Fallout 4 and GTX 660 SLI...min. specs speculation

WhiteSnake91

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Right now I have a single MSI superclocked gtx 660 in my i5 3570k, 8gb ram pc. The minimum requirements haven't been revealed yet, but I'd like to be able to play Fallout 4 on 1080p ultra (no msaa) smoothly. My gtx 660 is the recommended gpu for GTA 5 but yet is only the minimum gpu for Witcher 3 (can still play it smoothly on medium from what I've played)

Sometime I'm planning on getting another 8gb stick of ram, personally feeling cramped with 8gb ram now, games using more, and chrome with tabs open is a memory hog.

Has anybody had major problems with SLI? I heard in recent years SLI scaling has been great in the high 90s% if not 100%, my PSU is the 750w gold rated Corsair hx750, so more than enough room.

I'm just personally not a HUGE gamer like I used to be, I can't justify something like the gtx 980 for example, and I also NEVER plan on going above a single 1080p monitor for gaming, and I'm perfectly fine with NEVER using MSAA to help the FPS too.

I thought of getting a gtx 970, but honestly the whole 3.5gb vram thing left a very sour taste in my mouth. I was rocking an hd 7950 before, but, kept having driver issues, and just happened to find a gtx 660 cheap. I can get another one for about $100, and I've read that two GTX 660 in SLI is about as good as a single GTX 970 (or at worst a gtx 780, which I KNOW is good enough to run 99.5% of games on 1080p ultra)

I'd even get a non superclocked gtx 660 cheap and slightly overclock it, although I read on another forum once in SLI/Crossfire, core speeds don't matter much at that point.


I basically just want something cheap that can run stuff on 1080p ultra single monitor, I'm not trying to go all overkill, but I'm not sure if the game will even be optimized, I've steered away in recent months from AAA releases on pc. I personally feel the requirements are too high, when yet they'll run perfectly fine on the much weaker consoles, but I guess that's a whole other topic...

So, it comes down to only $100 for another gtx 660 to get gtx 970/780 performance, or ~$350 for a single gtx 970, I guess 3.5gb should be good for many years on 1080p. I know my i5 3570k will be good for many more years even on stock, there's still plenty of people out there gaming on the old i7 920s for example. CPU improvements have largely stagnated since sandy bridge in 2011....the recent huge surge in GPU(and vram...) requirements for sloppy unoptimized pc ports is what concerns me now.
 
Ex 660SLI owner here. If you can afford 970 then get it. I don't think that 3.5GB VRAM will pose much issue at 1080p. In fact that memory segmentation is an improvement to what nvidia did 660 (192bit 2GB VRAM). I have 660 sli so i got the grunt to use more than 1.5GB of VRAM. That's where the problem is.
 
I would expect their SLI support to be about as good as it was in previous fallout / ES titles... and I can't remember. A 970 would bring increased tessellation performance over SLI 660s. If they keep sticking gameworks in titles, the 970 will pay off over another 660.

Edit: I wonder if the engine still acts crazy if it isn't locked at 60 fps. Might be that if you can hit that, or near it at the resolution you want, any extra oomph is wasted.
 

WhiteSnake91

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Good point...I hadn't even thought if their engine would even support SLI, I just assumed being a new AAA game that SLI would indeed work. I mean a small studio (for an AAA) made Witcher 3 and I've heard of good improvements with SLI in that game so I figured Bethesda would have SLI support.
 

WhiteSnake91

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I read an article earlier stating they're not going all graphic intensive for the game and are focusing more on the content. I'd rather have something like that. If a game went total graphics over content then we'd end up with something like the disaster that was known as The Order 1866.

very intrigued by the new 8gb vram(!!!) r9 390 that's only $329 brand new on newegg right now. Not sure what its tdp is, but not much more than my current gpu or the gtx 970. The 390x said its usage was 208w for the red and black MSI Gamer one (link included) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127872&cm_re=r9_390x-_-14-127-872-_-Product

regular r9 390 non X version 8gb vram

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202148&cm_re=r9_390-_-14-202-148-_-Product


I looked and I was mistaken earlier, two 660s in SLI doesn't equal the 970, but it does equal the gtx 780 pretty much.

The 8gb vram on the r9 390 would be good for many more years to come. I'm still shocked quite honestly on the sudden huge surge in vram game use in recent releases. Maybe they're just unoptimized ports or the companies don't care because both consoles have 8gb shared ram anyway.

I remember it wasn't very long ago though all over the internet people swore up and down "you'd never need more than 2gb vram for 1080p"

-sigh- I bet the people that didn't opt for the 4gb gtx 670s, 680s, and 770s are kicking themselves now. Those gpu still have decent grunt to them, but are held back by the 2gb vram.
 
I read an article earlier stating they're not going all graphic intensive for the game and are focusing more on the content. I'd rather have something like that. If a game went total graphics over content then we'd end up with something like the disaster that was known as The Order 1866.

i've seen the trailers. it seems like an improvement from FO3 but they did not aim for 'photorealism' stuff. and i see some of the graphic whore out there already bashing FO4 for not having jaw dropping graphic. personally i'd rather dev to work on content as well. this is not crysis where the game exist solely for beautiful graphic :D

very intrigued by the new 8gb vram(!!!) r9 390 that's only $329 brand new on newegg right now. Not sure what its tdp is, but not much more than my current gpu or the gtx 970. The 390x said its usage was 208w for the red and black MSI Gamer one (link included) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

regular r9 390 non X version 8gb vram

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

AFAIK the official MSRP for 390X was 430. but MSI was about $10 cheaper at 420. this info is straight from reviewer though. as for power consumption you can see how much 390X compared to 970 here:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/R9_390X_Gaming/28.html

-sigh- I bet the people that didn't opt for the 4gb gtx 670s, 680s, and 770s are kicking themselves now. Those gpu still have decent grunt to them, but are held back by the 2gb vram.

only in a few games that really VRAM hog. even with 390X/390 8GB VRAM while having extra is nice but by the time game can really fill that much on 1080p those GPU already ancient. even now they are considered as old already.