New Video Card Recommendations for Battlefield 3

So, I'm interested in getting Battlefield 3 for the PC when it releases near the end of October.

The rest of my PC is going to be just fine, aside from my current video card. Today, I'm running an Intel Q9550 quad core at 3.2Ghz, 8GB of DDR2-800 G.Skill PI RAM, 80GB Intel X25m-G2 SSD, 1TB WD Caviar Black, 23" 1920x1080 monitor,Corsair HX620 modular PSU, ABS M1 mechanical keyboard and a Logitech G9 laser mouse.

Many years ago, I had some ATI based cards. Radeon 9700Pro and a Radeon X800XT. My last few cards have been Nvidia, 7600GT, and a 9800GTX+

My birthday is at the beginning of Oct, so thinking of asking the wife to get me the video card for my birthday. More than anything, I want the card to be QUIET. My mobo is NOT SLI or CROSSFIRE, so I only want a single video card. Reasonable power consumption is something that I would take into consideration, but isn't my primary concern as I don't leave this PC on all of the time.

So, you guys want to make some recommendations in the $150 to $300 range that will work great for BF3, running 1920x1080, single card that is SUPER QUIET when not gaming? I also do a fair amount of video rendering in Sony Vegas Movie studio 2010 Platinum...so I think some of the power will be beneficial to me there as well.

Friend of mine recommended the Sapphire 6870 Vapor X (approx $199). He has the 5870 and says the Vapor X is nearly silent;
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...70%20Vapor%20X

I was thinking about the eVGA GTX560 FTW+ (about $215). This would keep me from having to ditch my Nvidia rather.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...scrollFullInfo

That's not a bad suggestion....I would just have to believe that my current 9800GTX+ would provide rather crappy results. So, anything would be a significant performance increase. My BD is about 10 days before the game releases, so I'd like to get the card and get it working...that way I can load the game on release day and get to playing.

I just installed the Vapor x 6870 2 days ago, so I can't give much of a performance recomendation. But, it is pretty quiet until the fan gets above 60%, then can become a little noiser but not as bad as some. Before purchasing it, I read many reviews, and all were quite positive. I have OC'd it slightly just to test and it did well. It passes Passmark and Furmark. So far i am quite pleased. Although i know you don't really care, but WEI is 7.8.

I've heard alot of good things about the 560s. Although I can not confirm from any personal experience with them.

But if it works anything like the 570, it should be very quiet and cool at idle.
I have a manual fan profile set for mine, that ramps up slowly to 60% once it hits 70C.
Even at that, I don't notice the extra noise.
The default fan speeds let it get a bit warmer under load, but its a bit quieter too.


This of course is pure speculation on my part that the 560 would be similar. I would think that it would be however, consider the architecture itself is the same.



As far as the ATI Vapor-X ...
My last card was a 4890 Vapor-X, and I loved it. It was quiet compared to other 4870/90s, but not as quiet as my 570.
But, to be fair, the newer ATI cards are quieter than the 4890 was too.


Honestly, I think either card would fullfill your needs.

But what would sway my decision either way the most would be the other features each offers that is of the most benefit.
Such as, does you video encoder use CUDA and is that important? Will it work as well with AMD?
Is PhysX important?

Wishmaster said:

But what would sway my decision either way the most would be the other features each offers that is of the most benefit.
Such as, does you video encoder use CUDA and is that important?

Thanks, good suggestion. I checked and Sony Vegas Movie Studio 10 does indeed make use of Cuda when encoding using the Sony AVC encoder...which just so happens to be what I use. Quick research online shows about a 10-15% improvement in encoding times...which is nothing to scoff at since video encoding does take quite a bit of time.

I think that I am going to persue an Nvidia card with CUDA support. I think that just sold me on the NVIDIA over ATI/AMD.

Best suggestion I can give you before passing off to sleep, is get a 560 DCII. Believe me when I say these things are quiet.

I believe nVidia is on the verge of releasing refreshes for (again, I believe) the 560-580, so you can wait for those to pop up as well.

Terronium 12 said:

Best suggestion I can give you before passing off to sleep, is get a 560 DCII. Believe me when I say these things are quiet.

Yep. Reference cards may be quiet already, but these after market cooled babies are great. Well worth the extra $ and slot space.

I have an MSI GTX 560 at the moment and am loving it. Not sure about the EVGA card but the MSI is dead quiet. If you were to get the Twin Frozr, you would be even better off. Great overclocking as well as icy cool temps. It's also dead fast when I game with little disruptions.

As for the DCII, sure, they're a good card but what put me off them is the difficulty to SLI. I'm not planning on running a multi or even two way GPU setup but in the event that I do, I'd like to be able to. I'm not sure what the 560 DCII is like but the 580 is definitely a difficult to SLI even on an Extended ATX so I'm assuming the 560 will act similarly.

Thanks folks, I will check those cards out. The lack of SLI to me doesn't matter 1 bit, I have 0 intention of doing it. Never considered it in the past, never bought a mobo that even supports it.