Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: olly1 on September 15, 2014, 08:05:49 PM
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which is best make/model graphics card/chipsets ? Am looking for new pc due the one i use
to play games is a good few years old.At best now am getting around 30-50 fps with the setting turned off plus background programs off too.
I have old intel chipset pc which i use for internet only and when i 1st got it was tolded the chipset was the in thing
to have with new updates to come but they never happen with the chipset i had.So am put off getting a pc with a chipset but now there all the rage with HD chips.The pc i use for games has the ATI Radeon Xpress X1250 and its on the limits playing AH but with new graphics engine for AH I know my fps will take a hit.So what are pros and cons with Intel/Nvidia GeForce /ATI Radeon?
<S>
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which is best make/model graphics card/chipsets ? Am looking for new pc due the one i use
to play games is a good few years old.At best now am getting around 30-50 fps with the setting turned off plus background programs off too.
I have old intel chipset pc which i use for internet only and when i 1st got it was tolded the chipset was the in thing
to have with new updates to come but they never happen with the chipset i had.So am put off getting a pc with a chipset but now there all the rage with HD chips.The pc i use for games has the ATI Radeon Xpress X1250 and its on the limits playing AH but with new graphics engine for AH I know my fps will take a hit.So what are pros and cons with Intel/Nvidia GeForce /ATI Radeon?
<S>
There's no single answer to your question. There are some rules of thumb though:
1) Anything integrated is usually a bad idea for AH. Avoid integrated graphics solutions no matter if they come from Intel, AMD, Matrox or Nvidia. The latest integrated chips are getting better and work great already with a host of games but they're not recommended for AH. IIRC Skuzzy has posted about it many times.
2) Nvidia and AMD both make great products. They're constantly competing with each others so one brand is cheaper on day, the other second. If someone brings claims of driver problems with either brand don't listen to them. They both have their set of problems but again, that's not a practical problem at all. Both will work great.
3) Avodi SLI/Crossfire if you can. They're a gimmick that artificially boosts a single cards performance by pairing it with another. SLI/Crossfire is supported only for selected games and currently AH is not supported so you get no benefit for the double price. Also even for the games that are supported, think about the 'driver problems' some may bring up. They get doubled or tripled if you use SLI/Xfire :)
What I would suggest to you is to post how much money you have available and what you have currently (including cpu/motherboard type, amount of ram and what size is your current power supply). There are many forum members that would be happy to give advice on what parts need upgrading and what to use.
If you want to research yourself, there is a great article maintained by Tomshardware that lists graphics cards that are best for a given price range in the editors opinion. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107.html
Expect to spend a minimum of 180 bucks for a card that will run the new AH graphics well. Any card above that price point on the list will run the new AH great as long as the rest of your computer is up to the task. Remember that if you have a weak CPU and little ram you won't get much more speed from a new graphics card alone.
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As a side note, don't worry about the Intel graphics chipset. It will be shut down when you install a "real" video card to your motherboard.
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On most motherboards you can select what video-card your output should try first, to get video out.
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. . .
3) Avodi SLI/Crossfire if you can. They're a gimmick that artificially boosts a single cards performance by pairing it with another. SLI/Crossfire is supported only for selected games and currently AH is not supported so you get no benefit for the double price. Also even for the games that are supported, think about the 'driver problems' some may bring up. They get doubled or tripled if you use SLI/Xfire :)
. . .
I would not know about the Crossfire problem, but Ripley is absolutely wrong about SLI. However, there is no reason to enter into an SLI system from the very beginning, unless there is some particular goal you are shooting for. If your system has the juice to power a GTX 980, or GTX 970, then you will have an advantage in eye candy for a little while. There are two very handy modes these cards offer that no other card can match for the moment. Also, SLI is not needed (as of this time) for AH, as either card will give you a reliable 60 fps in AH, easily.
And, yes, if you are considering a purchase of an entirely new system (sounds like it), we will have to know your budget to give you much help.
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I would not know about the Crossfire problem, but Ripley is absolutely wrong about SLI. However, there is no reason to enter into an SLI system from the very beginning, unless there is some particular goal you are shooting for. If your system has the juice to power a GTX 980, or GTX 970, then you will have an advantage in eye candy for a little while. There are two very handy modes these cards offer that no other card can match for the moment. Also, SLI is not needed (as of this time) for AH, as either card will give you a reliable 60 fps in AH, easily.
And, yes, if you are considering a purchase of an entirely new system (sounds like it), we will have to know your budget to give you much help.
Sorry but I'm absolutely right about SLI. Many games (including and most imporantly AH2) do not have any or very well working SLI profiles which means that the second card is just a paper weight while playing. SLI users are also suspectible to additional stability and driver problems (not being able to use vsync, CTDs etc). SLI is a gimmick that should be used only when your high-end graphics card won't cut the mustard alone anymore. For a low to mid-tier GPU buyer SLI is just a sad joke.
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The only experience I have with Crossfire is when I ran two AMD 5850 cards on my old i7-930 machine. The net gain over a single 5850 in synthetic benchmarks was just under 20%. The only observable difference in AH was a slight improvement in frame rates over very busy furballs.
YMMV
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Ran Crossfire on my last machine. Two AMD 4850s as I recall. For AH which has no profile they are worthless. No gains anywhere.
Was just impressive to say I ran Crossfire..............was also stupid for paying for an additional card.
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For a low to mid-tier GPU buyer SLI is just a sad joke.
That's kind of the point. Obviously spending 2x the $ on a product isn't for the low or mid tier user.
Also, the story of AH and SLI is a well known and old one now. In fact, you can take 5 year old hardware, and with the environmental/reflections setting not being higher than one notch, have it perform up to the max fps most users can see due to their limited 60hz lcds.
AH, a very old game so far as most of the graphics go, isn't what SLI is for. Anyone who is a low to mid tier user, or primarily using their gaming PC for Aces High only would be wasting their money on an SLI setup. However, this story that "most games, "driver problems", and "bla bla" are nonsense. I can list over a dozen popular games, and just did in another thread, where SLI with older cards than the new 970 and 980 gave a huge performance increase. Users who are using the new 970 in SLI, let alone the 980 - massive increase in performance. In fact, if you're planning on running max detail with games like BF4, Crysis3, Rome2, and many others, on triple 1080p monitors, a 1440p 144hz monitor, or a 4k monitor, SLI is almost a requirement. Google it yourself, there are many gaming sites with brand new reviews and tests of the 970 in SLI vs a single 980, which costs only 100$ish more depending on the manufacturer. I'll let you guess which is performing better for the $, 2 970 in SLI or a single 980.
You can start here, there are many more reviews/tests telling the same story for most of the popular games out there - 970SLI is a far better option than a single 980 for only 100$ more, the performance gains are massive.
Notice the BF4 scores.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_970_SLI/5.html
Or the Crysis3 scores.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_970_SLI/9.html
Far Cry3
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_970_SLI/11.html
The conclusions of this very comprehensive test are that the 970 SLI is a huge winner over the single 980 option in the bang/$ category. The same story is being told at Tomshardware, Anandtech, and so on.
I don't think nVidia envisioned building the SLI system around 1900 guys who play a dated flight simulator. I'm sure with the new version there may be a chance that we'll get an updated SLI profile for AH, but I'm not sure what's involved so far as dealing with nVidia on this, but I'm confident if it can be done, HT can do it so far as that goes. Either way it doesn't matter, as if it stays status quo so far as SLI/AH goes, it won't make much difference to anyone. I do somehow doubt that most AH players only play AH, which sort of negates the whole "sli is useless" for the AH player, certainly a majority of them at least.
Therefore with the price and performance of the 970 SLI combo being such that it is, it would be prudent to ask those asking advice on video cards what their usage of other games is like, in addition to Aces High, prior to telling them "sli is crap, and here is a list of my nonsense reasons why". If AH is the only thing a player is using their system for gaming wise, it's a completely different story regarding SLI options compared to a player that is into many other products.
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As said earlier SLI makes sense only when using already high end cards and especially if playing 4K or triple screen. For the average 'mainstream' user SLI is not a sensible option especially if shopping for a new card thats going to replace a totally outdated one like the OP was doing.
A single 970 gives so much performance per dollar that it is definately what I would recommend currently for anyone shopping for a new card that has a modern computer to run it with. It goes without saying that old Core2Duos and AMDs are not going to be able to keep up with the 970. An overclocked or high-end i5, i7 or 1150 socket Xeon is required.
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In order to know why there is no benefit from SLI/Crossfire on some systems you have to look at what is going on with the PCIe lanes, which is why you should ask lots and lots of questions.
Nvidia will not create an AH profile even if you petition them. HTC will have to pay for it, and it doesn't make sense to do that. From Nvidia's perspective they probably have a team of people working the numbers to find out which games are trending and writing profiles for them. You can make your own, you know.
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In order to know why there is no benefit from SLI/Crossfire on some systems you have to look at what is going on with the PCIe lanes, which is why you should ask lots and lots of questions.
Nvidia will not create an AH profile even if you petition them. HTC will have to pay for it, and it doesn't make sense to do that. From Nvidia's perspective they probably have a team of people working the numbers to find out which games are trending and writing profiles for them. You can make your own, you know.
Yeah so we actually agree that running SLI brings a lot more complication to your system and its something that only an enthusiast should do. You need a premium motherboard, top of the line cpu, two higher than average cards, triple screen etc. before you start to get real benefits from SLI - and yet there are games such as AH2 that would not get much benefit regardless of spending all the extra hundreds of dollars on the gear.
SLI looks to scale great on mainstream games and on 4k/triple screen. There I would definately recommend it for anyone who has serious cash in their pocket.
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There you go making blatant, uninformed assumptions again. When I said you need to ask a lot more questions, I was saying you need to ask a lot more questions. Since you don't know how SLI works or what kind of system might benefit from it you might start there.
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There you go making blatant, uninformed assumptions again. When I said you need to ask a lot more questions, I was saying you need to ask a lot more questions. Since you don't know how SLI works or what kind of system might benefit from it you might start there.
Which part of my text was blatant and uninformed. A simple question. Or was it just to fulfill your recent urge to make out of the blue personal attacks on every possible turn? :rofl
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As said earlier SLI makes sense only when using already high end cards and especially if playing 4K or triple screen. For the average 'mainstream' user SLI is not a sensible option
Remember in the other thread when you brought up that Skuzzy had said SLI was useless - which isn't what he had said at all IMO, but that's ok. Why don't you ask Skuzzy how many of HTC's customers are using or have used triple screen setups recently? Hint - your hardware equipment is updated and sent into HTC as part of the TOS, so they know what their customers systems specs are in great detail. They number Skuzzy recently gave was astonishingly high for triple screen users, over a third as I recall, I'll search for the exact thread/post. So, that being said, your "mainstream" users even here at HTC are greatly represented by triple screen users, something that, while not important here in AH, IS very important for other games where SLI/triple screen is effective.
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what rippley fails to understand is that while new cards can handle 3 monitors easily, most guys are still using older cards that need 2 cards in sli to handle 3 monitors.
I personally think that 1/3 of players dont use triple screens. but at the same time I think a lot of them do. when I switched from sli evga 465 to a single evga 770 I really saw no improvement in ah or other games.
but what do I know except what I can see.
semp
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Remember in the other thread when you brought up that Skuzzy had said SLI was useless - which isn't what he had said at all IMO, but that's ok. Why don't you ask Skuzzy how many of HTC's customers are using or have used triple screen setups recently? Hint - your hardware equipment is updated and sent into HTC as part of the TOS, so they know what their customers systems specs are in great detail. They number Skuzzy recently gave was astonishingly high for triple screen users, over a third as I recall, I'll search for the exact thread/post. So, that being said, your "mainstream" users even here at HTC are greatly represented by triple screen users, something that, while not important here in AH, IS very important for other games where SLI/triple screen is effective.
AH runs just fine using a enthusiast level single graphics card even on triple screen. That's because AH doesn't utilize the GPU much at all especially when SLI is in the picture where the second GPU sits mostly unused due to AHs profile problems. Only with AAA profiles you get good returns on SLI (and even then you need to have a correctly set up high end computer with many high speed PCI-E lanes as Chalenge pointed out).
Triple screen users with older hardware may have been forced to make a SLI setup because Nvidia had a poor multi monitor support in the past. Doing so has brought them little to no gains in actual speed though so they'd be far better off just selling the old card away and getting a modern version instead.
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what rippley fails to understand is that while new cards can handle 3 monitors easily, most guys are still using older cards that need 2 cards in sli to handle 3 monitors.
I personally think that 1/3 of players dont use triple screens. but at the same time I think a lot of them do. when I switched from sli evga 465 to a single evga 770 I really saw no improvement in ah or other games.
but what do I know except what I can see.
semp
If you saw no improvement it's most likely the rest of your computer is not up to the task to run the 770 at max speed. Since AH doesn't use SLI practically speaking, getting no increase in FPS after the card change indicates that your bottleneck was not the graphics card but some other component in your computer. Most likely the CPU. Which cpu/mobo are you using?
Edit: I just checked and the SLI 465 does not get more than 70% of performance of one 770 even if SLI profile worked perfectly. So my suggestion for you would be to increase your CPU speed in order to utilize your new card fully.
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I don't know what CPU semp has, but Anandtech did a recent test with every most gaming common CPUs from the 2500k up to the 5930k with the 780 video card, 780ti, and 780ti in SLI. Guess what the performance difference was between CPUs? Almost zilch in the 95 percent of the games tested. 4770k, 3570k, 3820k, 3930k, 4930k, 4790k - there was less than 10%, and often less than 3% difference in performance with all 3 video card setups used. You can google the article if you like.
The points you continue to bring up Ripley only apply to AH regarding triple monitor and SLI. Back when the 680gtx was brand new, I ran triple monitors on a single, and going to SLI the next week made huge differences in many, many games, such as Far Cry, Crysis, and so on, even back then 2 years ago. Now, since over 1/3 of HTC's customers use triple monitors according to Skuzzy and their data, it would be safe to assume that many of those players play other games than AH as well. In the majority of these games, say the top 25 out there, SLI continues to provide huge performance leaps, especially on the triple monitor setups. Now, with the 970 SLI/$ performance compared to the 980, there is no question at all.
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If you saw no improvement it's most likely the rest of your computer is not up to the task to run the 770 at max speed. Since AH doesn't use SLI practically speaking, getting no increase in FPS after the card change indicates that your bottleneck was not the graphics card but some other component in your computer. Most likely the CPU. Which cpu/mobo are you using?
Edit: I just checked and the SLI 465 does not get more than 70% of performance of one 770 even if SLI profile worked perfectly. So my suggestion for you would be to increase your CPU speed in order to utilize your new card fully.
I saw no improvement because I maxed out all graphics in both games I play.
semp
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Maybe this discussion on x16 by x16 versus x4 by x4 will be of some interest to you (with GTX 480s, but still. . .):
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/08/25/gtx_480_sli_pcie_bandwidth_perf_x16x16_vs_x4x4/
EDIT:
This article will answer nearly anyone's questions concerning CPU/GPU bottlenecks with SLI, versus scaling. This article was written around the GTX 480 (just as the previous article I cited), but is relevant precisely because of the lane comparisons versus CPU efficiencies. In my previous tests I found AH to more closely follow the results of CoD: MW2 than the other games cited. I am still waiting to see if that still holds true with the 980s in SLI and, of course, how the upcoming version will compare also.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pcie-geforce-gtx-480-x16-x8-x4,2696.html
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I saw no improvement because I maxed out all graphics in both games I play.
semp
Eh? So you're saying that you were able to increase your quality settings keeping your old fps and you think that's no improvement? Maybe you should think a little before posting.
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I don't know what CPU semp has, but Anandtech did a recent test with every most gaming common CPUs from the 2500k up to the 5930k with the 780 video card, 780ti, and 780ti in SLI. Guess what the performance difference was between CPUs? Almost zilch in the 95 percent of the games tested. 4770k, 3570k, 3820k, 3930k, 4930k, 4790k - there was less than 10%, and often less than 3% difference in performance with all 3 video card setups used. You can google the article if you like.
The points you continue to bring up Ripley only apply to AH regarding triple monitor and SLI. Back when the 680gtx was brand new, I ran triple monitors on a single, and going to SLI the next week made huge differences in many, many games, such as Far Cry, Crysis, and so on, even back then 2 years ago. Now, since over 1/3 of HTC's customers use triple monitors according to Skuzzy and their data, it would be safe to assume that many of those players play other games than AH as well. In the majority of these games, say the top 25 out there, SLI continues to provide huge performance leaps, especially on the triple monitor setups. Now, with the 970 SLI/$ performance compared to the 980, there is no question at all.
The points I continue to bring up is that if someone already has a 970 and it's not enough, by all means get a second one. But if the poster is asking a replacement for an ancient single card setup (meaning he probably can't even afford the latest and the greatest) chances are he's best served with a single mid-tier card as a replacement.
As for the Anandtech article I'm not surprised if the i7 cpus had less than 10% difference lol. The thing is, someone upgrading from X1240 or the likes probably runs a Core2Duo computer. Guess what happens to SLI performance at that point? Picture this:
(http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph6985/54992.png)
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Maybe this discussion on x16 by x16 versus x4 by x4 will be of some interest to you (with GTX 480s, but still. . .):
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/08/25/gtx_480_sli_pcie_bandwidth_perf_x16x16_vs_x4x4/
I wonder why you didn't link this article when you were arguing with me hell bent that it's necessary to have a PCI-E 3.0 capable motherboard LOL! You just showed your own arguments wrong by posting the article which shows little to no difference between even PCI-E 2.0 x4 vs PCI-E 2.0 x16. Well done!
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Typical misrepresentation of what I said Ripley, and not at all what I said. I was talking about PCIe and bandwidth saturation, which if you recall I said these cards are designed to work. If they saturated the PCIe lanes then the system would probably lockup and crash. Instead, they are designed to work even at x4. What I said is that these cards are limited by PCIe of either flavor. The entire idea that you will only need PCIe 3.0 once you begin to saturate PCIe 2.0 is a fallacious point, which is why the point you made in that thread was wrong.
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Typical misrepresentation of what I said Ripley, and not at all what I said. I was talking about PCIe and bandwidth saturation, which if you recall I said these cards are designed to work. If they saturated the PCIe lanes then the system would probably lockup and crash. Instead, they are designed to work even at x4. What I said is that these cards are limited by PCIe of either flavor. The entire idea that you will only need PCIe 3.0 once you begin to saturate PCIe 2.0 is a fallacious point, which is why the point you made in that thread was wrong.
You're the one who fails to see the real needs. It has absolutely no relevance to this discussion if a graphics card would theoretically saturate the PCI-E if it was channeling everything through it. As it doesn't and uses offloading, it's TOTALLY pointless to distract the discussion to that. In fact the whole thing is a smoke screen you were using to hide your own mistake. You went all over from quad-sli to imaginary direct feed graphics to hide the fact that I proved you wrong.
You seem to be mentally unable to admit you're wrong even when proven so. That makes me lol a bit. Or chuckle. :lol
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Eh? So you're saying that you were able to increase your quality settings keeping your old fps and you think that's no improvement? Maybe you should think a little before posting.
No what I said is that I had already maxed out the graphics with my old card and saw no improvement with the new one. perhaps the new one runs a bit quieter and saw a 5 to 10 fps increase in wot from 50 to 55 or 60. that's why I said I saw no improvement in the games that I could see.
semp
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No what I said is that I had already maxed out the graphics with my old card and saw no improvement with the new one. perhaps the new one runs a bit quieter and saw a 5 to 10 fps increase in wot from 50 to 55 or 60. that's why I said I saw no improvement in the games that I could see.
semp
That doesn't mean there wasn't improvement. If you run with vsync on and your old card was already capped by it, of course you see no change.
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Speaking of sync, what do you all think about this new G-sync technology? Lots of sites are raving about it, I want to see it myself. I've been considering either going back to triple screen 1080p, 4k, or 1440p 144hz ROG Swift for my monitor situation. The new Asus ROG Swift has that G sync tech, which is supposed to be the cat's PJs, but I want to see it first myself, or at least talk to others who have it, and see if it's worth a 900$ per monitor price, or if I should just stick to 1080p 144hz 24" for now. 4k - I dunno, I had one ordered but changed my mind, and still haven't decided what I should do once the 980s get back in stock and get shipped out.
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Speaking of sync, what do you all think about this new G-sync technology? Lots of sites are raving about it, I want to see it myself. I've been considering either going back to triple screen 1080p, 4k, or 1440p 144hz ROG Swift for my monitor situation. The new Asus ROG Swift has that G sync tech, which is supposed to be the cat's PJs, but I want to see it first myself, or at least talk to others who have it, and see if it's worth a 900$ per monitor price, or if I should just stick to 1080p 144hz 24" for now. 4k - I dunno, I had one ordered but changed my mind, and still haven't decided what I should do once the 980s get back in stock and get shipped out.
I haven't seen G-sync in action but as far as I understand it it creates a smoother viewing experience by 'unlocking' the vsync but still keeping the frame sync intact. So normally when you drop below 60hz directly to 30hz on normal vsync, G-sync can drop dynamically to 55hz, 43hz or whatever your card can push at that time without getting any sort of tearing. It sort of pairs your monitor with your display card so that the card can keep track of the refresh states.
Those who have used it say that it brings much more smoothness to situations where your computer would visibly choke using regular vsync.
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You're the one who fails to see the real needs. It has absolutely no relevance to this discussion if a graphics card would theoretically saturate the PCI-E if it was channeling everything through it. As it doesn't and uses offloading, it's TOTALLY pointless to distract the discussion to that. In fact the whole thing is a smoke screen you were using to hide your own mistake. You went all over from quad-sli to imaginary direct feed graphics to hide the fact that I proved you wrong.
You seem to be mentally unable to admit you're wrong even when proven so. That makes me lol a bit. Or chuckle. :lol
Ripley, I was just correcting your comments as imprecise, which I am free to do. You make enough mistakes on these boards that it is easy to do. The real problem is that you look for the slightest misstep in comments and try to blow them up into mountain-sized errors, and then in the end when you find out you are wrong you try to change the subject yet again. You have never proven me wrong. Maybe in your mind you have, but that's not the reality of the situation. Meanwhile, every time you bring up your opinion of SLI I prove you wrong, just like in this thread.
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Ripley, I was just correcting your comments as imprecise, which I am free to do.
No you're not free to 'correct imprecise comments' because you haven't brought up a SINGLE fact which was imprecise nor linked to supporting evidence (which I in contrast was able to do every time). You're just creating a smoke screen still to hide your own blunder. I asked you to point out the erroneous parts in my post, you couldn't do that so quit yapping already.
Now after this post I'm beginning to be certain of your condition.