Bought 560 ti, was I expecting too much?

[tgeo888]

I recently bought a gigabyte gtx 560 ti to upgrade from my old hd4850. I did this upgrade primarily for bf3. On the 4850 I would only get around ~30 fps on 16-24 player maps on low settings. I figured upgrading my gpu might take me into ~45 fps on high settings in 32-64 player maps but it seems like i get an average of around ~35 fps on 32 player maps still on LOW settings. EDIT: I should note that this is at 1680x1050 resolution, nothing crazy.

Does this seem low for a 560 ti? I've done a couple benchmarks, including putting my old 4850 back in and comparing new and old and new seems definitely beats old based on benchmarks alone (by a very respectable margin, almost 2x in the stalker benchmark). Is it that I am expecting too much from my new gpu here? Did I buy too much graphics card for my CPU (older dual core) to handle? (see specs below)

Specs:
CPU: e4400 @ 2.5 ghz (from 2.0 ghz)
MOBO: abit ip35-e
RAM: 4gb dd2 (I have an extra 2x1gb sticks, would 6gb help performance enough to justify the relaxed timings needed to support all 4 sticks?)
PSU: mushkin 550W
GPU: 560 ti @ 850 mhz (from 822, any higher seems to crash bf3)

It is possible that I could get for example a q6600 from ebay or craigslist and pop that into the mobo, would that noticeably help things?

Any suggestions would help!

And on a somewhat related note, does anyone have any idea why the gpu wouldn't resume from sleep? After I installed the 560 ti about 2/3 of the time when the computer goes to sleep and I wake it via mouse/keyboard, the tower itself will turn on but the monitor (and therefor I assume the gpu) does not display anything. Any ideas would be great

 

[swifty_morgan]

2 things. that game lives for multi core multi thread processors. the second is the card only has 1gig of vram. people here don't like to hear me say that but some need to wake up. the q6600 is slow and probably expensive but more cores is better.

when you go online the more vram the better.......... but you need a ripping fast processor to keep up with the players,............ from days of yore the tricks were multi modems.......... obsolete............... and lowering you resolution and settings. if you lower your res to 1024x768 and make your settings medium to low you will do better on line but the game will look like crap and there will lots you won't see. Close quarters combat would be best instead of these "epic' maps that get ran now.

 

[esrever]

you'd not see use for the vram at any settings at 1080p or below.

multiplayer isn't going to require more textures to be stored in the vram...

 

[swifty_morgan]

I guess when crap hits the fan, especially if the view distance is good, it must be peoples imagination that they get slow ups ? what do you suppose causes that if it weren't for the lack of vram. don't know about you but I don't want to get stumbles because I'm using an inferior processor with no L3 cache or don't want to feel slow ups while my "textures" are being off loaded to the HD..... ???................ been down this road. I got it conquered. High vram/mega memory/high cache processors.......... tell me it doesn't matter.

 

[esrever]

large caches slow down cpu and gpu. thats why the 1 gb 6950 gets less fps than the 2 gb one. Also why i7 extremes are slower in games than the normal i7s.

texture loading mid game is always going to be happening no matter whats going on as you'd need more and more textures no matter how much vram you have and they are preloaded far before they are used. They are also constantly deleted off the ram as the frames are no longer used. your vram is constantly being used in both write and read so having extra that it won't be reading or writing to is pointless.

if you can feel your textures loading slowing you down mid game, you might just be over thinking it.

 

[swifty_morgan]

gotta love people that post charts...............

 

[unksol]

right? who needs data when you can post subjective opinions instead?

1GB vram is perfectly fine, ESPECIALLY at your resolution. I highly suspect your CPU is bottlenecking the card. If you look at BF3 requirements your 560 meets the recommended requirements. your CPU *barely* meets the minimum requirements, and only because you overclocked it.

 

[vitornob]

I recently bought a gigabyte gtx 560 ti to upgrade from my old hd4850. I did this upgrade primarily for bf3. On the 4850 I would only get around ~30 fps on 16-24 player maps on low settings. I figured upgrading my gpu might take me into ~45 fps on high settings in 32-64 player maps but it seems like i get an average of around ~35 fps on 32 player maps still on LOW settings. EDIT: I should note that this is at 1680x1050 resolution, nothing crazy.

Does this seem low for a 560 ti? I've done a couple benchmarks, including putting my old 4850 back in and comparing new and old and new seems definitely beats old based on benchmarks alone (by a very respectable margin, almost 2x in the stalker benchmark). Is it that I am expecting too much from my new gpu here? Did I buy too much graphics card for my CPU (older dual core) to handle? (see specs below)

Specs:
CPU: e4400 @ 2.5 ghz (from 2.0 ghz)
MOBO: abit ip35-e
RAM: 4gb dd2 (I have an extra 2x1gb sticks, would 6gb help performance enough to justify the relaxed timings needed to support all 4 sticks?)
PSU: mushkin 550W
GPU: 560 ti @ 850 mhz (from 822, any higher seems to crash bf3)

It is possible that I could get for example a q6600 from ebay or craigslist and pop that into the mobo, would that noticeably help things?

Any suggestions would help!

And on a somewhat related note, does anyone have any idea why the gpu wouldn't resume from sleep? After I installed the 560 ti about 2/3 of the time when the computer goes to sleep and I wake it via mouse/keyboard, the tower itself will turn on but the monitor (and therefor I assume the gpu) does not display anything. Any ideas would be great

Expectations on your GPU are ok, the problem is the CPU..
You`re experiencing the all-mighty called bottleneck. Your CPU aren`t good enough to run this game, specially these multiplayer maps full of players.
Try to go singleplayer, and play a little. I`m sure you gonna feel a difference.

Of course that this isn`t a workaround for your problem, since if performance is good, you would still need to get better frames in multiplayer.
Some people stats that a sandy-bridge would have a performance advantage vs other intel/amd products in multiplayer maps, EVEN in 1080p (just to know how much computational power we are talking about here)

Conclusion: you can even get a LGA775 Quadcore, it will help a lot, but is far away from the best solution.

 

[yamman101]

Way to go off topic Swifty.

Back to the OP's question, the reason for your not so good performance lies in your CPU. In order to play BF3 with no slowdowns (you cannot play BF3 64 player maps on a dual core), you need something much newer and with more cores.

An i5 2500K runs this game flawlessly (in case you are looking to upgrade).

Your graphics card wouldn't really be getting a workout as you CPU is woefully inadequate and therefore a massive bottleneck.

I recommend either upgrading your motherboard and CPU to something newer and with more cores or toughing it out until you can and staying away from 64 player maps.

(btw, the 560ti will run this game on high if not ultra settings if paired with a good CPU).

 

[didles]

Your CPU is holding back your performance as mentioned above.

For AMD cards a slower cpu is fine, however for nvidia cards they need far more greater horsepower to fully unlock their capabilities.

if you can, change your processor and your motherboard ( preferably to the intel camp ) as they have more power to unlock the potential of your cards.

sadly, your not getting the most out of your upgrade in your current system.

 

[swifty_morgan]

yam/guess you missed the first line of my first post ?

 

[immortalgamer]

Looks like a bottleneck. You need to upgrade your CPU and RAM to get near 45 fps.

 

[malindar]

if you dont have money for a Mobo + cpu now try to get a used Q9550 if you relly look you can find one for $100 ish

i tried to run BF3 on my dads PC running this processor it worked fine with 6870 on high settings (1680x1050)

 

[yamman101]

yam/guess you missed the first line of my first post ?

I was referring to your tangential discussion about the amount of VRAM needed.

 

[jitpublisher]

Through a series of half a dozen complete new builds and twice that many upgrades over the past 5 or 6 years. Been there done this. You need a quad core CPU running at least minimum of 3ghz or better to push a 560ti, or even a 4850 to its full potential, in most modern games anyway.
Your CPU is a real bottleneck here.

 

[nforce4max]

Be sure to clean out old settings/config files on some games that have caused problems for those who upgrade to fermi era cards. You will have to look up what games that have to be tinkered with but your cpu isn't all that great.

I suggest that you buy a better cpu and you will notice the difference. Dual cores now days have to be at least 3ghz just to be viable. e7300 or a e8400 if you can find them below $75 or a q6600 if you can get one below or around $100.

 

[tgeo888]

So I guess what I had feared is the root of my problem. I am not really willing to upgrade my MOBO, RAM, and CPU all at once at this point in time so I guess I will keep on the lookout for a lga775 quad core.

Would a q6600 suffice, or should I try and look for a q9xxx? I really don't want to spend more than $100 on this old platform.

Thanks for the replies (and the discussion about vram )

 

[iLLz]

GTX560 Ti run this game perfectly fine at High settings. I have one and its awesome. At high, you will get 60 fps. I have a Q6700 @ 3.33Ghz and the game runs all four cores at 80+ percent so yea, I think your CPU is the bottleneck. If you have extra RAM, use it. Even if you have to relax the timings a bit. RAM timings aren't going to negatively impact performance unless you benchmark. The extra RAM will go along way though. I use 6GB myself. So I can tell you with this setup the game runs like butter.

 

[Headspin_69]

Your CPU is holding back your performance as mentioned above.

For AMD cards a slower cpu is fine, however for nvidia cards they need far more greater horsepower to fully unlock their capabilities.

if you can, change your processor and your motherboard ( preferably to the intel camp ) as they have more power to unlock the potential of your cards.

sadly, your not getting the most out of your upgrade in your current system.

Your logic is so flawed it's funny LOL.

 

[saratj1]

+1 ^ lol

 

[nforce4max]

So I guess what I had feared is the root of my problem. I am not really willing to upgrade my MOBO, RAM, and CPU all at once at this point in time so I guess I will keep on the lookout for a lga775 quad core.

Would a q6600 suffice, or should I try and look for a q9xxx? I really don't want to spend more than $100 on this old platform.

Thanks for the replies (and the discussion about vram )

Q9xxx aren't cheap, some easily cost more than a i7 2600k. A cheap q6600 will be fine or a q8400/q9400 if at all possible.

 

[Earnie]

Your logic is so flawed it's funny LOL.

couldnt agree with you more headspin.

 

[tgeo888]

Best answer selected by tgeo888.

 

[tgeo888]

Just a quick update for you guys, I checked out my local craigslist and just picked up a q6600 and am posting from the computer currently running it (I work fast, haha).

I'll let you guys know how it goes once I get it overclocked and all set up

 

[andrewcarr]

nice, good luck