Originally posted by eddieg50 I currently have a I5-3570 and a 7870 2gig graphic card. What card can I upgrade to which will make a difference but not bottleneck my I5?
A game that won't run well on a Core i5-3570 is a game that won't run well, period. It's not that such games don't exist; it's that upgrading the CPU wouldn't fix the problem for such games. So you can get whatever video card you want without worrying that the CPU will be a problem.
I'd argue that the real question if you're looking to upgrade a video card is how much of an upgrade you need to be worthwhile. I wouldn't upgrade to anything less than a Radeon R9 290 or a GeForce GTX 970, as it's a waste of money to pay for something only slightly faster than what you have now.
But why are you looking to upgrade in the first place? A Radeon HD 7870 is still a decent card today. For that matter, it's still on the market, rebranded as a Radeon R9 270X--and plenty of people will still sensibly buy one new today.
Bottlenecking is barely a real thing, your cpu would have to be incredibly outdated for it to stifle the performance of your gpu. For anyone thinking of upgrading I would say just buy the most powerful gpu you can afford, its highly unlikely "bottlenecking" will occur.
Originally posted by eddieg50 I currently have a I5-3570 and a 7870 2gig graphic card. What card can I upgrade to which will make a difference but not bottleneck my I5?
A game that won't run well on a Core i5-3570 is a game that won't run well, period. It's not that such games don't exist; it's that upgrading the CPU wouldn't fix the problem for such games. So you can get whatever video card you want without worrying that the CPU will be a problem.
I'd argue that the real question if you're looking to upgrade a video card is how much of an upgrade you need to be worthwhile. I wouldn't upgrade to anything less than a Radeon R9 290 or a GeForce GTX 970, as it's a waste of money to pay for something only slightly faster than what you have now.
But why are you looking to upgrade in the first place? A Radeon HD 7870 is still a decent card today. For that matter, it's still on the market, rebranded as a Radeon R9 270X--and plenty of people will still sensibly buy one new today.
It runs GTA 5 and shadow of mordor and Inquisition at high settings, looking to run these and some others at ultra maxed
Originally posted by eddieg50 It runs GTA 5 and shadow of mordor and Inquisition at high settings, looking to run these and some others at ultra maxed
I'll stay out of the sensibility of the "Ultra MAX MAX" debate for the most part.
But, apart from that - what resolution/how many monitors, and what's your threshold for pain on the refresh rate. Those factors make a huge difference. And regardless how you answer, bear in mind the answer very well is "You can't without sinking thousands of dollars into it, and even then probably not"
I recommend you read this article about GTA5 as well - it's pretty eye opening. Right now nothing can Ultra MAX MAX it single-GPU, even at 1080p 30fps.
I was thinking of the R 290 but then I read where people were having trouble with over heating and bsod. I am guessing though those people over clock and I have no intention of over clocking
There is not some radical difference between the Radeon HD7950 and the R9 280. I would wait until at least the R9 300 series comes out. You are pretty going from the top tier a generation ago to the 2nd tier this generation. I think if you shop in the top tier, you should wait 2~4 generations between upgrades. Also the R9 300 series has really cool names like Pirate Island and Volcanic Island.
I get over 60 fps in GTA V right now. Did they not patch? The patch makes a HUGE difference.
60 FPS isn't hard to achieve in GTA5 - but it can mean turning down some sensible options that have negligible effect on image quality, but have a huge impact on performance. Or maybe, in the case of soft shadows, have a negative effect on both image quality and performance....
If you want to Ultra MAX MAX for no other good reason than to do so - then yeah...
Originally posted by eddieg50 I was thinking of the R 290 but then I read where people were having trouble with over heating and bsod. I am guessing though those people over clock and I have no intention of over clocking
The reference card had cooling problems. But if you get a non-reference card--such as just about anything you can find at retail today--it will be fine.
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Given any hardware, it's trivial to write software that runs slowly on it. This is not something that can be fixed by faster hardware.
60 FPS isn't hard to achieve in GTA5 - but it can mean turning down some sensible options that have negligible effect on image quality, but have a huge impact on performance. Or maybe, in the case of soft shadows, have a negative effect on both image quality and performance....
If you want to Ultra MAX MAX for no other good reason than to do so - then yeah...
I tested this last night. My computer cried. But most of it is caused by Anti-Aliasing since you are talking about keeping many frame buffers in memory longer.
Originally posted by eddieg50 actually that was a 7970 for $187, that may be enough of an upgrade to be worth it?
Radeon 7970 is a good card, even by today's standards, but it's not that much better than 7870. You'd be paying 187$ for something that might give you 30% better FPS.
I'd recommend either spending significantly more money to a better graphic card, or waiting until you upgrade. It's not cost effective to do small upgrades.
Originally posted by Cleffy Even if you spent $600 on the best consumer grade graphics card on the market. It still won't be a noticeable improvement over an HD7870. Just wait.
Saying a GTX 980 isnt much of an improvement over a 7870 is a massive understatement. I own a 7870 and while it is a good card still to this day if i switched it out for a GTX 980 I would notice immediate and massive improvements.
OP i have an I7 but a terrible graphics card "likely a freeware gpu lol" and i can run any game on the market.I think it is obvious judging by my setup that devs are still not utilizing the gpu hardly at all.
I guess my point is that i would go for a cpu over a gpu,unless your set on playing a game with a massive amount of players on screen,in which case you need a solid all around upgrade.How many games and how often do you ever see massive on screen?Answer is like less than 1% of the time,save your money.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
OP i have an I7 but a terrible graphics card "likely a freeware gpu lol" and i can run any game on the market.I think it is obvious judging by my setup that devs are still not utilizing the gpu hardly at all.
I guess my point is that i would go for a cpu over a gpu,unless your set on playing a game with a massive amount of players on screen,in which case you need a solid all around upgrade.How many games and how often do you ever see massive on screen?Answer is like less than 1% of the time,save your money.
It's easy to code games such that reducing graphical settings can greatly reduce the load on a GPU. For example, if something is further away than distance X, then skip drawing it. If the textures won't all fit in video memory, reduce their resolutions by dropping the highest resolution mipmap level. I can probably still play nearly anything on the Radeon HD 5850 that I bought in 2009.
But there are many games that I can't still play at max settings. It's also easy to use arbitrarily large amounts of GPU resources by turning settings higher, such as by stupid levels of SSAA.
Originally posted by eddieg50 actually that was a 7970 for $187, that may be enough of an upgrade to be worth it?
Speaking as a die-hard AMD fanboy who always goes for the AMD alternative over the Nvidia card, I can't in good conscience recommend one these days over the GTX 9xx.
The lower fan noise and lower power consumption are enough to tip me to the dark side over the hot, noisy, power-hungry current 7xxx or R 2xx AMD cards.
The 970 in particular is hard to pass up.
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Comments
A game that won't run well on a Core i5-3570 is a game that won't run well, period. It's not that such games don't exist; it's that upgrading the CPU wouldn't fix the problem for such games. So you can get whatever video card you want without worrying that the CPU will be a problem.
I'd argue that the real question if you're looking to upgrade a video card is how much of an upgrade you need to be worthwhile. I wouldn't upgrade to anything less than a Radeon R9 290 or a GeForce GTX 970, as it's a waste of money to pay for something only slightly faster than what you have now.
But why are you looking to upgrade in the first place? A Radeon HD 7870 is still a decent card today. For that matter, it's still on the market, rebranded as a Radeon R9 270X--and plenty of people will still sensibly buy one new today.
It runs GTA 5 and shadow of mordor and Inquisition at high settings, looking to run these and some others at ultra maxed
I'll stay out of the sensibility of the "Ultra MAX MAX" debate for the most part.
But, apart from that - what resolution/how many monitors, and what's your threshold for pain on the refresh rate. Those factors make a huge difference. And regardless how you answer, bear in mind the answer very well is "You can't without sinking thousands of dollars into it, and even then probably not"
I recommend you read this article about GTA5 as well - it's pretty eye opening. Right now nothing can Ultra MAX MAX it single-GPU, even at 1080p 30fps.
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2015/04/27/grand_theft_auto_v_single_gpu_performance_review_part_1/1#.VT7VTyFVhBc
There is not some radical difference between the Radeon HD7950 and the R9 280. I would wait until at least the R9 300 series comes out. You are pretty going from the top tier a generation ago to the 2nd tier this generation. I think if you shop in the top tier, you should wait 2~4 generations between upgrades. Also the R9 300 series has really cool names like Pirate Island and Volcanic Island.
I get over 60 fps in GTA V right now. Did they not patch? The patch makes a HUGE difference.
60 FPS isn't hard to achieve in GTA5 - but it can mean turning down some sensible options that have negligible effect on image quality, but have a huge impact on performance. Or maybe, in the case of soft shadows, have a negative effect on both image quality and performance....
If you want to Ultra MAX MAX for no other good reason than to do so - then yeah...
The reference card had cooling problems. But if you get a non-reference card--such as just about anything you can find at retail today--it will be fine.
-----
Given any hardware, it's trivial to write software that runs slowly on it. This is not something that can be fixed by faster hardware.
I tested this last night. My computer cried. But most of it is caused by Anti-Aliasing since you are talking about keeping many frame buffers in memory longer.
I did see a 7950 sapphire on sale for $187 but I don't know if that is a big enough jump to bother
Radeon 7970 is a good card, even by today's standards, but it's not that much better than 7870. You'd be paying 187$ for something that might give you 30% better FPS.
I'd recommend either spending significantly more money to a better graphic card, or waiting until you upgrade. It's not cost effective to do small upgrades.
I would have to disagree
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1034?vs=1351
Saying a GTX 980 isnt much of an improvement over a 7870 is a massive understatement. I own a 7870 and while it is a good card still to this day if i switched it out for a GTX 980 I would notice immediate and massive improvements.
OP i have an I7 but a terrible graphics card "likely a freeware gpu lol" and i can run any game on the market.I think it is obvious judging by my setup that devs are still not utilizing the gpu hardly at all.
I guess my point is that i would go for a cpu over a gpu,unless your set on playing a game with a massive amount of players on screen,in which case you need a solid all around upgrade.How many games and how often do you ever see massive on screen?Answer is like less than 1% of the time,save your money.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
It's easy to code games such that reducing graphical settings can greatly reduce the load on a GPU. For example, if something is further away than distance X, then skip drawing it. If the textures won't all fit in video memory, reduce their resolutions by dropping the highest resolution mipmap level. I can probably still play nearly anything on the Radeon HD 5850 that I bought in 2009.
But there are many games that I can't still play at max settings. It's also easy to use arbitrarily large amounts of GPU resources by turning settings higher, such as by stupid levels of SSAA.
Speaking as a die-hard AMD fanboy who always goes for the AMD alternative over the Nvidia card, I can't in good conscience recommend one these days over the GTX 9xx.
The lower fan noise and lower power consumption are enough to tip me to the dark side over the hot, noisy, power-hungry current 7xxx or R 2xx AMD cards.
The 970 in particular is hard to pass up.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED