Upgrade advice for game performance

BujinStudent · Nov 11, 2013

OK first off, I feel bad for you people that pre-ordered BF4 and are suffering through this BS - I'm waiting until and if they get the game straightened out enough to buy it, this upgrade is mostly in preparation in case I do but I probably could use it regardless.

Here are current specs (possibly unnecessary stuff included for reference) :

Win 7 HP 64
Asus Sabertooth X58 mobo
i7 950 @ 3.07 GHz (OC'ing is an option if I need to, including unparking cores?)
Thermaltake SpinQ cooler
6 GB ram
NVIDIA EVGA GTX 570
Asus Xonar DX soundcard
Audio Technica ATH AD700X and Superlux HD 681 headphones
Zalman clip on mic
Antec 900 case
Samsung SyncMaster 920NW monitor

Turning all or most of the graphics settings to Low and Off in most multiplayer games (including Crysis 3 and BF3) gets me between 100-200 FPS according to FRAPS, it definitely improved responsiveness/gameplay for me since I can pwn people easily in situations where before I couldn't consistently when the graphics were automatically set to High etc by the games auto detecting and frames were between 50-100, but I can't really SEE the frames, except for less lag, because of the monitor.

I don't want to get back into the "upgraded this so now need to upgrade that" deal again, so I'm thinking about upgrading just to;

EVGA ACX Cooler 03G-P4-2784-KR GeForce GTX 780 3GB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 SLI Support Video Card
ASUS VG248QE Black 24" 144Hz 1ms (GTG) HDMI Widescreen LED Backlight LCD 3D Monitor

So for people who know what they're talking about (I'm a database programmer, not a tech

), would this be a sufficient upgrade? What settings would you recommend if it was, or any other minor upgrade/tweak etc, thanks!

thismafiaguy · Nov 11, 2013

Definitely two very significant upgrades in this scenario, both would make a dramatic difference. The GTX 780 ACX is a very good card, but also take a look at the ASUS GTX 780 DirectCU II, in my opinion that one is slightly better in terms of overclocking potential. As for the monitor, the best gaming monitor on the market right now is the BenQ XL2420TE, which is also a 24" 144Hz panel, but with above average color reproduction, unlike most gaming panels.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6wIMaYjklE

Also, I would recommend checking out G-Sync, which is supported by the GTX 780, but will also require a compatible monitor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZS8Bbyf1to

If you want to try G-Sync for yourself, wait until the G-Sync compatible monitors hit the market. I don't know of any yet as of right now.

lp231 · Nov 11, 2013

I would get the game first and try it on the current specs that you have and if it plays well, there is no need to upgrade.
If your going to upgrade then look at R9-290x which is about $50 bucks more and its performance is even better than a Titan,
or the R9-290. It cost $100 less than GTX 780 and it has higher FPS in BF4
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-290-review-benchmark,3659-6.html
BF4 will be optimized for AMD Mantle

http://www.cinemablend.com/games/AMD-Paid-Up-8-Million-Battlefield-4-Exclusivity-59832.html

BujinStudent · Nov 11, 2013

thismafiaguy :

Yeah definitely good tweaks to my original 2, and the price difference in the card may offset the price difference in the monitor. Did you try out or own any of these 4?

BujinStudent · Nov 11, 2013

lp231 :

Well I did play the beta, and the performance really sucked, with frame rates low and dropping, lag, the netcode issues, etc, and it seems like those issues are worse now as well as client and server crashes now and since so many others are experiencing it so I'm not sure if upgrading would help in regards to buying it now instead of waiting for them to fix the game, IF they do acceptably.
That card does look cool and I know EA and AMD are in bed together now, but I only had NVIDIA up until now and they worked great so of course I'm scared to make the switch

thismafiaguy · Nov 11, 2013

BujinStudent :

thismafiaguy :

No, I don't have any of those 4, but there are enough detailed good reviews to reveal most of the picture.

BujinStudent :

From a performance stand point, the R9 290 is simply unbeatable for the price, and with the upcoming Mantle implementation, it can only get better. But my concern with the 290 and 290X is the amount of heat and noise they produce. I personally would prefer to trade a bit of raw performance for refinement.

The 290 and 290X cards are designed to run at 95°C unless you manually lower the target temperature, and the reference coolers are pretty loud at speed. You can wait until aftermarket versions with better coolers arrive, which for the most part would be cooler and quieter. Then you'd have more thermal headroom, which would allow the card to achieve the same level of performance as the reference card at a lower temperature, or you could leave the target temp at 95°C and let the card go as fast as it can. Aftermarket coolers would make the 290 and 290X much more appealing, but I still personally think they'd be running a bit too hot for comfort, because I have a mini-ITX system, and a 95°C graphics card will cook everything else in the confined space. However, it you have a full ATX case with good airflow, a 95°C card shouldn't be that much of an issue. I would still recommend waiting for aftermarket versions though, if you decide to go with the 290.

BujinStudent · Nov 11, 2013

Yeah I don't really want to mess with adding more cooling etc unless I just go for a totally new build, especially since the room to work and add stuff into the Antec really sucks, I just really wanna do a quick plug and play upgrade that will make gameplay smoother keeping the 100-200 fps on maybe medium or high settings with most games in multiplayer, and also being able to see the difference instead of just feeling it, and doing a little future-proofing.
So would the AMD really be noticeably better than the NVIDIA without adding cooling?

EDIT: It looks like maybe you're talking about the fans already on the card, if so how long do the aftermarkets usually come out? I want to buy this stuff maybe this week or next week.

thismafiaguy · Nov 11, 2013

Not noticeably better, you won't really see the performance difference between an R9 290/290X and a GTX 780/780Ti in most games, because they'll all be averaging over 100FPS at 1080p unless it's BF4 or Crysis 3. Even with a 144Hz monitor, the difference between 100FPS and 110FPS is very hard to distinguish, you'll just know that it's very smooth.

But if you're talking about other factors such as noise and temperature, AMD is noticeably worse than Nvidia without adding cooling, the reference coolers aren't great.

a1blaster · Nov 11, 2013

780 = 520$
r9 290x = 420$ but hotter and noisier
decide

BujinStudent · Nov 11, 2013

Cool thanks a lot man, looks like I'll probably either go with the 2 you recommended or a combo of yours and mine.

BujinStudent · Nov 11, 2013

a1blaster :

Yeah the hotter and noisier just doesn't sit well with me for some reason lol, since I don't want to do much about it in the near future unless I start from scratch. Newegg has the NVIDIA for 500 now as well as a 10% off my next order before the end of the month so I should get a pretty good deal on the monitor and card.

JUICEhunter · Nov 11, 2013

BujinStudent :

lp231 :

Well I did play the beta, and the performance really sucked, with frame rates low and dropping, lag, the netcode issues, etc, and it seems like those issues are worse now as well as client and server crashes now and since so many others are experiencing it so I'm not sure if upgrading would help in regards to buying it now instead of waiting for them to fix the game, IF they do acceptably.
That card does look cool and I know EA and AMD are in bed together now, but I only had NVIDIA up until now and they worked great so of course I'm scared to make the switch

for great bf4 performance you need windows8/directx11.1 exclusive CPU optimization (experienced if first hand) updated my os/slight over clock on gtx670 and am on ultra with no frame dips, game runs perfect every time...

BujinStudent · Nov 11, 2013

JUICEhunter :

You're one of the few then lol, of course you saw all the complaining on Battlelog of people constantly crashing, rubber banding, BSODs, lagging, low and dipping frame rates, netcode issues, etc, some people definitely say on there they get much better performance with Windows 8.1, but some people say they're using or upgraded to 8.1 and are getting the same or worse issues, so I don't think 8.1 would be the solution for everyone, but seems like it is for some - but honestly if they can't make a game that runs fine on 7 then I'm not going to bother with it until I do a new build, definitely won't install a new OS and all the headaches that would entail (I use this as my normal desktop as well as gaming) just to play one game.

JUICEhunter · Nov 11, 2013

BujinStudent :

JUICEhunter :

You're one of the few then lol, of course you saw all the complaining on Battlelog of people constantly crashing, rubber banding, BSODs, lagging, low and dipping frame rates, netcode issues, etc, some people definitely say on there they get much better performance with Windows 8.1, but some people say they're using or upgraded to 8.1 and are getting the same or worse issues, so I don't think 8.1 would be the solution for everyone, but seems like it is for some - but honestly if they can't make a game that runs fine on 7 then I'm not going to bother with it until I do a new build, definitely won't install a new OS and all the headaches that would entail (I use this as my normal desktop as well as gaming) just to play one game.

I'm hoping Mantle/G-Sync will iron out any wrinkles that people are experiencing with performance. Going to high on everything except aa post/post processing to medium with 2x msaa will look better than the high preset (msaa is of on high preset) and give you better performance.

BujinStudent · Nov 15, 2013

OK got the GTX 780 ACX and the BenQ XL2420TE, looks great, and after one night the games I notice the most change in are BF3 and Blacklight Retribution, I'll play around with them and the settings as for a while more and update, anyone has any questions about them let me know.

thismafiaguy · Nov 15, 2013

Great to see that you seem to like them so far! But I think your final opinion will still be based on your experience with BF4. I've been hearing about a bunch of bugs on the PC version that causes the game to crash quite often, hopefully that gets resolved soon. What is the performance like in other games?

BujinStudent · Nov 15, 2013

Well I'm not gonna be messing with BF4 for quite a while, looks like their launch was a car wreck, and they just released a patch which they said fixed tons of the issues, which people are saying on Battlelog just totally didn't or screwed some stuff even more, and they're more pissed now because the patch got their hopes up.
I didn't run any formal tests or anything but I'm using 1920x1080 resolution now and it looks great, kicked up the graphics a little in all the games and still keeping great framerates, played some COD BO2 just now and was getting 200 frames, and the visuals and increased smoothness in BF3 are great with 75-150 frames in Gulf of Oman Conquest 64 player with mad vehicles and explosions, this card is louder though with those 2 fans in it, but that's fine since I didn't want to add any more cooling.

BujinStudent · Dec 1, 2013

Well I got BF4 on the Origin half price sale, frames seem to be between 50 and almost up to 200, for no apparent reasons, maybe different areas of maps, the action going on, etc, and strangely the graphics settings don't seem to be a huge factor.

Really the only stuff going on in the 2 nights I played so far (other than the BF netcode) were the unstable frames and maybe 2 crashes, only one in game the other after a round before the next map loads (with no loss in XP or anything that I noticed), I only played TDM so far though so I can get used to and unlock some weapons and attachments before the other game modes so maybe the larger maps with more crazy action will be different in crashes and performance.

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