New video card recommendations

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SomePostman

139 posts

Master Geek

#97479 15-Feb-2012 12:45

Hi all.

I'm a long time PC gamer that has been dabbling around the PS3 I own. But Battlefield 3 has pulled me back to PC gaming.

My system is really struggling with the game. I'd imagine that my graphics card would probably be the weak link now (given how GPU dependent games tend to be). Would you agree? And it so, given that I don't really want to upgrade the rest of my PC right now, what would the 'right' video card be to match the rest of my system specs?

CPU:  Pentium dual core E5400
RAM:   6gb
OS: Windows Vista Home premium 64bit
VID CARD:  NVIDIA 8800GT
MONITOR: Samsung S23A750D 1920x1080 Resolution (not currently being used on this PC as it needs a displayport or HDMI input)

I was thinking either the Radeon HD6850 or 6870 - would that be a nice FPS boost?

Thanks in advance!

garvani

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#581786 15-Feb-2012 12:53

Yes that graphics card is struggling alright! I would get the 6870, they are great cards at a reasonable price (i happen to have 2 of them in my machine in crossfire). If your going to use that screen then i wouldn't recommend playing BF3 in 1080p, drop it down to 720p to get more FPS. Even with that graphics card at 720p your only going to get medium graphics settings as your cpu is holding you back as well.
I spent $2,500 on my pc build for BF3 and i get ~80fps on high at 1080p, its a resource hog of a game! :)

edit: forgot to include this comparison of your card vs a 6870 LINK

vexxxboy

4244 posts

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#581794 15-Feb-2012 12:59

most important is what your power supply is , a big factor in what card you can run

Common sense is not as common as you think.

SomePostman

139 posts

Master Geek

#581804 15-Feb-2012 13:05

Oh I did forget to mention the PSU. It's a coolermaster 460W.

Lias

5589 posts

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#581895 15-Feb-2012 15:19

Your CPU will be holding you back quite badly too. BF3 _really_ wants you to have a modernish quadcore, it's more CPU intensive than alot of other games.

That PSU is pretty gutless too.

I realise it's a heck of a lot more dinero, but you should seriously consider a new CPU (which given you have a Socket 775 C2D almost certainly means new motherboard/ram), new PSU, and new 6870 to top it off.

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SomePostman

139 posts

Master Geek

#581900 15-Feb-2012 15:30

Although I appreciate the feedback and where you're coming from, I'm really not in a position to do a major upgrade on my PC. So it sounds like an HD6870, although desireable, may be out of the question. My CPU would drag the chain and I'm not sure my PSU has the guts to run it (or the 2x75W PCIE power).

That really leaves me with the option of an HD6850. It only uses 20W more power. Given that I already own and can run (at a compromised level) BF3 would the HD6850 be a good $220 upgrade?

vexxxboy

4244 posts

Uber Geek

#581951 15-Feb-2012 16:58

lias is right, BF 3 needs at least a quad core to run the game at anything decent, no matter what card you have . with that card and cpu you wouldn't get anymore than the lowest settings to work , but on the up side it still would be a an improvement over your old card.

Common sense is not as common as you think.

Lias

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#581997 15-Feb-2012 18:52

SomePostman: Although I appreciate the feedback and where you're coming from, I'm really not in a position to do a major upgrade on my PC. So it sounds like an HD6870, although desireable, may be out of the question. My CPU would drag the chain and I'm not sure my PSU has the guts to run it (or the 2x75W PCIE power).

That really leaves me with the option of an HD6850. It only uses 20W more power. Given that I already own and can run (at a compromised level) BF3 would the HD6850 be a good $220 upgrade?

Personally I'd just save until you can afford to replace the CPU as well. You would see some improvement in playability, but your CPU is going to bottleneck the crap out of that 6850.

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FierceGuppy

134 posts

Master Geek

#582114 15-Feb-2012 23:16

SomePostman: Although I appreciate the feedback and where you're coming from, I'm really not in a position to do a major upgrade on my PC. So it sounds like an HD6870, although desireable, may be out of the question. My CPU would drag the chain and I'm not sure my PSU has the guts to run it (or the 2x75W PCIE power).

That really leaves me with the option of an HD6850. It only uses 20W more power. Given that I already own and can run (at a compromised level) BF3 would the HD6850 be a good $220 upgrade?

The difference in performance between the 8800GT and the HD6850 is well worth the expenditure. If the E5400 was currently a major system bottleneck to playing BF3 you'd have noticed it with a consistently high CPU usage. You never mentioned getting high CPU usage while playing BF3 so I guess the CPU is no bottleneck at that 'compromised level' (It must be bloody severe). Sticking in a HD6850 will very likely entail the CPU becoming the primary bottleneck rather than the GPU. But I reckon you will get a lot more FPS out of the new card before that happens. Yeah, so I'd happily risk your $220 on the upgrade.

kyhwana2

2566 posts

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#582127 16-Feb-2012 00:30

I've got a radeon 6870 with a i5-2500k and BF3 maxes out all four cores, but the rest of system is still responsive as. (I run BF3 windowed and I have an intel 320 SSD)

I'd say even a 6850 would still be bottlenecked by the CPU, but you can always keep it and put it into your next PC that you buy/upgrade to!

FierceGuppy

134 posts

Master Geek

#582146 16-Feb-2012 06:47

kyhwana2: I've got a radeon 6870 with a i5-2500k and BF3 maxes out all four cores, but the rest of system is still responsive as. (I run BF3 windowed and I have an intel 320 SSD)

I'd say even a 6850 would still be bottlenecked by the CPU, but you can always keep it and put it into your next PC that you buy/upgrade to!

It depends on the amount of sacrifices in visual quality the player is willing to bear. I get nag messages about slowed system performance and am asked if I want to downgrade to basic desktop settings. That's with a GTX590 and a i7-965. But then I don't want to play BF3 with anything less than ultra settings at 1920x1200. SomePostman can probably tolerate 1280x768 with medium to low settings. I don't know... He'd probably do better getting BF3 for his PS3. I've seen videos streamed live from justin.tv/twitch with players running BF3 on their Xboxes and PS3s. The quality looks pretty good.

lucky015

743 posts

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#583293 18-Feb-2012 20:56

SomePostman: Although I appreciate the feedback and where you're coming from, I'm really not in a position to do a major upgrade on my PC. So it sounds like an HD6870, although desireable, may be out of the question. My CPU would drag the chain and I'm not sure my PSU has the guts to run it (or the 2x75W PCIE power).

That really leaves me with the option of an HD6850. It only uses 20W more power. Given that I already own and can run (at a compromised level) BF3 would the HD6850 be a good $220 upgrade?

6850 is probably a good start but keep in mind that you will likely still notice the same problems you are noticing now, Although not quite as frequent.

I was running a 6850 (Dual Fan, Stock OC'd) with a Core 2 Duo E6750 @ 2.66 in my previous build and BF3 was verging on unplayable, Have since upgraded to an FX-8120 with the same GPU and the game runs extremely well so CPU bottle necking is a major problem with BF3 on older systems, Buying a 6850 is a good start for now but you may not notice as much of a performance increase as you would expect.