Looking for a bit of advice on new gfx cards. Currently rocking 2x geforce 275s and looking to upgrade to something that can run TOR and GW2 on max with good fps. I get around 30-45 atm on high, but Id like to get a more stable 60+ Any input on 560's vs 570's and 580s? The prices seem to double every step. What kinds of things should I look for on my own computer to make sure I can even run a much nicer card?
a 560 isnt much worse than a 560ti, so save $30 and get the cheaper card if you go that way. A 570 is good and probably the most expensive card I would go for. The 580 isnt worth it IMO. Also you NEED to make sure you get a version with 2GB of memory on it, buying an upgrade with anything less would be a mistake in todays times.
my setup runs it all on high ... only a few times did i have to lower settings ... 70+ fps most of time too
My single 560ti stock setup will run BF3 on ultra for single player (a frostbite 2 game) with no issues. well... I cut the anti-aliasing from 4x to 2x - so I get that is only partially true. On BF3's high preset, this card kills and it does not get too hot. I, and a few other guys here, love the thing as much as I do.. Great compromise of performance, stability, and speed. Oh, and that performance I quoted was on my 24" 1920 x 1200 monitor. I'll try my 30" tonight because I'm curious how my card will do....
If you can spend high $250-$300 a AMD HD6970 is the choice imo. If you cam wait a few weeks they will be even less. I couldn't wait but still got one for $300.
I was looking at http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...yMark=False&IsFeedbackTab=true#scrollFullInfo this card with 2 gigs vram. I can spend up 500, but I'd rather not I'm a geforce man at heart... Idk why I just can't get behind another type
Food for thought - $309 after rebate (although i'm a Geforce fan boi, I went this route and thats $100 in my pocket for Keppler hehe). I hope EVGA makes a sexy looking GTX780 or 790... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150517 http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/292?vs=306
Tried it/ loved it! Ran BF3 single player at acceptable frame rate with only one instance of drop on ultra settings with a tweak to antialiasing... at 2560 x 1600 resolution. Ran multiplayer bf3- which I drop down to stock "high" setting so no chance of frame drop ever - like a bawss! Oh, and here are bonus points. That was on a GTX 550 Ti - not a 560. My 560 did slightly better.
How can you play BF3 on ultra on a card like that? Ultra settings require more than 1GB of vram @ 1080p
I have to agree with Enigma here. It reminds me of a thread on Hardforum about what is ultra in ones eyes is not ultra really at all. Ultra to me is something in the neighborhood of 8x AA, 16x AF, running the worst of the worst areas, never dropping below 60fps. Even SWTOR which is pretty mild imho in graphics has some areas dipping my 6970 down to the 30fps levels. (WTF Bioware and smokey caverns lol). I don't think you'll find a card on the market that can do 'Ultra' BF3 at 25x16 on it's own - SLI and CFX on the top tear cards are where you need to be.
What can I say? I set everything to the max on BF3 (A frostbite 2 game) and backed down the antialiasing one notch and it worked like a charm on single player campaign. It did not do so hot on multiplayer. My only thought there is more is being rendered on the fly? Question mark? I'm telling you, I ran a 30" 2560x1600 on a GTX 550 Ti maxed. And I had no stability issues or frame drops below acceptable (the game was smooth and not choppy.) Accept it or dont- it works. That being said, I'd rather not push the card that hard on a regular basis as I cant imagine it will last long, and I will be playing on "High" settings on Frostbite games as a default. Edit: On the comment about "ultra" - Im using terms from what I have seen with the few games that are using EA Frostbite engine that seem to have the exact same video options. So, I'm using that as a common reference. Frostbite calls everything on absolute maximum- "Ultra." Also, I disclosed that I backed down the anti aliasing to compensate for frame drop issues. A side note- I ran NFS:The Run with the same settings and it took it like a bawss! Beautiful. Full setup is going to make you sick in its cheapness. To explain- I'm doing an experiment with AMD. Ive never had an AMD CPU and thought I'd try it. I went cheap because I didnt want to be out too much money when I inevitably hated it. Full setup: (with commentary added! ) Biostar (thats right, biostar.) A870U3 motherboard AMD Phenom II x4 955 - watercooled Antec Kuhler h2o (buy the corsair, instead) 16gb of mismatched RAM - 2x4gb G.Skill Ripjaw 1333 - 2x4gb Corsair (maybe? Id have to look) 1600 WD Caviar 7200 RPM drive Gigabyte GTX 550 Ti Toys and sound: Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 Interface (for music production, plus epic gaming sound quality) CM Storm Sirus headset Logitech z-5500 surround sound JBL LSR4326 reference monitors. (For Pwning in HiFi... jk this is for my music work) 5x KRK monitors with 10" sub (again, for sound work and pwning in surround sound) peripherals: Apple full sized late model keyboard (I like the keys, shut up) thermaltake ESports "Black" mouse (which is my favorite mouse ever) Steelseries glass mousepad. (my favorite part of my setup!) Dell 2405FPW 24" monitor Dell SP2309Wc 23" 2048x1152 professional monitor Dell 3007WFPt 30" 2560x1600 monitor Rackmount case in rack (with enermax fans that are actually really really quiet.) Thats right, thats all it takes to run games at high. suck it. Oh, and ignore all the speakers and stuff. Thats just there becuaese I <3 sound and am bragging, a bit.
So, i was looking for a little validation and proof that Im not full of shit. I just googled "BF3 gtx 550 ti Ultra." Sure enough, tons of people make the same claims I do. And yes, I do agree that there is no convention for what "ultra" is other than everything maxed out- and, different games have different maximums. But as stated before,the frostbite 2 games seem to have a pretty standard batch of settings and graphics quality across multiple games and its the flavor of the week. And they all work topped out on my measly little $124 graphics card on my very cheap amd computer. QED
Interesting. Well I stand corrected. I have a theory on this though, and if true then Kudos to Nvidia for finding a solution. The developers of Battlefield 3 have said that ultra settings require more than 1GB of vram because the texture data alone takes up 1GB of memory on ultra setting. Then you have the data from the resolution your playing at, and your extra memory needed for AA. So your looking at about 1.5GB or a bit higher of vram usage on ultra. Completely not possible with 1GB cards because they would run out of memory and performance would be terrible. I know graphics cards are able to compress texture data losslessly, so I am wondering if Nvidia used a workaround because of all the complaints they were getting of people with 560Ti's and 570's that couldnt play on ultra and Nvidia decided to compress the textures down to a smaller size on cards with only 1GB of memory so that those cards could play it. It wouldnt look as good as if the textures were uncompressed, but the difference would be almost insignificant and 98% of people probably would never notice. This would make their customers happier too since they could then play on their new cards that lack enough memory. Well, its a thought anyway. Either way, it works and thats what matters.
I can completely validate this. Ultra on my computer is not as awesome as ultra on a triple sli/crossfire monster. I've purposely avoided talking about it because ithus far because I wanted to see if anyone had a more educated guess as to why. Here's my theory. I think its a mix of hardware/driver compression and software optomizers in game. Allow me to explain. I clearly see software compression making changes to the texttures and shadows in game. Its a totally new experience that I've only seen happen starting with the second crysis game. I can see the textures get less and less focused as the game ramps up detail and complexity (more bullets/bodies/motion). The process sort of worked. Now, with the latest optomizations in bf3, its uncanny how smooth the game runs. I think the game slides quality as needed to maintain stability. The low/med/high/ultra settings are ranges of parameters rather than actual solid settings. And, of course nvidia is doing realtime compression when required. And its totally noticeable, but entirely acceptable for the majority of the time. That being said, I still prefer much more powerful cards. My trolling here has been to prove a point that you don't NEED 2gb to enjoy hi res gaming as so many of you insist. You want to fully experience the potential of the game. Its a personal budget judgement call if the additional horsepower is worth the expense.