Graphics Card Help!

[Ben]

I want to buy a new graphics card that will at least be able to handle battlefield 3 on the highest settings without no problems. I want to spend as little money as possible so if someone could help me with this it would be great!

I'm not too great with computers and I'm not sure what you need to know so I'm going to try my best to tell you my current specs, well I have a Acer Aspire Predator G5900 and basically havent changed anything except the sound card which I changed to a Asus Xonar DG. I have a NVIDIA GeForce GT 340, 4GB Ram, Intel i5 CPU (not sure what this means so thought I should include it) K 655 @ 3.20 GHz (4 CPUs), ~3.2GHz.

[dangro474]

Hi Ben,

Unfortunately the game chugs a bitr even with a single 680 GTX in max settings 1080p on Conquest 64 maps.

Having played the game a lot and as you are on a tight budget I would aim to play the game with MEDIUM presets at as high a frame rate as possible. Quite honestly when playing multiplayer you will hardl ynotice the difference.

If you still intend to play the game with at least 30 FPS (Alternate Vsync at half refresh rate with the soon to be released Nvidia 300 series drivers) I would recommend the GTX 570 (~£240). If you want to play it with the best fframerate possible i would recommend the GTX 580 (under £300 ONLY) or GTX 680 (£420+).

However if you would consider my recommendation to aim for 60 FPS in medium preset I would recommend the GTX 560Ti (448 core if possible) for under £200.

A few comparisson benchmarks with High preset. My framerate increased by rtoughly 20% after I upgraded to a 680 from my 580.

BF3 barely scales from lowest to top end i7 1st - 2nd gen CPUs so your i5 655K will be fine :]

[Corfate]

My 7850 will play bf3 on untra with about 40-50 fps. Personally I can't tell the difference between medium and ultra, so drop the graphics down to high haha

[mantadog]

The mid range cards from AMD are good at the moment, i too would go with a 7850 or if possible a 7870 which would give you a decent FPS on ultra or silky smooth on medium.

[baron75mk2]

I could only get between 50 & 60 fps (alternating) with my single GTX580 with everything maxed out , but if you turn off Antialiasing & the option at the very bottom (think its ambient occlusion , but not sure) you can get a rock solid 60fps at all times with 1X GTX 580 - , but i can definately say with 2xGTX 580s in sli you can crank it completely up till your hearts content & always have a rock solid 60fps - just depends if you can source up 2x 580s cheaper or the same price as a GTX680
& also the heat & airflow conditions of having 2x GTX 580s in there at the same time , they can get hot even in a coolermaster Half x case with 3 200mm fans & 1x 230mm fans blowing - that case of yours seems ok but im not sure if there would be enough airflow for it tbh , also PSU requirements & fan noise lvls are also something to think about - a GTX 680 has all of these benifits above a 2x GTX 580 sli setup - The single GTX 680 is quieter , less power hungry & being a single GPU is not prone to to SLI issues witch can arise on the occasional game here & there

The main thing that a 2x GTX 580 has over the single GTX680 is its faster , hard to figure when the 680 has higher clock speeds than a 580 , but with 2 of them in all the benchmarks & against my freinds single GTX680 setup it beats it everytime (but not by a massive amount , but a noticable amount in terms of minimum fps)

Maybe go with a single GTX 680 & turn off the two options i mentioned previously you dont lose much in terms of visuals ( although with AA off it will get a bit jagged in places - but i always either reduce or turn AA off in search of more fps myself)

From everything i have read the GTX 680 is a super card & well worth the money it costs - only reason i went 580 sli was because i already had one & being that 2x 580s are faster it made more sense & was cheaper for me to do ( & also i have the power supply & case cooling to handle it as well) - when 7 series come out ill probably just sli 2 x 680s & skip that generation as im doing with the 6 series.

Also dont rule out the radeon series , i have heard that the 7970 is a very good card as well , but i havent read up much on it tbh (obviously with radeon you dont get cuda or phsx - but it all depends wheater or not you need or want them both)

[tom_gr7]

HAve you checked what size psu you have mate? this may limit what card you could get.

[Ben]

So would you say that this card would do the job? Tom this is my PSU, I'm not sure what I'm really meant to be telling you so I'll just link you to this! http://www.plugloadsolutions.com/psu...50W_Report.pdf

Thanks!

[baron75mk2]

check this page out http://www.techspot.com/review/504-a...850/page5.html

(scroll down to the battlefield 3 test benchmarks)

in 1680/1050 its only geting an average of 51FPS
in 1920/1200 its only getting an average of 42 fps

so it will play it , but without any problems ?? - depends what framerates your after , if your after the smoothest gameplay (ie 60fps at all times) & at fully ultra settings then no its not going to handle it very well ( & also this review doesnt specify weather or not it was tested with multiplayer or campaighn , multiplayer could be more demanding due to the extra size of some maps & 64 players at one time , something to bear in mind)

Just depends what fps you want , some people believe that the human eye cant tell the difference above 30fps , but there is a good reason why most hardcore gamers wont accept anything less than 60fps (got to be careful here as this can be a hotly debated subject sometimes & i dont want to start a 30fps vs 60fps & weather the eye can tell the difference debate)

So for battlefield 3 i would have to say no , its not up to the job on higher levels of detail & optimal fps , if its radeon you like then i would think the HD 7950 might be one to look in to apparently its a faster card than a GTX 580 , well you need two of these to get battlefield at a rock solid 60fps , but maybe 1 HD7950 could do the job - definately a HD7970 would do it.

Unfortunately battlefield is a very high spec game that wants very high spec hardware to play at ultra settings , high resolutions & 60fps at all times & its not hard to understand why when tou look at some of the detail in the game , i was playing yesterday & a ladder i climbed had 2 layers of texture mapping , 1 layer of bump mapping & a layer of specular mapping & that was just on a ladder rung - lol

[vanthus]

As Tom mentioned you will be tied by your PSU,You have a 450W PSU, In which case I reckon the highest GPU this will handle with the components you have, is either the GTX 560 or an AMD 7950,I would double check that though.
Probably best go for the 7850,as Corfate has tried & tested it.

[baron75mk2]

As Tom mentioned you will be tied by your PSU,You have a 450W PSU, In which case I reckon the highest GPU this will handle with the components you have, is either the GTX 560 or an AMD 7950,I would double check that though.
Probably best go for the 7850,as Corfate has tried & tested it.

Agreed , this is a point i should have addressed , anything more than a 7850 & you PSU will not be strong enough , so you can go with this , but if you want higher graphics settings & more fps , then a PSU upgrade will be in order to handle higher level GPUs power requirements . ( maybe the corsair 850w model available from PCS ? , i have the 1,200w 80 + gold edition & i can confirm they are great power supplies & very quiet to boot)

Thats the problem with battlefield 3 , to play at real high settings & optimal fps it gets expensive very quickly unfortunately , but it does reward with a very good game at the end of all the upgrading (plus if you can run battlefield 3 at ultra with 60fps , then there wont be much else you cant run optimally ( apart from possibly witcher 2 , thats a monster !! )