The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

Interesting. Perhaps someone will catch wind of this.

 

npb

 

A little heads up for those looking at HD6950s - there is an XFX version of the 1GB HD6950 with the basic cooler from the HD6870 on it. Apart from this cooler being woefully inadequate (causing a higher temperature/noise tradeoff than the stock GTX480), a large proportion of the cards are DOA, and XFX does not honour the rebates on any of them. Avoid!

 

Battlefield 3

Alpha client UDI: 185/250
Beta client UDI: 292/400

Average 60fps cards have been amended
Alpha client: HD5870/6950/GTX480/560Ti/570 @ 1920x1080, HD6950CF/GTX570SLI @ 2560x1600
Beta client: HD6870CF/GTX470/560 SLI @ 1920x1080, HD6970Tri-CF/GTX580 Tri-SLI @ 2560x1600

Minimum 60fps cards have been amended
Alpha client: HD6850CF/GTX460 1GB SLI @ 1920x1080, HD6950Tri-CF/GTX570 Tri-SLI @ 2560x1600
Beta client: HD6970CF/6990/GTX580 SLI @ 1920x1080, HD6990CF/6970QuadCF/GTX580 Quad-SLI Classified @ 2560x1600


New A-tier cards (Minimum 60fps)
1440x900: GTX460 1GB SLI or HD6850 Crossfire
1680x1050: GTX570 SLI or HD6950 Crossfire
1920x1080: GTX580 SLI or HD6970 Crossfire
1920x1200: GTX580 SLI or HD6950 Tri-Crossfire
2560x1600: GTX580 Quad-SLI or HD6970 Quad-Crossfire

 

Damn the pushback of the 7 series

 

Oh, did I mention? That's the easy map (Metro Rush) - enjoy Caspian Border being twice as demanding

 

Have done some playing myself and it seems more like a Beta build of the game than a solid indicator of performance. What we've played so far feels very much unfinished.

 

It's very beta, the game is really buggy. Here's a transcript of what I just posted on our LAN forum:

My PC really doesn't have what it takes to max this game out, even on the smaller map, which has at least double the frame rate of the big map. I think I'm going to consign myself to 1920x1200 until I upgrade.

 

Wow, GTX 580 wants a lot of power. Borders on my PSU's capabilities! AMD's equivalent is about the same. Perhaps by february, there will be better GPU's, regarding energy efficiency.

 

They may be rated the same, but trust me, they are not the same. The GTX580 is limited to 244W TDP, it won't go over in games, but in a burn test, it would draw almost 300 if it weren't capped. The HD6970 meanwhile has a limiter set at 250, but that's really for overclocking purposes. Typically it'll use about 190W in game, and 210W or so in a burn-test, rarely more than that. The HD6970 is a lot more efficient than the GTX580, the TDP figures just don't show it. The HD6950 fares better still, with a 170W typical load.

The 28nm push won't change performance massively, maybe 50% gains tops, but performance per watt will improve dramatically. AMD's roadmap reportedly includes the HD7850 and HD7870, which will basically be carbon copies of the 6950 and 6970 but on 28nm, meaning they'll use 90W and 120W respectively, so they'll both be mid-sized single 6-pin cards like the HD5770/6850/GTS450 are now, but deliver HD6950/70 performance. That will be impressive. They will also draw little enough power to probably run with aftermarket heatsinks fanless. Imagine fanless crossfire, with the power of an HD6990.

 

Thanks for the info. I've been planning on an AMD GPU in the near future. I've bought 3 nvidias, and zero Ati's. I think it's time to give the other guy a shot Besides, AMD once again has the pricing just right.
If I go 6970, I may have to look toward more side cooling. Or maybe water cooling. They apparently run pretty warm.

 

In other news - I made an RPI graph of recently released titles - threshold is 60fps.


Required Performance Index:
100 - HD4870 (100) @ 1920x1080
200 - at least GTX580 (230) @ 1920x1080
300 - at least HD6870 CF (312) @ 1920x1080
400 - at least GTX580 SLI (426) @ 1920x1080
500 - at least HD6950 Tri-CF (508) @ 1920x1080
600 - at least GTX580 Tri-SLI (621) @ 1920x1080
700 - at least HD6970 Quad-CF (751) @ 1920x1080
800 - at least GTX580 Quad-SLI (817) @ 1920x1080
Anything beyond 817 is not currently possible on 40nm hardware at 1920x1080. Anything beyond 414 is not currently possible on 40nm hardware at 2560x1600.

Game ID List
1. Driver: San Francisco
2. Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine
3: Dungeon Siege 3
4: Call of Juarez: The Cartel
5: Heroes of Might and Magic 6
6: Alice: Madness Returns (PhysX off / PhysX Medium / PhysX High)
7: Dead Island
8: Hard Reset (No AA / MLAA / FSAA 4x)
9: From Dust
10: Duke Nuke Forever
11: F1 2011 (DirectX9 / DirectX11)
12: Red Faction: Armageddon (DirectX9 / DirectX11)
13: Deus Ex: Human Revolution
14: Battlefield 3 (Alpha version)
15: Fable 3
16: DiRT 3 (v1.1)
17: F3AR
18: Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad
19: Crysis 2 (DirectX9 / DirectX11)
20: Battlefield 3 (Beta version)
21: Total War: Shogun 2 (DirectX10|MLAA / DirectX10.1|MSAA 8x / DirectX11|MSAA 8x)
22: Rift: Planes of Telara
23: The Witcher 2 (High / Ultra / Maximum)

 

I just picked up a Sapphire Toxic 2GB 6950. I was lucky and was able to unlock shadders from 1406 to 1536. Stock speed is Core 880 and Memory 1300. I know my cpu is a bottleneck until I do the upgrade. However, would overclocking the card give me any type of performance increase?

 

I would only overclock a GPU if it were water cooled myself. The darn things run to warm with stock cooling if you ask me.

 

Potentially, depends what CPU it is. You're not likely to get huge gains from an already-unlocked card.

 

Thanks Omega and Sam. I will run it as is then.

 

Rage - 8xAA
RPI: 120/140
Position: 10 of 24 (1 is least demanding) of recently tested titles.

 

Yep Rage looks beautiful and runs great. Maxed everything with 8xAA runs locked at 60FPS on my rig.

 

So you think my computer will run it ok? I mean at 1920 x 1200. It looks like an interesting game!

 

Yep given the latest Nvidia drivers and the latest patch for the game you should be able to handle it adequately. At what speeds and what AA level I haven't the foggiest but a single GTX260 should be well within the limits of playing the game.

Just FYI before drivers the game ran maybe 30-45FPS no matter the settings or AA. With the newest drivers I literally can't make it drop below 60. Ofc I have an ATi card so there are obvious differences but it's worth noting that Nvidia have also released a specific "Rage performance driver". Given the large Nvidia bias of idTech games and the reasonable speed of your GTX260 I'd say you could run it.

Also of note there are a few cfg settings to force high textures and avoid pop-in issues as without forced settings the game auto-balances the graphics. Without the small tweak the pop-in for textures and objects is hideous.

It's worth noting that I compare everything performance-wise to Crysis. A GTX260 can handle Crysis at what I think of as "adequately," and Rage runs miles better than Crysis, so you should be in the clear.