Best card to buy to play skyrim

My 7870 maxes out Skyrim using 30%-65% of the GPU. I would say you could spend about $200 to max a game like that out. 6950, 7850, 560ti. These should work. HD7870, if you don't mind the $275 price tag, is a good card and will max out Skyrim no problem.
 

OptyFM

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Nvidia. Always nvidia for best performance if you don't mind spending more.




I'm assuming you want to max it out + all the texture mods (SKyrim HD, Static mesh improvement, etc) that uses literally 1600-1900 mb of vram at max settings at 1080p.

My gtx 670 paired with an ivybridge 3570k and 8gb (you WANT 8gb of system ram for skyrim with all those mods. Trust me) I sit at 60 fps flat, some tips into 30's for a second but that's just unoptimized game.

GTX 670 is best bang for buck without a doubt right now on the market. Get the gigabyte windforce 3x 670 or EVGA's FTW 670.

420. or 400 on sale if you're lucky.

Enjoy.
 


Hey yew! yes yew! We don't take kindly to unfounded claims hur in these pawrts. (sorry, had to)

In all seriousness my 6870 nearly maxes the game with static mesh improvements (most likely bottlenecked by my proc, triple core athlon 2)

But the HD texture mod does take quite a toll on systems so if you are looking to max it with that I would suggest a 2gb 6950 or something similar (7870/560ti/660ti/etc) (your preferential level of AA/AF is also a factor) (I have not looked into actually how much of a toll the SkyrimHD mod takes on some systems but I would be very surprised if an OC'ed 7870 couldn't handle it maxed)

Edit: wording error, derp.
 

mjflis

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The GTX 480 will run it maxed on a 1080p monitor. I can't believe how much better it is over my gtx 560ti. I wouldn't hesitate to get another 480 on an upcoming paycheck to sli and possibly a 3rd although ill need to upgrade my psu if I do add another
 

mjflis

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Why do you think i got it? :p

No I got it because a top end card at 209, when I got it was very nice. I have no need to over clock now. All the games I play run at max with this bad boy.

Take Skyrim for instance, id get high 40's with my 560ti with everything maxed and ultra.
 

OptyFM

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If it was a 1200 mb vram card it'd 100% max it with static mesh improvements, thats how much vram it uses at 1080p with just Static mesh texture improvements, just tested it.

Any mid range to high end card with over 1.2gb of vram in the past few years can max skyrim, it's a console port with high cpu usage. It's the texture mods and "ultra" shadows that are killer. I was simply stating a well known fact. Nvidia, lots of $$$, better performance.

I suggested 670 because it wins where it counts. Look here,

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/598?vs=508

Arkham City, Portal 2, Battlefield 3, Starcraft II, Skyrim at 1080p and 1680x1050 (most played resolutions). These are all games people play, the rest are.. benchmark games. Nobody really plays them to play, I mean that's subjective but be honest about it. Looking at that list, the 670 wins where it counts.
 

OptyFM

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Nothing of what I said is wild claims. I'm showing you the evidence in every post I make.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/598?vs=618

That's the ghz edition vs a stock clock 670. It still wins in the popular games.

It's common knowledge that nvidia handles anti-aliasing more efficiently than AMD.
 


Agreed. Talking so favorably of nvidia shows that you really don't know what you're talking about. Also anandtech bench comparisons are not the most accurate. Most of those stats are outdated, they use older drivers. The drivers have matured for both nvidia and AMD.

The gtx670 is a great card. But for a tinkerer that loves to overclock there is something to be said for the Tahiti chips. Even my HD7870 hits +30% overclocks and pushed it past a stock OC'd 7950. Some Keplars are good overclockers as well. The bottom line is, there are some good cards from both companies, and it's a matter of preference. Whatever is on sale is what I would recommend. Also we're talking about maxing out Skyrim, you don't need a $400 card to do this.
 


The 670 can be overclocked too.....

Looking at the max tested stable overlocks.....

http://www.guru3d.com/article/asus-geforce-gtx-670-directcu-ii-top-review/23
Asus 670TOP Boost Clock is 1137 outta the box .... stable at 1280 Mhz
Asus gets 3DMark Score of 9340 outta the box and 9839 OC'd

http://www.guru3d.com/article/asus-radeon-hd-7970-directcu-ii-review/23
Asus 7970 TOP Core Clock: is 1000 MHz outta the box, stable at 1250 MHz
Asus 7970 gets 3DMark Score of 8280 outta the box and 9680 OC'd

http://www.guru3d.com/article/his-radeon-hd-7950-iceq-turbo-review/23
HIS 7950 IceQ Core Clock: is 900 MHz outta the box, stable at 1125 MHz
HIS 7950 IceQ gets 3DMark Score of 7450 outta the box and 9008 OC'd

http://www.guru3d.com/article/gigabyte-geforce-gtx-660-ti-windforce-oc-review/26
Gigabyte 660 Ti Boost Clock is 1108 outta the box .... stable at 1316 Mhz
Gigabyte 660 Ti gets 3DMark Score of 9340 outta the box and 9559 OC'd


So we see that the 670 overclocked is 2% faster than the more expensive 7970 and that 8% faster than the 7950 at max stable OC's, we also see the 660 Ti being 6% faster than the 7950. The lead increases in actual games.

Using TechPowerUp Game Test Suite (Alan Wake, Batman Arkham City, BF3, BattleForge, Civilization 5, Crysis. Crysis 2, Dragon Age II, Hard Reset, Metro 2033, Stalker CoP, Starcraft 2, Shogun 2, Skyrim, WoW, Diablo II, Max Payne 3, Sniper Elite V2)

The 7950 gets 1348.2 fps, costs $330 and that works out to $0.24 per frame
The 660 Ti gets 1387.4 fps, costs $300 and that works out to $0.22 per frame

Moving to Guru3D's (Hard Reset, COD-MW2, Far Cry 2, ANNO 1404, Metro 2033, ANNO 2070, BFBC2, BF3, Crysis 2, AvP, Lost Planet 2)

GTX 670 TOP costs $430, scores 999 fps at a cost of $0.43 per frame
GTX 670 costs $400, scores 917 fps at a cost of $0.44 per frame
7950 costs $330, scores 746 fps at a cost of $0.44 per frame
7970 costs $420, scores 872 fps at a cost of $0.48 per frame
7970 GHz Edition costs $470, scores 952 fps at a cost of $0.49 per frame

The 670 and the 7950 both finish at identical $0.44 per frame therefore putting them on equal footing in the "bang for the buck" standings but with 170+ fps performance difference, that doesn't make them equal performers.












 

master_chen

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Anything from HD 6970/GTX 580 and higher, really.
I actually suggest either buying two GTX 580 and putting them into SLI, or buying one GTX 670.
Other way is either buying two HD 6970 and putting them into CFX, or buying one HD 7970 from Sapphire (Which is one of the two best HD 7970s made so far (the second one being HD 7970 "R7970 Lighting" by MSi, THE very best one). Alternative way would be buying one HD 7950 and OverClocking it.

It's for you to decide, but I really suggest that you get yourself the Sapphire's HD 7970. It's purrrrrrfect (the only one that's even better than Sapphire's one, is R7970 Lighting, but it costs a leg and a kidney).
 
Ah I checked again and in the general wilderness with SMIM, deadly dragons, a few other mods like better snow, I am easily maxing out everything (including draw distance) with an AA/AF both at 2 (I don't mind it so low since shadows would be fairly jaggy anyhow)

Athlon 2 x3 445 stock.
6870 1gb twin frozr 2, stock.
4gb ddr2 800mhz.

with a minimum of around 30 fps.
 

Smeg45

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A minimum of 30FPS is good for consoles not PC's, and that will drop further to a stuttering mess into the mid 20's when you least want it. To the OP, you can find a 7950 for ~320 and it will max most games for a long long time to come. The drivers have also matured and the 670 is not worth buying right now.
 

master_chen

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With OverClocking, that is.
I'm quite sure you would not max out something like Samaritan, Unreal III or Final Fantasy XV (which would, obviously, be on Unreal Engine 4) with just one 7950, without OCing it. Maybe I'm wrong...we'll see soon...
 
So far no one has made a single argument that trumps Improved Image Quality. Ambient Occlusion, only available on Nvidia cards, has been called the single most important graphic enhancement that you can enable in Skyrim. Transparency Supersampling, only available on Nvidia cards, runs a close second.

Argue over a few FPS under whatever overclocking situation you want, but you still are not addressing image quality. When these arguments get so simplistic and single dimensional, it's easy to forget that they're missing the point. Skyrim visuals are so tweakable, it would be great to hear from some of the AMD fans what unique visual settings are available on an AMD card.

Skyrim-AO-Comparison.gif

Skyrim-AA-AdvancedAA-Comparison.gif
 

hella-d

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i just perfer nvidia because of its less buggy drivers, and better organised contol panel, definitely nothing wrong with radeon....

they both have there fair share of advantages/disadvantages