, it was the GPU's that weren't. So I will be trying 5x1 portrait again, but this time with the Samsung's and not the Catleap's. Catleap's just have too many pixels to push in 3-5x setups.

[Liam_G]

haha, i was waiting for X79 to pop back into the frame, with your resources and what your trying to do its the only solution that makes sense i believe. i guess we will see once you test it all again. i still think 3 x PPP is the max i would go to, 5 x PPP is just so wide, i know it creates amazing immersion in the game but if it impedes the performance so that you have to run less resolution or frame rate then what is the point? if only there was a 30" catleap at 2560x1600 that could do 100+hz. i also hope the consumer market gets to see BIG Kepler to drive these awesome set ups:P

I was doing some reading on QuadHD and 4K HDTV's last night which gives me hope that some time in the next few years we will have all this taken care of without all this experimenting and testing. If i could get a 32" Quad HD or 4K monitor with 120hz then that is primo! Right now though they all cost too much and they only have much bigger screens, like 55" plus, as well as strange implementations of 3D, passive or glasses free meaning possibly not real 120hz at that res.

also, with these catleaps, its this 2B PCB that allows them to be overclocked, is it possible to get hold of this PCB and ghetto it onto another panel, ie 30" IPS etc?

[STEvil]

Basically yes, you can take the catleap PCB and attach it to different monitors.

However it requires some rather intricate details in hardware knowledge to get anywhere other than a black screen..

The other alternative is an EDID editor and a couple other programs: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...IQ-Downscaling

I've been playing with it a bit.. trying to get my LG 30" to go over 75hz..

[Liam_G]

Basically yes, you can take the catleap PCB and attach it to different monitors.

However it requires some rather intricate details in hardware knowledge to get anywhere other than a black screen..

The other alternative is an EDID editor and a couple other programs: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...IQ-Downscaling

I've been playing with it a bit.. trying to get my LG 30" to go over 75hz..

can you actually get your LG 30" up to 75hz? thats not bad if you can, if so what res is it running at 75hz? i read a little of that IQ downscaling thing but it didn't sound ideal... Also getting hold of the 2B PCB seems to be the problem, without buying a whole catleap with the 2B already.

[Callsign_Vega]

haha, i was waiting for X79 to pop back into the frame, with your resources and what your trying to do its the only solution that makes sense i believe. i guess we will see once you test it all again. i still think 3 x PPP is the max i would go to, 5 x PPP is just so wide, i know it creates amazing immersion in the game but if it impedes the performance so that you have to run less resolution or frame rate then what is the point? if only there was a 30" catleap at 2560x1600 that could do 100+hz. i also hope the consumer market gets to see BIG Kepler to drive these awesome set ups:P

I was doing some reading on QuadHD and 4K HDTV's last night which gives me hope that some time in the next few years we will have all this taken care of without all this experimenting and testing. If i could get a 32" Quad HD or 4K monitor with 120hz then that is primo! Right now though they all cost too much and they only have much bigger screens, like 55" plus, as well as strange implementations of 3D, passive or glasses free meaning possibly not real 120hz at that res.

also, with these catleaps, its this 2B PCB that allows them to be overclocked, is it possible to get hold of this PCB and ghetto it onto another panel, ie 30" IPS etc?

Ya, if 5x1 doesn't work I know the 3x1 setup works really well. Used that for a good half year.

As for the super hi-res display's I have a few reservations. They will most certainly be 60 Hz LCD's. Never been a fan of 60 Hz, and the displays will have all of the pitfalls of slow pixel response times IMO. Not only that, there is no such display connection that can run 4K resolution at 120 Hz. So you;d be back to running multiple displayport inputs into the same monitor. Does that bring Eyefinity/Surround and all the associated problems back into the loop? Remains to be seen. I think a nice super high resolution screen at 120 Hz is many many years away. Super high resolution 60 Hz screens that are actually "affordable" IE: $5K or less are still years away.

I'd say the absolute perfect display would be a 32" 16:9 or even 2.35:1 OLED running 4k resolution and 120 Hz via a single cable like Displayport 1.3 if they ever come out with such a thing. One can only dream.

[Callsign_Vega]

I forgot how awesome the Samsung's are de-bezeled with a 6 millimeter (under 1/4 inch) gap border:



I found that even using single link DVI connection of the 7970 Lightnings (165 MHz), I can get around 75 Hz out of the 700D (right landscape monitor). So it will still be better than 60 Hz and not as noticeable as it will be an end screen on the 5x1 setup. Eyefinity is great in that it will allow four screens to run at 120Hz and an odd ball screen to run at a lower Hz.

This is the Vega monitor assembly line, five Samsung's to de-bezel and mount. Four Catleap's to put back-together :




So far in testing 3x1 Samsung's the Quad-Fire 7970's are working great. More to follow on 5x1 testing.

[Liam_G]

Are they the 23" or 27" Samsungs? And yes it seems as though they are the most suitable monitor to debezel.... If they are the 23" version what is your impression of the viewing width per screen, IIRC I think its about 385mm, is it too narrow, does it impede your viewing at all or feel as though its crowding your view? The bezels are so narrow that I guess it doesn't matter, all melds into one after a while.

[Callsign_Vega]

The 23". 5x1 27" would be just way too big. I don't know what I was thinking with the 5x1 Catleap idea. The bezel gap's are only 6mm (just under 1/4 inch), so they aren't even noticeable playing a game. Really the only drawback with using the Samsung's is on dark images you can start to see the viewing angle limitations.

[Callsign_Vega]

Got the Big Bang setup up. This has been a great motherboard to work with and the build quality is fantastic. This is the first motherboard this year out of 4 or 5 that I have setup that has detected both keyboards and a working mouse in the BIOS on the first try. Using BIOS 1.4B2 at the moment and haven't had a single hitch.

The Gatling gun VRM heat-sink is pretty subdued and looks decent. The ammo heat-sink does look pretty cheesy in pictures but in real life it looks a tad better. The tips actually look like real brass, but in pictures the whole thing looks like plastic. Although if I stick with the board I will most likely get water blocks so that will all be moot.

Even the X79 RAID was easy to get into and setup if you have the proper drivers. Something I learned the hard way with the RIVE!

UEFI is a pleasure to work with and nicely laid out. Both MSI and Gigabyte have great BIOS's now, easily up to par with Asus.





As for the 5x1 Display setup, having issues with all of the monitors being detected/displayed. Even in regular desktop mode, haven't even gotten to Eyefinity yet. I have 24 gauge super high quality Display Port cables arriving tomorrow so hopefully this will get resolved.