GTX 460 1gb overkill for 1360x768?

[flowingbass]

I run games on my Palit GTX 460 1gb at 1360x768 resolution. I've read in a lot of reviews and forums that GTX 460 is meant for 1280x1024 resolutions and up. And even read somewhere that GTX 460 1gb is overkill or futureproof for a resolution of 1360x768.

But whenever i play GTA 4 The Ballad Of Gay Tony i can easily eat up all the 1gb memory with just a 1360x768 version and everything on Very High and 4x MSAA. The card however maintains a playable 35-46fps the whole game and uses about 60% of my Phenom II X6 1055T 2.8ghz stock and uses like 2GB from my kingston DDR3 1333mhz 2gbx4=8GB ram.

So would that mean if i upgrade my monitor to say like 1440x900 will my fps drop below 30 with the same settings?

This happens only with GTA4 The Ballad Of Gay Tony.

Dirt 2, Crysis Warhead, Batman Arkham Asylum, Blur are all fluid 40fps+ with 600-700mb graphic ram used.

AMD Phenom II X6 1055T 2.8ghz (stock clocks and cooling)
MSI 890gmx-g65
Kingston DDR3 1333mhz 2gb dual channel x 4 = 8gb
Palit Sonic OC GTX 460 1GB (Manual OC to 725mhz/3700mhz)
WD Caviar Blue 500gb 7200rpm 16mb cache Sata2
WD Caviar Green 2TB 7200rpm 64mb cache Sata2
Seagate 20gb 5400rpm 8mb cache Pata IDE
Thermaltake Toughpower XT 675w Modular single +12v rail @ 56amps
one (1) 80mm Auxilliary CPU cooler fan
Seven (7) 120mm Case fans (Exhaust/Intake/Case)
Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit

 

[Rustyy117]

GTA uses alot of VRAM, but like you've said other games don't so you can safely say that GTA is the exception and the other games are the rule. 1440x900 isn't that much bigger than your current resolution so I think you'd still get 30FPS+, If not then just lower the draw distance or AA level.

 

[Griffolion]

I'm a bit worried that you're only getting that sort of framerate in your games as i get 50+ at medium-high settings in Farcry 2 at 1050p with a stock clocked Palit GTX 460 Sonic (same for Bad Company 2 in DX 11). I only say that because your machine is a lot better than mine (I5 750 stock, 4GB ddr3 1333).

Still, if you're having trouble AA is always the first thing to reduce.

 

[Maziar]

^Actually no, the performance difference isn't much in games.
To OP
Well,GTA IV isn't very well optimized.So don't worry about it;however,your FPS in Dirt2 and Batman should me much more than 40.

 

[Maziar]

I should have mentioned the resolution,on resolutions like 1080p or higher the difference isn't much but yes on lower resolution,there is sometime a significant difference.

 

[wh3resmycar]

dip's call is right on this one.

intel cpus wins on low res gaming, especially on the ones listed by the op.

 

[Derbixrace]

@Dipankar

when you start playing BC2 multiplayer with 32ppl on a server you will see that you need a phenom x6 or an i7 quad with 8 threads.

the havoc physics is very CPU dependant. normally it uses about 60-70% of my 1055t x6 @ 3.6ghz evenly on all cores and when something explodes it uses even more so for BC2 and MoH that uses havoc and future games the 1055t WILL smoke even an i5 in gaming.

its a very smart choice to get the x6 because you will be more futureproof with a 1055t or any x6 than a i5 quad.

PS. of course its a little slow clocked so you will benefit if you OC the 1055t a bit because older games only uses about 2 cores and 2 cores @ 2.8 would be a bottleneck at that small resolution.

 

[wolfram23]

GTA is a poorly optimized game for PC, even high end systems have problems running it well. I wouldn't worry about that.

The 460 is a good card, even for 1080p resolution.

I'd like to know how you measured VRAM usage?

 

[Derbixrace]

i think i would be pretty angry at myself if i only got a quad instead of an x6 in a year or so.

if the x6 will be slow and outdated in 1.5years (which it wont) how shitty do you think a quad will be then?

 

[Derbixrace]

where did i say 2 years? you are just making up things to make me wrong.

whatever you say the x6 will have a longer life than the quad. and i would take the x6 over a quad anyday because it doesnt perform that much worse in gaming right now (it performs better in BC2) than the quad but IT IS more futureproof.

PS. and why the hell do you call me dumb? i havent offended you in anyway.

 

[Derbixrace]

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/3251/amd_phenom_ii_x6_1090t_black_edition_3_2ghz_six_core_cpu/index9.html

tweaktown seems to think otherwise.
it looses heavily in far cry 2 but we all know that far cry 2 favors intel CPUs.

 

[wolfram23]

I don't think quads will be "outdated" in 2 years. We're still seeing new games only optimized for 2 cores, let alone 4 or 6. Yeah, there's advantages to a 6 core but it's give and take. Plus, there's i7 quad cores with hyperthreading, which are quite similar to the X6 (since HT is like 0.5 more core rather than truely doubling).

Intel definitely has way better turbo functionality tho, which beefs it up in those single and dual core optimized games.

And again, for people who simply need raw computing power (like rendering) then of course more cores is going to be better for longer. Gamers tho shouldn't need to upgrade past quad for a good while, especially since we can hit 4ghz on these current CPUs relatively easily.

 

[Derbixrace]

well if future games wont take advantage from six cores how come some games already do? http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,794274/From-Medal-of-Honor-to-Civ-5-17-Games-that-already-benefit-from-six-cores-CPUs/Practice/

 

[Derbixrace]

i know it beats it in some situations and its the otherway around in some situations too but you have to agree with me that more cores is more futureproof.

 

[notty22]

GTA is a poorly optimized game for PC, even high end systems have problems running it well. I wouldn't worry about that.

The 460 is a good card, even for 1080p resolution.

I'd like to know how you measured VRAM usage?

Gpu-z has a couple new sensors for Nvidia cards
mem usage
mem conrtoller usage

Just ran furmark for a couple seconds here, didn't use much memory, but the memor controller got up to 80% ?

 

[Derbixrace]

Quote xbit

Games are not the kind of applications to make good use of multithreading. Therefore the Core i5-760 is roughly as fast as the Core i7-860. The latter enjoys a small advantage thanks to working with faster system memory which is important for games. Thus, the Core i5-760 (and its predecessor) is fast enough to be used in a high- performance gaming computer.

The competing offer from AMD, Phenom II X6 1055T, cannot boast such a high speed. It is slower in nearly every of the gaming tests and is less appealing for gamers. The six- core processor from AMD is only competitive to Intel's previous- generation Core 2 Quad series.

This should settle this debate.Intel gives you better performance and if you refuse to accept it then you are a blind fanboy.

Intel i5 gives you better performance in most games right now and AMD x6 gives you better bang for buck and in situations where programs/games uses all 6 cores the x6 wins the i5 AND the x6 is more futureproof. case closed/

 

[flowingbass]

Considering OP's res ,his cpu is the main reason for his low performance.

Do you mean that i have to change to a monitor with atleas 1920x1200 so that all work would be offloaded to the GPU?

Do you also mean that even when setting all the IQ settings to the highest and using 4xMSAA even 8x, most or if not half of the work is still being done by the CPU just because of 1360x768 res?

And about the 40+ fps on other games (Dirt 2 etc...) i was just estimating, i did not log the frames the game was running because there was no lag thus i did not need to check FPS all i can say is gameplay was FLUID.

I use fraps as FPS meter BTW.

Yes, i did use Gpu-Z 0.4.6 to measure VRAM usage...