Need a new Gfx card to play BF3 smoothly!

[Pikem4n]

Hello ladies and gents

Currently i have a Inno3D gts 250 1GB graphics card and under load the card now sounds a tad bit noisey as i think the bearings on the fans are going,also when i play BF3 to get a smooth frame rate i've got to switch everything more or less to low to get a decent-ish experience playing online.

Now that is not good enough! So i am in the market to get a new graphics card, i guess an nvidea 560 TI or an AMD 6950 might be what i just need to get a decent framerate on BF3,but i do not know exactly which one i should go for, can anyone point me in the right direction?

Many thanks.

[BarbaricSoul]

get a 2gb 6950,performance between the 560ti and 6950 is about the same, but the 2gb of RAM on the 6950 will make BF3 run alot better on higher settings

[caleb]

I just bought the setup in my spec's.
My 560Ti runs smoothly ~50-60fps on Ultra settings 1440x900 res with all driver settings set at default (Texture : Quality etc.).
Occasionally it drops to 30FPS during scope animation.

I chose Nvidia over ATI because of 3D Vision and CUDA. Most likely the ATI6950 is a better choice for pure FPS.

[BarbaricSoul]

Originally Posted by caleb

Occasionally it drops to 30FPS during scope animation.

because of the 560ti only having 1gb of RAM, which is why I recommended the 2gb 6950.

[caleb]

I find it hard to believe its cause of the RAM at my resolution.

[BarbaricSoul]

I can't say I'm 100% sure that's why it slowed to 30fps, but you could find out for us. Go play alittle bit, and when you see that slow down, check your video ram usage. If it's max'ed out at that point, there's your reason for the slow down.

[arnoo1]

580!!!

[BarbaricSoul]

Originally Posted by arnoo1

580!!!

Yeah, I'm sure he'd love a 580. PM him for his shipping details, then go buy it and ship it to him.

Seriously, if the OP could afford a GTX580, he would have posted it as a option in the 1st post

[Crap Daddy]

The slowdown occurs incidentaly for me too, don't really now if it's the VRAM shortage of if the game or drivers have flaws but don't want to get into details. Based on what some good new games need - lots of VRAM - I'd suggest to go with a 2GB version, don't know if there are Ti models with that amount of Vram.

[the54thvoid]

The OP has a 32" CRT for a monitor. What is the resolution of it? That's the all important part.

My father (who is 70 ) plays on a 22" LCD with a HD5850 and a Phenom x6 1055 and it actually runs quite well. No slow fps and pretty damn smooth.

Overkill ain't necessary to play BF3 - good (multi-core) cpu makes a diff.

[Play3r]

i have a modded 6950 2gb which runs bf3 on med settings above 60fps (1080p) nearly all of the time so go for something like that i would say. not to sure what it would do at higher settings but a mate runs on ultra (1920x1200) with a none modded and he doesnt complain

[Crap Daddy]

It all depends on resolution and the settings you wanna use. On my other rig I tested BF3 with a GTS450 at 720p on an LCD TV and mostly at medium but with post AA it plays well and it looks great.

[mrw1986]

Originally Posted by Crap Daddy

The slowdown occurs incidentaly for me too, don't really now if it's the VRAM shortage of if the game or drivers have flaws but don't want to get into details. Based on what some good new games need - lots of VRAM - I'd suggest to go with a 2GB version, don't know if there are Ti models with that amount of Vram.

Yes, there are 2 560 Ti 2gb available in the US. One made by EVGA and the other MSI. I would go with the MSI, the EVGA is notorious for having fan problems. There is also the Gainward Phantom model, but it isn't available in the US. To have it imported it costs about $450.

[tigger]

Originally Posted by the54thvoid

The OP has a 32" CRT for a monitor. What is the resolution of it? That's the all important part.

My father (who is 70 ) plays on a 22" LCD with a HD5850 and a Phenom x6 1055 and it actually runs quite well. No slow fps and pretty damn smooth.

Overkill ain't necessary to play BF3 - good (multi-core) cpu makes a diff.

I agree on the good multicore cpu, i have a single 6850 1gb and game at 1920x1080 on a 24" lcd and BF3 seems to run fine for me all on high.

[BlackOmega]

A 5850 would suffice. However, we need to know the resolution that the OP is going to be playing at. If he's under 1080p the 1GB of VRAM should be sufficient.
You only really need more VRAM (2GB) at higher resolutions. At lower resolutions, it almost makes no difference, maybe 2%.

[qubit]

Get a GTX 580 and nail those framerates. They're not that pricey if you get a cheaper one.

(Make sure your PSU is up to it)

[BarbaricSoul]

Originally Posted by qubit

Get a GTX 580 and nail those framerates. They're not that pricey if you get a cheaper one.

(Make sure your PSU is up to it)

Yeah, they aren't that bad, I mean the cheapest one on newegg is only $479, not like I havent bought cars for less than that before(and got more than a years use out of the cars). Oh, and dont forget the bonus, all that bottlenecking that'll be included when you pair that GTX580 with that phenomII quad at 3.4ghz

[qubit]

Originally Posted by BarbaricSoul

Oh, and dont forget the bonus, all that bottlenecking that'll be included when you pair that GTX580 with that phenomII quad at 3.4ghz

Yes, that's true. Even my E8500 @ 4.11GHz isn't always enough to drive my new 120Hz monitor at 120Hz solid with a modern game. I can tell it's the CPU, because dropping down the resolution from 1080p to 1024x768 makes no difference.

I'm gonna upgrade it to a 2600K/2700K and I'll start a thread on my new build when I get started on it.

[Pikem4n]

Hello folks

Wow i was not expecting this sort of response,sorry to say that the gtx 580 is just a bit out of my price range by £100 unless someone DOES indeed want to buy me one , i think the max i want to spend is £200 and not a penny more! lol

And yes i do play on a 32 inch but i usually lower the resolution to get a better FOV, i have seen a few 560Ti cards in reviews and what have you (i would love to get the gainward phantom 2gb card), and people have said on here that the 2GB versions might be a better option to go for rather than the 1GB versions,is this right?

But saying that i have also seen that people prefer to opt for the ATi 6950,if i did go for that option, would it make any difference to me saying that i have an asus sli based mobo and the card was a crossfire based card??

[DarkOCean]

I played bf3 sp on 5770 1gb on ultra and even at 1280x1024 it eats all my vram so the answer is clear get a 6950 2gb .

[caleb]

Confirmed Ultra = all VRAM usage.
Still 3D Vision and CUDA but I guess ATI is the way to go with FPS for BF3.

[timma]

Gtx 570 soc :d

[KieranD]

2gb helps with textures and resolution but you dont need 2gb unless you want to try run higher settings

depends on how much you want to spend but a 6850 is a good cheap card and a 560ti is better, in some cases overclocked can match and beat a 570

Originally Posted by Pikem4n

But saying that i have also seen that people prefer to opt for the ATi 6950,if i did go for that option, would it make any difference to me saying that i have an asus sli based mobo and the card was a crossfire based card??

Doesn't matter, I'd suggest this one as a single GPU... (since the budget doesn't allow for more)

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-m...2x-dvi-dp-hdmi

yes, a Lightning 5870. Still a beast on it's own. The card owned nVidia at the time and easily went beyond a Ghz. It was a limited GPU with a 12 high-current inductor (VRM) design, with a Proadlizer and Tantalum (small - resistor like caps) backing up the GPU. It can beat modern mid-range GPU's if you're going to OC.

[caleb]

Can we run some benchmark in BF3 to try and confirm its 100% the 1GB VRAM or just the cards GPU reaching its capabilities?
Yeah sure it says it uses all the VRAM but it also uses all it's GPU.
I have 2 friends with different platforms c2quad+6970/2GB,amdx4+gtx570/1,2GB plus mine i5+560Ti/1GB. I'd like to run some test in BF3 to be able to compare if its really the VRAM limiting the GPU.