Video card recommendation wanted, please.
By
Addicted,
Posted on: 2011-01-29 11:24 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
Price Range for gfx card?
For Nvidia (not sure about ATI tbh, but i will explain the Nvidia side)
Any card from x800 upwards (the 8800, and 9800) will do, OR from the Nvidia 250 upwards (250, 450/460 and higher) range. the 250/450/460 (avoid the 465 though, its worse than the 460 for performance)...
Nvidia do their numbering as (family)(power) effectively.
ie Family 8, power 800 is better than Family 9, power 400 (ie the Nvidia 8800 is better than Nvidia 9400...)
AVOID any Nvidia cards that end in 400 or less, or 40 and less for the more recent cards.. they are more for general media playback than gaming
Oh, and as much RAM on the card as well.. if its just £20 or so difference, spend the extra for more RAM. It will make your life in the long run easier.
Archie says:
The goal is to build a new system to run CoX in Ultra mode to hit these targets:-
- resolution 1600x1200
- all settings at max including ambient occlusion
- 4x FSAA
- 35 FPS or better for most of the time
- all zones including Praetoria
Current favourite card is HD 5850 as it gives the same performance (in other games) as a GTX 460 and HD 6870 but it's cheaper. (Available for £135 from overclockers.co.uk)
Are there still problems with ATI cards when running ambient occlusion and FSAA? If so I'll probably pick a GTX 460 at approx £150 from overclockers.co.uk.
The budget for the graphics card is £100-£220 GBP or up $150-$250. I'll be buying online in the UK.
I'm keen to keep the system as quiet as possible particularly when it's idling so I prefer cards with lower power consumption.
The system won't be overclocked and will be air-cooled unless there are compelling reasons to the contrary.
I'll spec the rest of the system once I've picked a graphics card but it'll be a mid-range CPU with at least 4Gb RAM. Any tips will be gratefully accepted but I'd like to concentrate on the GPU for the moment.
thanks,
Archie
Arc#314490: Zombie Ninja Pirates!
Defiant @Grouchybeast
Death is part of my attack chain.
This is what I was given in a previous thread where I aske da similar question.
Quote:
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To run all Ultra Mode options at once in 1680*1050 the starting point is around a AMD RadeonHD 4850 / Nvidia Geforce GTS 250. These have the respective theoretical throughput rates of 10,000 MegaPixel / 25,000 Megatexel 11,808 MegaPixel / 47,232 Megatexel For the AMD architecture then, cards that will run Ultra Mode include: RadeonHD 4770 RadeonHD 4850 RadeonHD 4850x2 RadeonHD 4860 RadeonHD 4870 RadeonHD 4870x2 RadeonHD 4890 RadeonHD 5750 Radeon HD 5770 1GB RadeonHD 5830 RadeonHD 5850 RadeonHD 5870 RadeonHD 5970 RadeonHD 6850 RadeonHD 6870 RadeonHD 6950 RadeonHD 6970 For the Nvidia architecture these include: 8800 GTS* 8800 GTX* 8800 Ultra* 9800 GTX 9800 GTX+ 9800 GX2 GTS 240 GTS 250 GTX 260 GTX 260 216 GTX 275 GTX 280 GTX 285 GTX 295 GTS 450 GTX 460 GTX 460 SE GTX 465 GTX 470 GTX 480 GTX 570 GTX 580 *the Geforce 8800 series has the shader and texture power to execute Ultra Mode Code, but memory counts of 256mb and 512mb of local video memory really cuts into the ability of the cards to render Ultra Mode in high resolutions The list of mobile cards that can render in ultra mode is significant shorter: Mobile RadeonHD 4850 Mobile RadeonHD 4850x2 Mobile RadeonHD 4860 Mobile RadeonHD 4870 Mobile RadeonHD 4870x2 Mobile RadeonHD 5830 Mobile RadeonHD 5850 GGD5 Mobile RadeonHD 5870 9800M GTS 9800M GT 9800M GTX Quadro FX 3700M Quadro FX 3800M GTX 260M GTX 280M GTX 285M GTX 460M GTX 470M GTX 480M Now, I have the well publicized opinion that most of the Geforce cards are rip-offs. Outside of the Geforce GTX 460, pretty much the entire street price for Nvidia cards are way over-priced compared to AMD cards with similar frame-per-second performance: http://www.pricewatch.com/video_cards/ Case in point: Nvidia wants $500 for the GTX 580. However, in realistic gameplay, the $500 msrp GTX 580 doesn't actually buy you higher resolutions, more anti-aliasing, or better texture quality... compared to a RadeonHD 6970 with an MSRP of $369, and a street price only a few bucks more. So... what are you spending nearly $125+ for? Best as I can figure, a little badge that says Nvidia. One of the problems with my opinion is that Nvidia offers huge discounts to OEM vendors in order to keep system price parity with AMD offerings. So, if you are buying a pre-built computer from a major OEM like Dell, HP, or Gateway, their computers won't have the price / performance discrepancy you'll find in the add-in card market. So it's very possible that you'll find one of the card listed here available in a pre-built system for not much off an equivelent AMD card. |
According to your goal it's important to consider a nice CPU (generally OC'd) with your gpu platform.
Example:
I use an i5 processor and if it's at stock I cannot really enjoy much of Ultra settings, my sweet spot comes from an OC of cpu to 4.0ghz coupled with my stock gtx 580 for this.
Also, Ambient occlusion is set to ULTRA on my 1900x1080 monitor but I can't raise it beyond this without suffering considerably with low frames. If I just stay on ULTRA even Praetoria is fine. I also notice that the Ultra system runs much better in Praetoria zones.
Don't be a mindless farm toon, we may need you on a non-soft SF someday. =)
For your resolution (I run 1980 * 1200) I'd say you want an nvidia GTX 280 or better.
The Nvidia GTX 200 and 400 Series will both do well, and can run DX 10 (a consideration for other games). If you go with an Nvidia GTX 500 type card you can run DX 11 and will be able to run at that resolution with most things turned up.
ATI makes decent cards as well, however Nvidia has much better drivers and open gl support (COH runs in open gl).
What is your budget for the vid card?
Any quad core CPU on the market right now will run COH just fine. (Dual core likely as well)
I'm getting a new computer, which Archie will be building from scratch. He's looking for a recommendation for a video card which will let me run Ultra mode, ideally with all the shinies turned on, or at least with most of them.
The rest of the machine will be built up to spec to match the video card, he'd just like to know from people with experience of running Ultra mode what's required in terms of the card itself.
Thanks :-)
Arc#314490: Zombie Ninja Pirates!
Defiant @Grouchybeast
Death is part of my attack chain.