Upgrading PC for 8 x accounts

[jnorland]

I apologize up front for my lack of knowledge on the subject; I do realize that I'm just scratching the surface so I really do appreciate your input.

So after reading your last comments I did a little more research and I think I have a little better understanding. From what I’ve read here in the forums the best thing to do with multiple video cards is to split the games using ISboxer as SLI and Crossfire were intended to run one game very well and but will not improve the performance of multiple games. I only brought one monitor with me on this deployment so I don’t believe that would help me in this situation. My plan is to just upgrade to either a GTX 580 or an AMD Radeon HD 7950 . According to the charts the 7950 is scoring higher and is about $80 cheaper for the OC version.

$449 Radeon HD 7950 3GB

$470 Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 OC

$549 GTX 580 3GB

I’m always a little concerned about the first generation of a new system such as the PCIe 3.0. That being said saving $80 bucks for a product that appears to be performing better I thing is enough to make me bite the bullet. The reviews on Newegg have all been pretty good so far. If I’m still having some issues I may try splitting the games with the old card when I get back home and have all of my monitors.

[MiRai]

I apologize up front for my lack of knowledge on the subject; I do realize that I'm just scratching the surface so I really do appreciate your input.

It's all good. It's better to first ask rather than buying $1000 (or more) worth of
equipment and then come here and be told that what you bought isn't going to work as
expected.

the best thing to do with multiple video cards is to split the games using ISboxer

Correct. Assuming your CPU isn't your bottleneck but, in your case I think you might be
pushing the limit with 10 clients on that 920 at stock speeds (maybe not at 4GHz).

My plan is to just upgrade to either a GTX 580 or an AMD Radeon HD 7950.

It's always my recommendation to choose a single video card solution with lots of
horsepower rather than fumbling around with multiple video cards and hoping you get
the performance you want. While splitting the load works just fine in World of Warcraft,
another game might not play so nice with multiple cards and that's why I always suggest
a single card (assuming a budget can handle a $500+ card).

According to the charts the 7950 is scoring higher and is about $80 cheaper for the OC version.

I personally wouldn't use any synthetic benchmarks to judge a video card's in-game
performance as they kinda give you a theoretical number on horsepower for whichever
test it's doing. While anyone can say they get approximately a score of 7,000 on 3DMark,
that really doesn't translate to any FPS numbers you're going to see in a game.

It's kinda like looking at your new Ferrari and knowing that it can do 230MPH (according to
the piece of paper that the dealership gave you) but, on the street that really means
nothing because it's unlikely that you'll have enough road (and traffic conditions) to even
reach those speeds. Not exactly the best comparison, but... it's 2AM give me a break.

$449 Radeon HD 7950 3GB

$470 Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 OC

$549 GTX 580 3GB

I’m always a little concerned about the first generation of a new system such as the PCIe 3.0. That being said saving $80 bucks for a product that appears to be performing better I thing is enough to make me bite the bullet. The reviews on Newegg have all been pretty good so far. If I’m still having some issues I may try splitting the games with the old card when I get back home and have all of my monitors.

Now, here's where this comes down to personal preference. The three cards you linked
above use an exhaust system that I'm not a fan of. Those cooling setups take the cool
outside air and dump the card's hot air back into your case. If you look at this EVGA GTX
580 you'll notice it uses a different cooling setup -- It blows the air out of your case
instead of sucking it in (AKA "EE" - External Exhaust). If you were actually considering the
older GTX 580 at $550 then I will point you towards the AMD 7970 which uses the same
"EE" cooling setup. I'm also personally not a fan of Sapphire because they did me (and an
entire group of people) wrong back years ago and if you were going to go with an AMD
card I would probably suggest an XFX, MSI, or ASUS (in no particular order).

A sample review -
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/...o_card_review/