New Video Card Recommendations for Battlefield 3

[Wishmaster]

There is nothing wrong with ATI cards, quite a few of my friends have them. It just wasn't the right choice for me.

I did arrive home to a NewEgg box at my door. My eVGA Nvidia 570 GTX has arrived. I don't think that I will get a chance to install it until tomorrow night or perhaps on Saturday.

You're more patient than I.
Id be running a benchmark right now

Glad you got it. I think you will like it very much.

 

[paulpicks21]

There is nothing wrong with ATI cards, quite a few of my friends have them. It just wasn't the right choice for me.

I did arrive home to a NewEgg box at my door. My eVGA Nvidia 570 GTX has arrived. I don't think that I will get a chance to install it until tomorrow night or perhaps on Saturday.

You're more patient than I.
Id be running a benchmark right now

Glad you got it. I think you will like it very much.

Ditto!!

 

[pparks1]

Yeah, patience comes from the fact that it probably won't work 100% correct and I will end up spending time troubleshooting something. I knew if it didn't work, I would have had to commit myself last night to getting it working. So, it's best for me to hold off and wait until I have adequate time.

 

[96accord]

Congrats on receiving it PParks! Update your System Specs on here

I still don't know what I want to do.. I only have a 500w PSU so I might have to upgrade that.. :X

 

[pparks1]

Alright, new card is installed in my box. The card was a bit longer than I expected, and thus I had to remove my center hard drive carriers...which is ok...as I wasn't using them.

At first, couldn't get any video. Quickly realized that only 1 of my 6 pin power cables was plugged in all of the way. The second one wasn't latched.

This card seems to initialize in my BIOS faster...but by time my video actually comes on, it's almost to the point of starting Windows. So, it's good that I know that you press DEL to get to the BIOS.

My WEI increased from a 7.0 in both graphics categories to a 7.9 in both categories. This card is much quieter than my previous 9800GTX+ at idle and while under load.

I was able to play BF3 Beta, at 1920x1080 with all settings on High, vsync enabled, full screen and it was as smooth as could be. I played for about 30 minutes, and CPU fan stayed around 50%. Card was around 80C, my CPU was around 48C and things are running good. This is using the Nvidia 285.38 beta drivers.

 

[pparks1]

Found a really good read on the web with regards to the video setup of BF3 and how the game will perform across various Nvidia graphics card offerings.

Guides: Battlefield 3 Beta Performance Guide - GeForce

 

[96accord]

Thanks for the update PParks!! Glad your enjoying the card.

I've been on that site before. Wish it would list the Radeon cards also

I'm still trying to decide.. :/ 1GB GTX570 ($319/$320AR/$335AR/$325AR) or 2GB HD6970 ($329 AR)

 

[pparks1]

I don't think you would be disappointed with either card. My 570 is 1280MB. I highly doubt the difference between 1GB and 2GB will make any difference.

 

[Wishmaster]

1280MB is be plenty of VRAM.
At least with a single monitor at 1920x1200 res or less.

If you want to run multiple montior or really hi-resolutions beyond that, then the extra VRAM would be useful.
But then again, most who are doing that are also running multiple GPUs too which help make up for it.






pparks,
If you want it a bit cooler under full load and you do not mind a little extra noise, you could always set a more aggresive custom fan profile using eVGA Precision.
Although 80-85C is usually considered normal for these cards under full load & should be fine, I always liked to keep mine a bit cooler.

More aggresive fan profiles are more noisy though, but not that much IMO. I never notice it.


I set mine on a slope increase. By the time it hits 60C its at 50% and up to 60% at around 72C.

With that fan profile it usually stays between 65-70 under heavy loads.
Many other games that do not stress it than much are much lower 55-60.



So you liking the card overall so far I take it?

 

[paulpicks21]

Found a really good read on the web with regards to the video setup of BF3 and how the game will perform across various Nvidia graphics card offerings.

Guides: Battlefield 3 Beta Performance Guide - GeForce

That's a good article, thanks for the link.

Glad you are happy with the new card pparks

 

[pparks1]

pparks,
If you want it a bit cooler under full load and you do not mind a little extra noise, you could always set a more aggresive custom fan profile using eVGA Precision.
Although 80-85C is usually considered normal for these cards under full load & should be fine, I always liked to keep mine a bit cooler.

Yeah, I prefer to keep the box as quiet as possible. Since that amount of heat is right in the normal range for this particular card series, I'm not bothered in the least. In the event that something happened to this card heat related, I'd simply take advantage of the lifetime warranty provided by eVGA. In watching the card this morning with evga precision it's idling about 8 degrees cooler than yesterday. It's running around 32C

So you liking the card overall so far I take it?

Yes, 100% satisfied with my purchase thus far. Going to check out some video rendering speeds today and see what my improvement is there.

Edit: No improvement in video rendering. That kinda stinks. But the Sony software doesn't utilize CUDA very heavily I guess and I didn't realize that my 9800GTX+ had CUDA support. In fact, my render times are a bit slower...but I would guess this has more to do with the current Nvidia 285.38 beta drivers that I am running for BF3 beta at the moment.

 

[96accord]

I don't think you would be disappointed with either card. My 570 is 1280MB. I highly doubt the difference between 1GB and 2GB will make any difference.

So your card is 1.25GB. Hmmm.. I'm good at building PC's but with so many different choices/models/manufacturers it sucks.

1280MB is be plenty of VRAM.
At least with a single monitor at 1920x1200 res or less.

If you want to run multiple montior or really hi-resolutions beyond that, then the extra VRAM would be useful.
But then again, most who are doing that are also running multiple GPUs too which help make up for it.

No dual monitors for me. (1) 24" Samsung LCD at 1920x1200 (preferred)

 

[Wishmaster]

Yea, the default profile is very good in terms of noise.
Just a bit warm for my liking, but as you said ... it is normal and will not harm the cards.

eVGA warranties and support is just amazing, so in the worst case scenario they have your back.

I regards to to the Cuda encoding I wish I could offer advice, but always use CPU based encoding myself so not that familiar.

It should be faster though.
Very well may be the driver, or other setting ...

 

[96accord]

So 1GB EVGA GTX570... they have a few on newegg.. what are the differences??

 

[pparks1]

Apparently, Sony Vegas Movie Studio only partially uses GPU encoding. According to Sony, it would only improve performance by 5% to 15%. When I timed my new card, re-encoding 1 minute of video took about 5:20 seconds using just CPU, and about 4:00 to do the same with GPU assistance. Previously, I would finish this in about 3:35. So, I lost about 25 seconds somewhere along the line. I don't do enough encoding that this extra time is really worth me hunting down. I usually start it up and walk away for hours.

The differences between the eVGA 570's is the heat sink design more than anything. I went with the reference design layout with the fan at one end, and the shroud covering all of the electrical bits on the card and everything exhausting out the back.

 

[96accord]

Good Morning PParks

So I upgraded that to a MSi 2GB HD 6950 PE/OC (see pic below - not my pic)

Since I only had a 500w Antec PSU I figured I'd upgrade that while I was at it.

I went with the OCZ 700w Mod-Extreme Pro (see pic below - not my pic)

I also went from Windows 7 Home 32-bit to Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

Thanks for all the help. Even though I didn't go with the GTX card

 

[pparks1]

Thanks for all the help. Even though I didn't go with the GTX card

No problem, you have to go with what works for you. Nothing wrong with the AMD/ATI cards.

 

[96accord]

Yeah true. Both would have worked for me but I do like the 2GB card vs 1GB card. Especially since I'm running 1920x1200 resolution.

I played BC2 last night and it was alot more crisp/better detail!