Type of graphics cards used by people

posted on July 22nd, 2012, 11:25 pm

Nvidia GTX 470 here (EVGA). Thinking of upgrading to dual 560's in SLI mode, but I haven't had a hitch in the 470, so I'll probably keep that one until it blows up or something

that's a pretty drastic upgrade, like going from a unicycle to a fighter jet.

1 gtx 560 can run any game at 720p on max settings with a playable frame rate. it can run almost any game at max settings at 1080p. i considered the 560, but it was way more expensive and powerful than i need. it wouldn't fit in with the rest of my system's spec.

i don't think graphics will get much better for the immediate future. the next big jump should be when the successors to ps3 and xbox 360 arrive. currently, graphics are limited by what the 7 year old xbox 360 hardware can do. pc games are increasingly often just lazy ports of the more profitable console versions, so won't have significantly better graphics. so i'd hang on to your gtx 470 until the sony and M$ drop their new consoles, it's a decent card and it should be acceptable for everything thrown at it until then unless you want to game at a bigger resolution than 1080p.

at that time, you'll probably benefit from upgrading the rest of your system as well, a new mb and processor to match the quality of new graphics.

how long it will take for the new consoles is a mystery, nintendo are running rings around them at the moment, they seem a bit like deers in the headlights. they don't want to get sucked into nintendo's trap of a faster release, as they just can't afford it, they never make money on the actual console, while nintendo do. so they may delay just to preserve their pride.

there's also the hit and miss nature of sli/crossfire. they've had plenty of time to get it right, but i still hear people complaining about software/driver issues when using sli/cf, so you might be better off getting a more expensive single card for less hassle.

posted on July 23rd, 2012, 12:35 am

I use a NVidia Geforce 560 ti 448. I have some framerate issues with fleet ops though....drops below 30 FPS randomly. I used to have a NVidia GeForce 6200 though. ^_^ Then i upgraded to a Geforce GTS 250 then this. Talk about unicylces to fighter jets....going from the 6200 to the 250 was CRAZY. (New computer as well).

posted on July 23rd, 2012, 2:59 am

running 2 6970s in crossfire

posted on July 23rd, 2012, 5:22 am

Lets see, I have 2 systems running Radeon 3850's, both 512 MB AGP, one system running dual 1GB Radeon 4890's in crossfire, 1 system running a 2Gb Radeon 6970, and my main system running a pair of 3GB Radeon 7970's in crossfire.

posted on July 23rd, 2012, 10:03 am

Lets see, I have 2 systems running Radeon 3850's, both 512 MB AGP, one system running dual 1GB Radeon 4890's in crossfire, 1 system running a 2Gb Radeon 6970, and my main system running a pair of 3GB Radeon 7970's in crossfire.

where did you get the money for all this stuff?

also to you and tanner rosso, how reliable do you find crossfire, i'm interested to see if the problems are getting any better. are there any games that perform the same under crossfire as they do with just 1 of the card in question. any games that have bugs/crashes? i've heard skyrim is particularly bad with crossfire/sli. your general opinions on cf/sli should be interesting.

posted on July 23rd, 2012, 9:16 pm

Well i can say on my 4890 setup the crossfire has worked great, no real problems untill i tried a tri-fire setup by adding a 4870 in there. Benchmark scores on 3dmark vantage went up from around 16k to 21k ish. Real world preformance wise i definately noticed a big improvement in games where crossfire works. And only had 1 game that gave me issues to the point where i had to disable 1 card, which is easy as you can do it in the Catalyst control options in a couple seconds. it was virtually double the performance.

Now my 7970's on the other hand Ive not been as lucky with, originally they were a bear to get to run stable, and certain games worked worth a crap unless i kept using the beta drivers for the 7k series cards. Notably Dirt 3 and Battlefield 3 stuttered alot whenever i tried any non beta drivers. But now that the cards have been out a few months the issues have pretty much gone away, Dirt 3 with max settings running in eyefinity I got around 30fps with one card and over 60fps with the crossfire, and also a noticable improvement in B3 as well, so the scaling is almost double the performance, but again some games arnt very compatible so there can be issues. As long as you have a big enough case to keep them cool, and enough power crossfire definately works, but you have to be prepared for some buggyness here and there. One other thing also to note is some of my issues were also related to eyefinity and not necessarily the crossfire setup, some games really dont like super high resolutions, so it wasnt necessarily the crossfire that was the problem. But now that the drivers are Ironed out it works stable and does boost performance quite a bit.

posted on July 23rd, 2012, 9:33 pm

interesting, i don't think i could ever put up with multi screen gaming with most games, the frames of the monitors would bug me to no end in full screen, and i don't really see the point of having the ability to put other programs on the other monitors for no real benefit. i guess if games were designed with multi screens in mind it could work, like on nintendo DS, where one screen is used for most of the game, and the other is used for misc stuff like inventory or a map.

maybe for standard desktop work, where one can reposition windows to avoid them splitting between screens. but that's a lot of money for rather slim benefits.

posted on July 23rd, 2012, 9:39 pm

The one game I've played where dual monitors was a boon and unintrusive was the original Supreme Commander (and its expansion).

posted on July 24th, 2012, 1:15 am

Nvidia GTX 470 here (EVGA). Thinking of upgrading to dual 560's in SLI mode, but I haven't had a hitch in the 470, so I'll probably keep that one until it blows up or something

that's a pretty drastic upgrade, like going from a unicycle to a fighter jet.

1 gtx 560 can run any game at 720p on max settings with a playable frame rate. it can run almost any game at max settings at 1080p. i considered the 560, but it was way more expensive and powerful than i need. it wouldn't fit in with the rest of my system's spec.

at that time, you'll probably benefit from upgrading the rest of your system as well, a new mb and processor to match the quality of new graphics.

there's also the hit and miss nature of sli/crossfire. they've had plenty of time to get it right, but i still hear people complaining about software/driver issues when using sli/cf, so you might be better off getting a more expensive single card for less hassle.

Ya, as I said, I haven't had a hitch with the GTX 470.....and I have been thinking that two 560's might be overkill. Currently I am playing games like Skyrim and Mass Effect 3 on maximum graphics, and I have hardly any FPS drops.

My current specs are:
Intel i7-950 Bloomfield LGA 1366 Quad-Core 3.06 GHz stock (OC'ed to 3.33 GHz)
ASUS Sabertooth X58 motherboard
EVGA Nvidia GTX 470 graphics card (think it is 1gb)
12gb Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 ram
1 Crucial M4 128gb SATA III SSD
1 Crucial M4 256gb SATA III SSD
1 Westen Digital Caviar Black 750gb 7200rpm HDD
Soundblaster Xi-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional PCI-Express x1 soundcard
Cooler Master HAF-932 Advanced Full Tower Case
Kingwin Lazer LZ-1000 1000watt modular power supply
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit

Sorry if I have turned this into a "computer spec" topic.....but just to give an idear. I have had this running for more than a year, with just recently upgrading to Windows 7 Ultimate (was running Home Premium for more than a year). All is working without a hitch....so unless something drastic happens in the near future (knock on wood), things are awesome.

Again, sorry for the long post.

posted on July 24th, 2012, 2:43 am

Dirt 3 with max settings running in eyefinity I got around 30fps with one card and over 60fps with the crossfire, and also a noticable improvement in B3 as well, so the scaling is almost double the performance, but again some games arnt very compatible so there can be issues. As long as you have a big enough case to keep them cool, and enough power crossfire definately works, but you have to be prepared for some buggyness here and there. One other thing also to note is some of my issues were also related to eyefinity and not necessarily the crossfire setup, some games really dont like super high resolutions, so it wasnt necessarily the crossfire that was the problem. But now that the drivers are Ironed out it works stable and does boost performance quite a bit.

Hmm, 30fps on Dirt 3? What resolution are you running at, because even maxed at 5040x1050 ( 3 1680x1050 Screens ) I still get 40fps on my radeon 6970 @ 990mhz ( Catalyst I must admit stays at stock settings, AA & AF are maxed to the in game settings )

Other than the occasional glitch in a game here or there my eyefinity experience has been flawless. I do wish that there was a better way to disable it quickly so I could leave open some monitors and other stats while playing games that only run on one monitor. ( Fleet Ops, Starcraft II, etc. )

posted on July 24th, 2012, 2:46 am

interesting, i don't think i could ever put up with multi screen gaming with most games, the frames of the monitors would bug me to no end in full screen, and i don't really see the point of having the ability to put other programs on the other monitors for no real benefit. i guess if games were designed with multi screens in mind it could work, like on nintendo DS, where one screen is used for most of the game, and the other is used for misc stuff like inventory or a map.

maybe for standard desktop work, where one can reposition windows to avoid them splitting between screens. but that's a lot of money for rather slim benefits.

Well I used to think that way, but once youve tried it its hard to go back, theres just so much more to see! And the monitor edges arnt bothersome after awhile, you hardly notice them. And yes while on desktop its very nice to have multiple windows open on multiple screens. Granted the game has to be designed with eyefinity in mind, but games like B3 are so much nice in eyefinity, you have such a better field of view.

And since were throwing specs out, my main rig is as follows,

AMD FX 8150 8-core clocked at 4.2Ghz
ASUS Crosshair V Motherboard
Dual AMD Radeon 7970 3GB video cards
16 GB G.Skill Ripjaw series 1600 Ram
SanDisk 120 GB SATS III SSD Boot drive
2TB Western Digital Caviar black HDD
Soundblaster XF-i 7.1 audio
Thermaltake Level 10GT full tower case
Thermaltake V3 CPU cooler
Rosewill 1000W lightning series PSU
Windows 7 home premium

posted on July 24th, 2012, 2:47 am

Dirt 3 with max settings running in eyefinity I got around 30fps with one card and over 60fps with the crossfire, and also a noticable improvement in B3 as well, so the scaling is almost double the performance, but again some games arnt very compatible so there can be issues. As long as you have a big enough case to keep them cool, and enough power crossfire definately works, but you have to be prepared for some buggyness here and there. One other thing also to note is some of my issues were also related to eyefinity and not necessarily the crossfire setup, some games really dont like super high resolutions, so it wasnt necessarily the crossfire that was the problem. But now that the drivers are Ironed out it works stable and does boost performance quite a bit.

Hmm, 30fps on Dirt 3? What resolution are you running at, because even maxed at 5040x1050 ( 3 1680x1050 Screens ) I still get 40fps on my radeon 6970 @ 990mhz ( Catalyst I must admit stays at stock settings, AA & AF are maxed to the in game settings )

Other than the occasional glitch in a game here or there my eyefinity experience has been flawless. I do wish that there was a better way to disable it quickly so I could leave open some monitors and other stats while playing games that only run on one monitor. ( Fleet Ops, Starcraft II, etc. )

My resolution is 5760 X 1080 (3 @ 1920x1080 screens) And i have everything maxed out.

[Tanner_Rosso]

posted on July 24th, 2012, 3:53 am

Last edited by Tanner_Rosso on July 25th, 2012, 3:23 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Yea i cant really add much to what equinox said already. I also do triple monitor and the borders at first were anoying but like equinox said you get used to it.
as for crossfire i dont have many issues if any at all. usually the only problem ive had is when i go to a lan i dont do triple monitor and for whatever reason ran into an issue disabling it and stuff but other than that little to no problems

I do plan to upgrade to a dual Gpu because its designed to work as a single gpu without the hasle of crossfire.

But yea not really many issues with crossfire in the 6000 series here because the drivers are good since the card isnt new.

And running triple monitor makes lots of things way cooler and easier to do. its hard going back to single screen.

My specs
Crosshair V mobo
Amd phenom X6 at 3.8hhz
Crossfired 6970's
Gskill sniper 8gb 1866
crucial m4 ssd 60 gb (bootdrive)
2 western digital caviar black 1tb
(1 for games ect. The other for fraps)
rosewill Lightning 1000watt psu
Antec 1200 case
Win 7 home

posted on July 24th, 2012, 10:59 am

@astromat:

nice specs, i wouldn't feel pressured into upgrading that until the next consoles (ps4/xbox 720)

i also use a crucial m4, ssd's are the real deal. definitely the best upgrade to buy at the moment, they reduce waiting times for every program by a huge amount. it makes power state s4 (hibernate) almost irrelevant. it's hard to imagine returning to old style HDDs.

prices for solid state memory have roughly halved as well. which is annoying, as i paid 150 quid for something now worth 70, and that was 6 months ago.

My specs are much more humble:

Core i3 2120 @ 3.3ghz (2 cores, 2 threads each)
8gb ddr3 (2x4gb in dual channel @ 1333)
Radeon HD 7750 1GB
128GB crucial M4 SSD
500GB HDD

everything else is budget, budget 450W psu, budget mb, integrated sound. budget molex case fan.

still runs everything i want on my 720p screen. i don't have a desk big enough for a bigger screen lol.

the graphics card was a good one for me since it takes all its power from the bus, and produces practically no heat, even in the heatwave britain had a while back, the fan spent most of its time at low speed. it only reaches 50C if I play modern games, short of benchmarking software i don't know a way to get the card flustered. the most important thing to remember about hardware is that it should fit the rest of the hardware in the system, no point having 16gb ram and 2 SLId gtx 560s with a celeron processor.

the graphics card was the last thing i added, before that i used the on chip processor graphics (intel hd 2000), which are actually really decent. i could play gta iv for example, and that game's a bitch for weaker systems (it's even annoying on decent systems sometimes, a poorly executed console port)

posted on July 24th, 2012, 10:13 pm

Ya the SSD's really have made a huge difference in my PC. Surprisingly the lowest scores I now get when I run WEI is my graphics memory, but they are still over 7.0.

I don't have those set up in RAID or anything like that. The 128gb SSD acts as my boot drive (installed Windows on it), the 256gb SSD acts as my "Games I play the most often" drive, and the 750gb HDD acts as my storage / other games drive. I still get good transfer rates...maybe not as fast as if they were in a RAID or something like that.

I do have a HD monitor (by ASUS I believe), but I do not have that mini-hd cable plugged into it. I think I have a DVI connection....I did some research online to figure out what the difference between the mini-HD and the DVI connections was, and from what I found is that there should be no graphic difference between the two, the mini-hd connection helps with sound or something like that.....of course, my speakers are connected to my sound card via an optical cable, so I don't feel like I am missing anything not using the mini-hd cable.