Graphics card upgrade

Muzi5434

Hey all,

I built a PC a last year and am now looking to upgrade my graphics card either to a R9 290x or GTX 770 or GTX 780 (Single card)

Specs of my PC are:

MSI z87-g45 motherboard
700W PSU
I5 4670k
8GB ram
GTX 660TI - SLI

I was playing Battlefield 4 on ultra settings but sometimes it'll get stuck for a second or two while playing, same happens with Sims 3 (All expansions)

May be it's just that I need to upgrade my RAM?

Will the suggested graphics card work with my current set-up if I were to upgrade?

Thanks
Muzi

Luck100

Those would all work but on paper your current SLI is equal to if not stronger than any of those single cards. Certainly much stronger than the 770. The 780 and the R290x have more vram, but unless you're playing multi-monitor or 1440p it shouldn't really matter. Your system ram is fine, that won't have any effect.

Are you playing 1080p? Multi-monitor? Also, did you change the resolution scale setting from the default 100%? Increasing the resolution scale makes it look nice but it seriously kills FPS. Also 4xMSAA can slow things down quite a bit, try 2XMSAA.

Muzi5434

Luck100 wrote: »

Those would all work but on paper your current SLI is equal to if not stronger than any of those single cards. Certainly much stronger than the 770. The 780 and the R290x have more vram, but unless you're playing multi-monitor or 1440p it shouldn't really matter. Your system ram is fine, that won't have any effect.

Are you playing 1080p? Multi-monitor? Also, did you change the resolution scale setting from the default 100%? Increasing the resolution scale makes it look nice but it seriously kills FPS. Also 4xMSAA can slow things down quite a bit, try 2XMSAA.

I'll have to go home and check those things. I do have two monitors plugged in but I don't play using two monitors. The second monitor will just have a browsing screen that I may be using while playing.

I'll take out the second monitor while gaming and that'll probably help a good bit.

Luck100

if second monitor is just a browsing screen then it won't have any impact (assuming you don't have lots of videos running in the browser).

Edit: well, obviously it will have some impact but I would expect it to be very small.

stevenmu

What are your frame rates generally like? If you've got good frame rates most of the time and occasional freezes, there could be some other problem that won't be fixed by upgrading the GPU. The most obvious thing is that there's possibly some background task taking up a lot of resources every now and then for some reason.

Muzi5434

stevenmu wrote: »

What are your frame rates generally like? If you've got good frame rates most of the time and occasional freezes, there could be some other problem that won't be fixed by upgrading the GPU. The most obvious thing is that there's possibly some background task taking up a lot of resources every now and then for some reason.

I'll check that when I get home and see the performance. From memory things running in the background would be:
Antivirus, steam, spotify, origin, Geforce (Probably one or two more but can't remember)

stevenmu

Utilities like that generally wouldn't be a problem, but it's worth killing everything you possibly can, processes and services, and seeing what difference that makes if any. I think there's also a performance logging tool built into Windows 7 and later, although I can't remember what it's called now, you could use to record some logs and seeing if anything is spiking CPU or disk usage while you are playing.

SuperTortoise

Does it happen when playing only BF4? Or are these issues across all games?

Muzi5434

FPS in Sims varied between 25 to 200 during game play (With single screen) - I noticed the fps would drop significantly if I zoomed in and out quickly, move around the screen etc.
BF 4 in single player is giving me around 50-60 fps and in a 64 multiplayer map it's the same with one screen and exiting a few utilities - seems to be no problem now!

Other games I play on ultra settings without any problems are: Rome total war 2, NFS rivals, tomb raider, batman arkham origins, simcity, crysis 3 etc.

Think the problem is probably just with sims 3. Appreciate the help everyone

SuperTortoise

BF4 was poorly optomised for SLI cards, they were supposed to have fixed that a while ago, it could well just be that game is a pile of excrement that's causing you your problems!

irek83

SuperTortoise wrote: »

BF4 was poorly optomised for SLI cards, they were supposed to have fixed that a while ago, it could well just be that game is a pile of excrement that's causing you your problems!

Hi, single card it's a better option, SLI give a trouble with most of games. I'm recommend a single card specially for one screen. Gtx 780 it's a best choice for you.

SterlingArcher

Hold off a wee bit. Nvidia have a big driver release in April trying to compete with mantle.

Try a fresh install of windows lay off the porn and lots of unnecessary program downloads.

See if this helps your problem. If no then get your new single card. R9 290 is your best bet value /performance 357 euro.

If you want to stay nvidia don't bother with a 770 it is a real reduction in power coming from a 660ti sli. a gtx 780 should cost around 420 using Geizhals.de and hardwareversand.de

dyigirl4help

I would recommend an Asus GTX780-DC2OC-3GD5 (yes I am biased, it's what I own) but it has been the single best improvement I have ever made. The price is a bit wee high, but the power this beast has is unimaginable. Here is the basic card info page and it explains their new cooling design, which I may add is really innovative -> http://www.asus.com/Graphics_Cards/GTX780DC2OC3GD5/ I also wanted to add that it comes with 3GB of DDR5 and each 1GB has its own dedicated 128 bit lane, so no bottlenecking like we see with strange memory configurations like a *2gb* 192bit card, ie: GTX-660 ( Which I also owned prior ) but in reality its 1.5GB thus the 192bit 1.5 lanes for 2GB of GDDR memory which is 1.5GB +.5GB layout, thus the card bottlenecks itself. I really don't understand the revision 1 GTX Titan that if I recall correctly had 6GB of DDR5 but only 320bit design. Strange when you think about it. Hmm.

chazbat1

I have the exact same card as dyigirl4help - and it is a beast - I play Titanfall in Max at 1920x1080 and its doesn't even shudder.

yawhat!

Get an R9 290 over the Gtx 780, not worth the price difference.

dyigirl4help

yawhat! wrote: »

Get an R9 290 over the Gtx 780, not worth the price difference.

I have to honorably disagree

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-R9-290X-vs-GeForce-GTX-780

But to everyone has an opinion and I respect yours, no offense intended

The R9-290X also tends to run HOT under load, up to 95C -> http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2013/10/28/is-the-amd-radeon-r9-290x-too-hot/1

Under 100% load, the gtx-780 does not break the 80C barrier (the vanilla version), NOT the Asus GTX780-DC2OC-3GD5 which I have not seen go above 50-60C when under 100% load on extreme settings with dual monitors, I know each GPU has a different thermal limit, but you have to take into consideration the overall heat that has to be dissipated inside a computer, and something running up to 95C can get a tad toasty in there

Amd claims that *However, AMD insists this is by design and not a problem. The GPU incorporates technology that constantly monitors the cards temperature and adjusts its workload accordingly, so it should theoretically never go beyond this and overheat. But, performance will drop as the card lowers its workload to fit within its thermal envelop* but that simply means, when the card gets too hot, it throttles your performance down to compensate. I am also not an *Nvidia Fanboy*, I have had both cards and enjoyed each but the current Nvidia 780 has really raised the bar high, especially the Ti edition, but that has an extreme cost attached to it

pcmag has also claimed that the RX-290X runs hot and is noisy http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2453389,00.asp

pcmag did an article on the GTX-780 also, I would like to mention it earned Editors Choice award http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2419365,00.asp

TerrorFirmer

A lot of those are looking at reference 290's.

You can obviously get excellent 3rd party ones for still cheaper than the 780, I would also consider the 290 non-x the better value buy overall. You can a respectable model for almost 100 euro cheaper than the GTX 780 and performance is nearly the same.

SterlingArcher

dyigirl4help wrote: »

I have to honorably disagree

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-R9-290X-vs-GeForce-GTX-780

But to everyone has an opinion and I respect yours, no offense intended

The R9-290X also tends to run HOT under load, up to 95C -> http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2013/10/28/is-the-amd-radeon-r9-290x-too-hot/1

Under 100% load, the gtx-780 does not break the 80C barrier (the vanilla version), NOT the y GTX780-DC2OC-3GD5 which I have not seen go above 50-60C when under 100% load on extreme settings with dual monitors, I know each GPU has a different thermal limit, but you have to take into consideration the overall heat that has to be dissipated inside a computer, and something running up to 95C can get a tad toasty in there

Amd claims that *However, AMD insists this is by design and not a problem. The GPU incorporates technology that constantly monitors the cards temperature and adjusts its workload accordingly, so it should theoretically never go beyond this and overheat. But, performance will drop as the card lowers its workload to fit within its thermal envelop* but that simply means, when the card gets too hot, it throttles your performance down to compensate.

Nobody recommended an r9 290x, that would break most budget builds.

dyigirl4help

SterlingArcher wrote: »

Nobody recommended an r9 290x, that would break most budget builds.

I apologize, I thought I saw an X after the 290 on post #15, my eyes are not very good :(

SterlingArcher

dyigirl4help wrote: »

I apologize, I thought I saw an X after the 290 on post #15, my eyes are not very good :(

No don't blame your eyes you probably did see an x after it, but that was a kiss x from that guy coming on to me. Ignore it.

Nothing wrong with 780 , good driver support, keeps cool running heavy, but alas on a budget money talks. And this is how the r9 290 is in demand.

dyigirl4help

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

A lot of those are looking at reference 290's.

You can obviously get excellent 3rd party ones for still cheaper than the 780, I would also consider the 290 non-x the better value buy overall. You can a respectable model for almost 100 euro cheaper than the GTX 780 and performance is nearly the same.

Do they make those cool dual or triple open *twin, triple frozr* for AMD cards like they do for Nvidia, I haven't been up to speed with AMD cards for a while...2009ish~ was my last AMD card. I looked up a few reviews for the 290 and you guys are indeed right, it isn't much different from the 780, albeit the 290 is built around AMD technology and 780 around the CUDA design. I wonder how the two would stack up against one another.

SterlingArcher

dyigirl4help wrote: »

Do they make those cool dual or triple open *twin, triple frozr* for AMD cards like they do for Nvidia, I haven't been up to speed with AMD cards for a while...2009ish~ was my last AMD card. I looked up a few reviews for the 290 and you guys are indeed right, it isn't much different from the 780, albeit the 290 is built around AMD technology and 780 around the CUDA design. I wonder how the two would stack up against one another.

Very few people will recommend a 780 over a 290. And that is nvidia owners included. AMD mantle has also driven demand for AMD cards up a lot And mining.

dyigirl4help

SterlingArcher wrote: »

Very few people will recommend a 780 over a 290. And that is nvidia owners included. AMD mantle has also driven demand for AMD cards up a lot And mining.

AMD Mantle sure sounds like something I would be interested in, expecially since it will be REST, SOAP etc etc, sadly according to AMD *As of March 2014, the Mantle specification and development materials remain unavailable to the general public.* As far as mining goes, I suspect the banking industry won't let that go on forever, it cuts out the middleman and they don't like that. Just look what happened recently ( and by mining I hope you are referring to BC mining ). The banks and governments will try to equate BC = Illegal activities ie : drugs, which in my opinion it is anything but. Just take any dollar bill and analyze the particles on it:rolleyes: BC suffered a huge blow recently and the TCO is rising while the ROI is falling, but enough about that. I will keep an eye on AMD Mantle and once it's out, I may just go AMD I can use a spare rig with a gtx-780 for experiments:eek: Thank you for mentioning it, as I said, I have been out of the AMD GPU loop far too long it seems. Mostly because back in the day of mid 2000, we had major Linux driver issues with AMD, while Nvidia just compiled under init3 nicely

Blazer

Coming from ATI I went back to a 780GTX and I love it.
Mantle is way way over-rated and it really only for those low-end cards where you see the most games.
For me shadowplay and twitch streaming win out over ATI's offerings.
Plus Nvidia's promised driver is supposed to deliver huge gains and when DX12 comes out next year hopefully more gains again.
Nvidia have already promised that most DX12 features will be supported from the 6 series onwards.
Bitcoining on a ati card..really only wasting your time as it's incredibly hard to mine now without a specialized system.
My cards over the last few years were X800XT, X850XT PE, 8800GTX, HD4870, HD 5870, HD6950x2 and finally back to Nvidia..for years I avoided them as the ATI cards were better value for money.
But lately they're turning into Nvidia with all their supposed driver performances increases/Mantle etc.

SterlingArcher

dyigirl4help wrote: »

AMD Mantle sure sounds like something I would be interested in, expecially since it will be REST, SOAP etc etc, sadly according to AMD *As of March 2014, the Mantle specification and development materials remain unavailable to the general public.* As far as mining goes, I suspect the banking industry won't let that go on forever, it cuts out the middleman and they don't like that. Just look what happened recently ( and by mining I hope you are referring to BC mining ). The banks and governments will try to equate BC = Illegal activities ie : drugs, which in my opinion it is anything but. Just take any dollar bill and analyze the particles on it:rolleyes: BC suffered a huge blow recently and the TCO is rising while the ROI is falling, but enough about that. I will keep an eye on AMD Mantle and once it's out, I may just go AMD I can use a spare rig with a gtx-780 for experiments:eek: Thank you for mentioning it, as I said, I have been out of the AMD GPU loop far too long it seems. Mostly because back in the day of mid 2000, we had major Linux driver issues with AMD, while Nvidia just compiled under init3 nicely

Nvidia supposed to have a driver coming in April to try match mantle performance increases.

dyigirl4help

SterlingArcher wrote: »

Nvidia supposed to have a driver coming in April to try match mantle performance increases.

I am still running on the driver my card came with, NO GEFORCE EXPERIENCE = bloatware and all the other stuff that comes with it, only the driver and the Nvidia PhysX, I don't use the HD Audio as I have a separate audio card, and I use MSI afterburner, Nvidia Inspector and NVFlash to unlock more volts, and I shined the tip of my soldering iron to add a 6 PCI-E flat cable from the RM-850 PSU I use to power it all. I am quite happy. As for the new driver, I won't install right away, I will wait and see how others react to it. I never install zero day stuff anyway, unless its an important Sys update. :P Besides I only play flight and racing sims on the computer, same goes for my PS3.

SterlingArcher

dyigirl4help wrote: »

I am still running on the driver my card came with, NO GEFORCE EXPERIENCE = bloatware and all the other stuff that comes with it, only the driver and the Nvidia PhysX, I don't use the HD Audio as I have a separate audio card, and I use MSI afterburner, Nvidia Inspector and NVFlash to unlock more volts, and I shined the tip of my soldering iron to add a 6 PCI-E flat cable from the RM-850 PSU I use to power it all. I am quite happy. As for the new driver, I won't install right away, I will wait and see how others react to it. I never install zero day stuff anyway, unless its an important Sys update. :P Besides I only play flight and racing sims on the computer, same goes for my PS3.

Haha no shadow play for you so, I hear nvidia GeForce experience sells its information to the CIA :O they will now after seeing me playing arma, try and recruit me like some Jason Bourne type killer.

dyigirl4help

SterlingArcher wrote: »

Haha no shadow play for you so, I hear nvidia GeForce experience sells its information to the CIA :O they will now after seeing me playing arma, try and recruit me like some Jason Bourne type killer.

If they are selling info, hope they charge a flat rate as the amount of traffic is rather large, a simple trace route shows that it always somehow bounces off a node in the USA, so all they have to do is get a stethoscope; hopefully a pink one and listen in:P And shadow play? You mean this? I quote

Nvidia Shadowplay is a hardware accelerated screen recording utility for Windows PCs using GeForce GPUs, soon to be released by Nvidia Corp. It is similar to programs like FRAPS but uses dedicated H.264 video encoding hardware found in 600 and 700 series graphics cards.

I don't record my games anyhow, who would want to see an old WW2 plane flying for hours on end to a mission that sometimes lasts a few minutes anyway

SterlingArcher

dyigirl4help wrote: »

I don't record my games anyhow, who would want to see an old WW2 plane flying for hours on end to a mission that sometimes lasts a few minutes anyway

The same people who watch videos of farm simulator, or goat simulator... Just kidding goat simulator is the best.

chazbat1

I haven't used Shadowplay yet - and anyway who wants to see me getting beaten by 12 year olds on Titanfall anyway....

I opted for the GTX780 because I felt I was over paying for the r290 for some reason it seemed more expensive than in previous months.

and also I absolutely love the design of the ASUS and reviews of the card did it justice, its really well built and the full metal backplate creates a good rigidity that other cards don't have - like I said I have had absolutely no issues so far and would recommend to anyone in two minds.

here it is in its glory: 20140328_185418.jpg :-)

dyigirl4help

chazbat1 wrote: »

I haven't used Shadowplay yet - and anyway who wants to see me getting beaten by 12 year olds on Titanfall anyway....

I opted for the GTX780 because I felt I was over paying for the r290 for some reason it seemed more expensive than in previous months.

and also I absolutely love the design of the ASUS and reviews of the card did it justice, its really well built and the full metal backplate creates a good rigidity that other cards don't have - like I said I have had absolutely no issues so far and would recommend to anyone in two minds.

here it is in its glory: 20140328_185418.jpg :-)

Yeah and the special new fan design, man of man do I enjoy *trying* to watch it, trying...because it is hard to get my head under there to watch a fan spinning. And even when the fans go to 100%, you can hardly hear them, at 100% they sound like my old gtx660 on 45%. I also had ASUS send me back the original BIOS, as the new *quiet fan mode BIOS* isn't as good when OCing the card.

ZeroThreat

SterlingArcher wrote: »

The same people who watch videos of farm simulator, or goat simulator... Just kidding goat simulator is the best.

Does goat simulator allow you to impregnate a sheep as seen on the news today??