Actually for BF4 frame rates the following chart from Tomshardware:
[img]http://media.bestofmicro.com/Y/Q/404306/original/Ultra-1920.png[/img]
again shows the 690 pulling out ahead away from the pack. 2x780/Titan/780ti's would perform even better.
Given that none of the cards could average 120FPS (highest being 93FPS from the 690) frame rates some major game/driver optimization may be needed if ever 3DVision/S3D is usable for BF4.
Actually for BF4 frame rates the following chart from Tomshardware:
again shows the 690 pulling out ahead away from the pack. 2x780/Titan/780ti's would perform even better.
Given that none of the cards could average 120FPS (highest being 93FPS from the 690) frame rates some major game/driver optimization may be needed if ever 3DVision/S3D is usable for BF4.
I'm not 100% sure about the optimization of bf4 but I checked the cores and when I monitor them every single one of them is working while ingame (all 12 threads are occupied with something) yet the overall cpu usage is rather low at ~30-40% the last two threads are a bit less occupied but other 10 are rather similarly used.
That being said bf4 might not be the best benchmark point with it's AMD sponsored thing and soon to be mantle testing ground.
And for the 120fps thing I'm not talking about maxing it out with 120fps :) I would definitely turn the AA deferred off, set something on medium/high and maybe even use SSAO instead of HBAO.
I'm also not that much into 1080+ gaming atm because with my love for the high framerates I would have to upgrade again anyway.
edit: I just run some additional testing and I can maintain 120fps in 720p on LOW :) although still my gpu usage is not 100% in that resolution, nor is cpu anywhere near 50%
interesting thing is that when I lock game fps on 60 (which I can maintain on high details/1080p) the GPU usage is going down to 60% (with fps locked at 120 its 99% but than fps vary from 60 to 120). With locked fps at 60 cpu usage is even lower at around 25%.
I'm not 100% sure about the optimization of bf4 but I checked the cores and when I monitor them every single one of them is working while ingame (all 12 threads are occupied with something) yet the overall cpu usage is rather low at ~30-40% the last two threads are a bit less occupied but other 10 are rather similarly used.
That being said bf4 might not be the best benchmark point with it's AMD sponsored thing and soon to be mantle testing ground.
And for the 120fps thing I'm not talking about maxing it out with 120fps :) I would definitely turn the AA deferred off, set something on medium/high and maybe even use SSAO instead of HBAO.
I'm also not that much into 1080+ gaming atm because with my love for the high framerates I would have to upgrade again anyway.
edit: I just run some additional testing and I can maintain 120fps in 720p on LOW :) although still my gpu usage is not 100% in that resolution, nor is cpu anywhere near 50%
interesting thing is that when I lock game fps on 60 (which I can maintain on high details/1080p) the GPU usage is going down to 60% (with fps locked at 120 its 99% but than fps vary from 60 to 120). With locked fps at 60 cpu usage is even lower at around 25%.
What you are seeing is the thread scheduler in Windows swapping loads to different cores all the time. It doesn't mean those threads are actually in use, it's just very dynamic about what core/thread it will assign different tasks.
Looks like BF4 is optimized for 8 threads, and 8 threads only. Any extra, and they are ignored.
[img]http://gamegpu.ru/images/remote/http--www.gamegpu.ru-images-stories-Test_GPU-Action-Battlefield_4_Beta-test-bf_4_intel.jpg[/img]
From: [url]http://gamegpu.ru/action-/-fps-/-tps/battlefield-4-beta-test-gpu.html[/url]
Notice that the other hyperthread cores are not being used. 5/12 threads are idle, which drops you to a maximum of 60% CPU usage. You aren't hitting even 60% though.
I think that is a factor of the problem that Mantle is intended to fix. The draw calls problem. From my reading, it looks like draw calls are still a single threaded operation to avoid synchronization problems with the graphic workload. And since you don't get over 50% CPU when using low quality/low resolution, this is probably the problem.
It all essentially boils down to the same problem- multiple cores are mostly unused, and you still need the absolute fastest single core that you can. There is a LOT of marketing around multiple cores, but it's still true that marketing=lies.
What you are seeing is the thread scheduler in Windows swapping loads to different cores all the time. It doesn't mean those threads are actually in use, it's just very dynamic about what core/thread it will assign different tasks.
Looks like BF4 is optimized for 8 threads, and 8 threads only. Any extra, and they are ignored.
Notice that the other hyperthread cores are not being used. 5/12 threads are idle, which drops you to a maximum of 60% CPU usage. You aren't hitting even 60% though.
I think that is a factor of the problem that Mantle is intended to fix. The draw calls problem. From my reading, it looks like draw calls are still a single threaded operation to avoid synchronization problems with the graphic workload. And since you don't get over 50% CPU when using low quality/low resolution, this is probably the problem.
It all essentially boils down to the same problem- multiple cores are mostly unused, and you still need the absolute fastest single core that you can. There is a LOT of marketing around multiple cores, but it's still true that marketing=lies.
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Also of note, if you look at this graph from that same review:
[img]http://gamegpu.ru/images/remote/http--www.gamegpu.ru-images-stories-Test_GPU-Action-Battlefield_4_Beta-test-bf_4_1920.jpg[/img]
You can see that SLI 680 (their GTX 690) is the equal of even SLI 780. There is no further scaling at that level, which says that at that point, it's CPU bound.
But there IS scaling with SLI. Even a single Titan is not up to the job with that fast a CPU. This is a pretty compelling graph for demonstrating the value of SLI in BF4.
Also of note, if you look at this graph from that same review:
You can see that SLI 680 (their GTX 690) is the equal of even SLI 780. There is no further scaling at that level, which says that at that point, it's CPU bound.
But there IS scaling with SLI. Even a single Titan is not up to the job with that fast a CPU. This is a pretty compelling graph for demonstrating the value of SLI in BF4.
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ok thanks for the explanations and although beta had some performance issues there is a big difference when I turn HT off as I have 60-80% cpu usage.
does 7x series support some fany tech over the 6x series? Not sure how accurate this info is http://www.hwcompare.com/14129/geforce-gtx-680-vs-geforce-gtx-780/ but it looks like 780 isnt 11.1 compatibile but have opengl 4.3 instead of 680's 4.2
side note its ridicolous how 680 prizes went up after releasing 780ti instead of going down (at least in my country they started to sell them as GEFORCE EXPERIENCE with AC4/BATMAN/etc) http://www.skapiec.pl/wykrespopup.php?compid=5285156
side note its ridicolous how 680 prizes went up after releasing 780ti instead of going down (at least in my country they started to sell them as GEFORCE EXPERIENCE with AC4/BATMAN/etc) http://www.skapiec.pl/wykrespopup.php?compid=5285156
[quote="tehace"]also a quick question, can I have a different manufacturer for the SLI? I have gigabyte 680, will it matter if I get like EVGA as a second? [/quote]
Yes you can have different manufacturers, and different clock speeds (e.g. one may be a 'stock' speed, the other a "SC" or 'superclock'). I have exactly this with my 2 770s (I have gigabyte and pny).
tehace said:also a quick question, can I have a different manufacturer for the SLI? I have gigabyte 680, will it matter if I get like EVGA as a second?
Yes you can have different manufacturers, and different clock speeds (e.g. one may be a 'stock' speed, the other a "SC" or 'superclock'). I have exactly this with my 2 770s (I have gigabyte and pny).
My honest opinion: wait for the gtx 880.
[b]OPTION 1 (680 SLI): [/b]terrible idea. Sure, you'll get slightly better framerates in some games than a 780, but the advantage won't last long. We're mere weeks away from next-gen. Before long, both 680x2 and 780 will struggle to max out games in 3d. And the 680s 2gb of vram, totally ample for this generation, will quickly become a bottleneck in next gen games that have been designed for consoles with 8gb unified memory.
If you go this route, you'll have an expensive GPU setup that you'll probably want to upgrade in 6 months.
[b]OPTION 2 (780): [/b]it's a beautiful card. Silent at low loads, and very reasonable at high loads. Noise-wise, it'll be a different level entirely to two 680s. With 50% more vram, it'll be a safer bet too. And it'll give you room for an sli option next year that will be both affordable and desirable. If you really want to buy yourself an early xmas present, then get a 780 or 780ti. But I'd personally wait for option 3.
EDIT: I just realised that you have the 4GB 680. Sorry, I haven't done a good job of reading the thread before replying.
[b]OPTION 3 (wait for 880)[/b]: next gen is around the corner, and before long, any system from 2013 will struggle to max those games out at 3d. The next gen consoles might seem mediocre on paper, but their hardware is more efficient and predictable, meaning our PCs need to be much more powerful just to match them (twice as powerful, according to the Metro technical director)
As well as simply more powerful hardware, next gen will bring several new variables that could potentially complicate issues, such as AMD-based consoles, mantle, DirectX 11.2, and unified memory. How current Nvidia cards handle this new playing field remains to be seen. The 8xx cards, however, will be designed from the ground up with the next-gen environment in mind.
Also, whereas the 7xx cards are basically rehashed 6xx cards with some Tesla stuff thrown in, the 8xx cards should be a real generation change, as they will be using a new 22nm architecture. Hopefully this will make them a more juicy upgrade than the recent incremental ones have been. Dobre rzeczy przychodzÄ… do tych co czekajÄ… ;-)
Honestly, your 680 is probably good enough for now. Instead of forking out today for a slight increase in performance, wait several months and then fork out for a huge one.
OPTION 1 (680 SLI): terrible idea. Sure, you'll get slightly better framerates in some games than a 780, but the advantage won't last long. We're mere weeks away from next-gen. Before long, both 680x2 and 780 will struggle to max out games in 3d. And the 680s 2gb of vram, totally ample for this generation, will quickly become a bottleneck in next gen games that have been designed for consoles with 8gb unified memory.
If you go this route, you'll have an expensive GPU setup that you'll probably want to upgrade in 6 months.
OPTION 2 (780): it's a beautiful card. Silent at low loads, and very reasonable at high loads. Noise-wise, it'll be a different level entirely to two 680s. With 50% more vram, it'll be a safer bet too. And it'll give you room for an sli option next year that will be both affordable and desirable. If you really want to buy yourself an early xmas present, then get a 780 or 780ti. But I'd personally wait for option 3.
EDIT: I just realised that you have the 4GB 680. Sorry, I haven't done a good job of reading the thread before replying.
OPTION 3 (wait for 880): next gen is around the corner, and before long, any system from 2013 will struggle to max those games out at 3d. The next gen consoles might seem mediocre on paper, but their hardware is more efficient and predictable, meaning our PCs need to be much more powerful just to match them (twice as powerful, according to the Metro technical director)
As well as simply more powerful hardware, next gen will bring several new variables that could potentially complicate issues, such as AMD-based consoles, mantle, DirectX 11.2, and unified memory. How current Nvidia cards handle this new playing field remains to be seen. The 8xx cards, however, will be designed from the ground up with the next-gen environment in mind.
Also, whereas the 7xx cards are basically rehashed 6xx cards with some Tesla stuff thrown in, the 8xx cards should be a real generation change, as they will be using a new 22nm architecture. Hopefully this will make them a more juicy upgrade than the recent incremental ones have been. Dobre rzeczy przychodzÄ… do tych co czekajÄ… ;-)
Honestly, your 680 is probably good enough for now. Instead of forking out today for a slight increase in performance, wait several months and then fork out for a huge one.
[quote="Volnaiskra"]Honestly, your 680 is probably good enough for now. Instead of forking out today for a slight increase in performance, wait several months and then fork out for a huge one. [/quote]Unfortunately, this is simply untrue.
Look again at the graph I posted. In the game that tehace cares about, BF4, if he goes to SLI 680 from single 680, his minimum frame rate jumps from 42 to 83. That is not a 'slight increase'.
He can have this today, without waiting, but expensive. No idea why 680 would go up in price, except maybe that stock is getting low in advance of the impending 8xx rollout.
My recommendation is different than Volnaiskra's although I agree with most of what he says. Next gen is coming out, but at present there isn't anything superior to SLI 680 for running BF4. Graph above says that even 780 SLI makes no difference. That means that 8xx in SLI won't matter either.
I think it's better to not try to future proof your hardware, because the future is too hazy. I think you are better off to turn over your hardware more often, at a cheaper price. I pretty much agree that 2G cards will someday be a problem, but that day is not today. I say, wait until you actually need it before you buy it.
[quote="tehace"]ok thanks for the explanations and although beta had some performance issues there is a big difference when I turn HT off as I have 60-80% cpu usage. [/quote]But, turning of HT doesn't actually improve your frame rates. All this does is double your 30-40% because you have half as many threads. The CPU is not actually any busier or more efficient than it was.
Volnaiskra said:Honestly, your 680 is probably good enough for now. Instead of forking out today for a slight increase in performance, wait several months and then fork out for a huge one.
Unfortunately, this is simply untrue.
Look again at the graph I posted. In the game that tehace cares about, BF4, if he goes to SLI 680 from single 680, his minimum frame rate jumps from 42 to 83. That is not a 'slight increase'.
He can have this today, without waiting, but expensive. No idea why 680 would go up in price, except maybe that stock is getting low in advance of the impending 8xx rollout.
My recommendation is different than Volnaiskra's although I agree with most of what he says. Next gen is coming out, but at present there isn't anything superior to SLI 680 for running BF4. Graph above says that even 780 SLI makes no difference. That means that 8xx in SLI won't matter either.
I think it's better to not try to future proof your hardware, because the future is too hazy. I think you are better off to turn over your hardware more often, at a cheaper price. I pretty much agree that 2G cards will someday be a problem, but that day is not today. I say, wait until you actually need it before you buy it.
tehace said:ok thanks for the explanations and although beta had some performance issues there is a big difference when I turn HT off as I have 60-80% cpu usage.
But, turning of HT doesn't actually improve your frame rates. All this does is double your 30-40% because you have half as many threads. The CPU is not actually any busier or more efficient than it was.
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Oh sorry, I didn't read the thread properly so didn't realise the that bf4 was so crucial.
42 to 83 is indeed a massive increase, though your chart varies greatly from the tomshardware one mbloof posted. Unless I'm missing something, one of them must be very wrong. Which one to believe? On the tomshardware one, the difference between a titan and 690 is much smaller. A 780ti would be even closer. In which case, a 780ti may be the better, and possibly even cheaper (since he can sell the 680), purchase.
I guess you're right about not worrying too much about future-proofing. But to be fair, the type of future-proofing I'm suggesting (buy the best possible gear you can afford, from the latest generation), is not exactly voodoo science. I think it's a pretty sensible methodology, personally :D
Personally, I've just had enough of always wrestling with settings and tweaks to try and balance good graphics with good framerates. That used to be almost a ritual for me for many years with every new game. But now, I'd rather just spend a few hundred bucks more, set everything to max, and play. For that reason, I don't think a 2nd 680 would be a good investment for me, but everyone has different priorities.
[quote="tehace"]I have no idea whats up but in Poland 780 are currently cheaper than 680 ;/ seriously wtf 680(4gb) is more expensive than 780(3gb) ;/[/quote]If you do get a second 680, don't buy it new. Just get it 2nd hand on ebay, and you'll likely be able to get it for relatively cheap. I would think under 800zl. I sold my 680 on ebay for 500AUD (about 1500zl) when I got my Titan, but that was 8 months ago. With all these competitively priced Radeon and GTX 7xx cards around today, I'd think the going rate for a 680 would be much less.
If BF4 is really important to you, then 680x2 sounds like a viable option (though barely - if that Russian chart is to be believed, it seems like there hasn't been a CPU invented yet that can handle BF4 maxed at close to 120fps). But I still think you'll probably feel the urge to upgrade sometime next year. All the more reason to get your 680 secondhand.
Oh sorry, I didn't read the thread properly so didn't realise the that bf4 was so crucial.
42 to 83 is indeed a massive increase, though your chart varies greatly from the tomshardware one mbloof posted. Unless I'm missing something, one of them must be very wrong. Which one to believe? On the tomshardware one, the difference between a titan and 690 is much smaller. A 780ti would be even closer. In which case, a 780ti may be the better, and possibly even cheaper (since he can sell the 680), purchase.
I guess you're right about not worrying too much about future-proofing. But to be fair, the type of future-proofing I'm suggesting (buy the best possible gear you can afford, from the latest generation), is not exactly voodoo science. I think it's a pretty sensible methodology, personally :D
Personally, I've just had enough of always wrestling with settings and tweaks to try and balance good graphics with good framerates. That used to be almost a ritual for me for many years with every new game. But now, I'd rather just spend a few hundred bucks more, set everything to max, and play. For that reason, I don't think a 2nd 680 would be a good investment for me, but everyone has different priorities.
tehace said:I have no idea whats up but in Poland 780 are currently cheaper than 680 ;/ seriously wtf 680(4gb) is more expensive than 780(3gb) ;/
If you do get a second 680, don't buy it new. Just get it 2nd hand on ebay, and you'll likely be able to get it for relatively cheap. I would think under 800zl. I sold my 680 on ebay for 500AUD (about 1500zl) when I got my Titan, but that was 8 months ago. With all these competitively priced Radeon and GTX 7xx cards around today, I'd think the going rate for a 680 would be much less.
If BF4 is really important to you, then 680x2 sounds like a viable option (though barely - if that Russian chart is to be believed, it seems like there hasn't been a CPU invented yet that can handle BF4 maxed at close to 120fps). But I still think you'll probably feel the urge to upgrade sometime next year. All the more reason to get your 680 secondhand.
Yeah, I try to optimize the money, and buy the best thing that does the job without going over. That does mean that when I switch the task from like BF4 to say Bioshock that sometimes it's lacking. Some bottlenecks change depending on the situation. But, I think it's important to be sure about your test case, and what you care about- otherwise you can just buy stuff that is irrelevant to improving your play.
Based on the situation described, I think it's clear that SLI 680 is an excellent choice. Going for even more hardware would of course work, but it's overkill for 1080p gaming BF4. Single 780ti wouldn't be enough for Ultra Quality, and he could do dual 780ti at great expense, only to run into the CPU bottleneck. It is definitely true that there is no CPU in the world that can run BF4 at 120 fps on Ultra.
In that russian review, they also do 1600p, and you do see GPU scaling there, with SLI 780 pulling ahead. But, tehace said he cares more about frame rates than 1080p, and the answer there might just be to play at 720p and turn off MSAA.
If you do decide to get a 2nd card, make sure it matches your current 4G GTX 680. That russian review sees video memory usage of about 2.2G right now (in 1080p). Completely agree that 2nd hand is the way to go, roughly 450 USD on eBay.
The difference in the graphs is that Tom's was running with MSAA on, the one I showed is with it off. The question earlier was whether you can get to 120fps solidly with any setup, and the answer is no, you can't. That's why I went with that russian review, they pushed it as far as current hardware can, including running SandyBridge at 4.9GHz overclock.
Here is the comparable graph for MSAA on. It's much closer to the Tom's review, and the other difference here is that they are running a different map.
[img]http://gamegpu.ru/images/remote/http--www.gamegpu.ru-images-stories-Test_GPU-Action-Battlefield_4_Beta-test-bf_4_1920_msaa.jpg[/img]
Yeah, I try to optimize the money, and buy the best thing that does the job without going over. That does mean that when I switch the task from like BF4 to say Bioshock that sometimes it's lacking. Some bottlenecks change depending on the situation. But, I think it's important to be sure about your test case, and what you care about- otherwise you can just buy stuff that is irrelevant to improving your play.
Based on the situation described, I think it's clear that SLI 680 is an excellent choice. Going for even more hardware would of course work, but it's overkill for 1080p gaming BF4. Single 780ti wouldn't be enough for Ultra Quality, and he could do dual 780ti at great expense, only to run into the CPU bottleneck. It is definitely true that there is no CPU in the world that can run BF4 at 120 fps on Ultra.
In that russian review, they also do 1600p, and you do see GPU scaling there, with SLI 780 pulling ahead. But, tehace said he cares more about frame rates than 1080p, and the answer there might just be to play at 720p and turn off MSAA.
If you do decide to get a 2nd card, make sure it matches your current 4G GTX 680. That russian review sees video memory usage of about 2.2G right now (in 1080p). Completely agree that 2nd hand is the way to go, roughly 450 USD on eBay.
The difference in the graphs is that Tom's was running with MSAA on, the one I showed is with it off. The question earlier was whether you can get to 120fps solidly with any setup, and the answer is no, you can't. That's why I went with that russian review, they pushed it as far as current hardware can, including running SandyBridge at 4.9GHz overclock.
Here is the comparable graph for MSAA on. It's much closer to the Tom's review, and the other difference here is that they are running a different map.
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[quote="bo3b"]Yeah, I try to optimize the money, and buy the best thing that does the job without going over. That does mean that when I switch the task from like BF4 to say Bioshock that sometimes it's lacking. Some bottlenecks change depending on the situation. But, I think it's important to be sure about your test case, and what you care about- otherwise you can just buy stuff that is irrelevant to improving your play.[/quote] I think that can sometimes be said for things like buying lots of RAM, a top-end motherboard, or perhaps a hyperthreaded CPU. People often buy those without needing to. But I've never heard of a video card that was so over-powerful that its power went to waste. Even if you don't use it to its full potential today, you certainly will tomorrow.
In the case of BF4, with its crazy CPU bottleneck, you're right, 680 SLI is an excellent choice, while anything higher is probably overkill. But most games don't have a CPU bottleneck - certainly not at that exact point (where 780SLI becomes the same as 680 SLI) anyway. That's kind of a fluke, I think. And many don't have SLI scaling as good as BF4.
So unless tehace is going to be playing nothing but BF4 for the next two years, I don't know that a 2nd 680 is the best choice. Still, getting one now, then selling both next year and using the money to buy a 880 (or two 860s or whatever) would probably work out really well.
The 2nd graph clears things up. I think the first graph is misleading. Ultra settings with no antialiasing is kind of an odd mix. Who would choose to kill their framerate with Ultra settings only to introduce jaggies? Then again, maybe the FXAA is pretty good already - I haven't actually played BF4.
A bit off topic: Why can't we add a 2nd CPU to our PCs, like we can GPUs? I know that multiple cores have diminishing returns, and most games aren't built for them anyway. But still, you'd think there would be SOME benefit. People spend ridiculous money on 3x and 4x SLI setups, which also give diminishing returns. Gamers often buy 16gb or even 32gb of expensive overclockable memory, even though there's not a game in existence that would use it all. You could add another CPU for a fraction of that money. Why isn't it possible? Does anyone know?
bo3b said:Yeah, I try to optimize the money, and buy the best thing that does the job without going over. That does mean that when I switch the task from like BF4 to say Bioshock that sometimes it's lacking. Some bottlenecks change depending on the situation. But, I think it's important to be sure about your test case, and what you care about- otherwise you can just buy stuff that is irrelevant to improving your play.
I think that can sometimes be said for things like buying lots of RAM, a top-end motherboard, or perhaps a hyperthreaded CPU. People often buy those without needing to. But I've never heard of a video card that was so over-powerful that its power went to waste. Even if you don't use it to its full potential today, you certainly will tomorrow.
In the case of BF4, with its crazy CPU bottleneck, you're right, 680 SLI is an excellent choice, while anything higher is probably overkill. But most games don't have a CPU bottleneck - certainly not at that exact point (where 780SLI becomes the same as 680 SLI) anyway. That's kind of a fluke, I think. And many don't have SLI scaling as good as BF4.
So unless tehace is going to be playing nothing but BF4 for the next two years, I don't know that a 2nd 680 is the best choice. Still, getting one now, then selling both next year and using the money to buy a 880 (or two 860s or whatever) would probably work out really well.
The 2nd graph clears things up. I think the first graph is misleading. Ultra settings with no antialiasing is kind of an odd mix. Who would choose to kill their framerate with Ultra settings only to introduce jaggies? Then again, maybe the FXAA is pretty good already - I haven't actually played BF4.
A bit off topic: Why can't we add a 2nd CPU to our PCs, like we can GPUs? I know that multiple cores have diminishing returns, and most games aren't built for them anyway. But still, you'd think there would be SOME benefit. People spend ridiculous money on 3x and 4x SLI setups, which also give diminishing returns. Gamers often buy 16gb or even 32gb of expensive overclockable memory, even though there's not a game in existence that would use it all. You could add another CPU for a fraction of that money. Why isn't it possible? Does anyone know?
bf4 is somewhat important as I'm going to be playing this game a lot. I would probably go r290x since its in amd pocket atm but the lack of 3d in AMD is a no go for me since I do enjoy playing other games in 3d as well. That being said I dont care for 3d in bf4 nor I care about 4k gaming atm.
I'm just worried a bit since more and more EA games will use frostbite 3 and I would love to be able to play ME4 in 3d :)
yes HT off didnt improve my frames (maybe sligtly but it was due to the fact that I crank the CPU up to 4.5)
I suppose I'm going to wait a month or so and see if the 680 will go down in price if so I'm gonna grab one if not I'm going to wait as I can play bf4 locked at 60fps constant for now and there are no other games so far that will require an upgrade. I suppose it would be wise to wait until Q1 2014 and see what will happen once the real next-gen games start to come out.
bf4 is somewhat important as I'm going to be playing this game a lot. I would probably go r290x since its in amd pocket atm but the lack of 3d in AMD is a no go for me since I do enjoy playing other games in 3d as well. That being said I dont care for 3d in bf4 nor I care about 4k gaming atm.
I'm just worried a bit since more and more EA games will use frostbite 3 and I would love to be able to play ME4 in 3d :)
yes HT off didnt improve my frames (maybe sligtly but it was due to the fact that I crank the CPU up to 4.5)
I suppose I'm going to wait a month or so and see if the 680 will go down in price if so I'm gonna grab one if not I'm going to wait as I can play bf4 locked at 60fps constant for now and there are no other games so far that will require an upgrade. I suppose it would be wise to wait until Q1 2014 and see what will happen once the real next-gen games start to come out.
Upgrades are always a personal decision dependent on performance and cost of the individual upgrade and the costs over all over time.
Some would upgrade 1-2 cards every generation. Others every other generation or when some set amount of performance improvement or cost target might be realized. There really is no right or wrong answer.
While most modern games only use 4 threads I bought into a i7 as sometimes I use the gaming box for other things and can be rather lazy on leaving background programs running, there by making use of more than 4 cores or threads. The savings I could of realized with an i5 or AMD CPU was not really a consideration as when I built my box "bang for the buck" was not really considered.
Then again when it comes to CPU's we are still stuck with a "single thread performance", a governor of sorts for all the games+applications we run on our boxes. While BF4 (and likely soon to be others) will utilize up to 8 threads, one site found that the 8 thread performance was actually LESS than using 4 threads and in all cases the FPS was still dependent of the single thread performance of the CPU used.
Currently I can get a 1x discount on a i7 4960x for less than I paid for one of my 780SC's. While the upgrade seems attractive the additional cost of MB+RAM to utilize it AND the difficulty to find any substantial FPS or realizable/noticeable performance increase over my overclocked 2600K I may keep waiting for the next generation CPU's get released next year.
AMD+Intel both seemingly have hit a 'wall' of sorts when it comes to single thread execution performance. Hence their reliance of tossing more cores+threads into their offerings. While parallel processing can realize performance gains the strictly serial nature of input-compute-output will always limit performance to the slowest thread.
Upgrades are always a personal decision dependent on performance and cost of the individual upgrade and the costs over all over time.
Some would upgrade 1-2 cards every generation. Others every other generation or when some set amount of performance improvement or cost target might be realized. There really is no right or wrong answer.
While most modern games only use 4 threads I bought into a i7 as sometimes I use the gaming box for other things and can be rather lazy on leaving background programs running, there by making use of more than 4 cores or threads. The savings I could of realized with an i5 or AMD CPU was not really a consideration as when I built my box "bang for the buck" was not really considered.
Then again when it comes to CPU's we are still stuck with a "single thread performance", a governor of sorts for all the games+applications we run on our boxes. While BF4 (and likely soon to be others) will utilize up to 8 threads, one site found that the 8 thread performance was actually LESS than using 4 threads and in all cases the FPS was still dependent of the single thread performance of the CPU used.
Currently I can get a 1x discount on a i7 4960x for less than I paid for one of my 780SC's. While the upgrade seems attractive the additional cost of MB+RAM to utilize it AND the difficulty to find any substantial FPS or realizable/noticeable performance increase over my overclocked 2600K I may keep waiting for the next generation CPU's get released next year.
AMD+Intel both seemingly have hit a 'wall' of sorts when it comes to single thread execution performance. Hence their reliance of tossing more cores+threads into their offerings. While parallel processing can realize performance gains the strictly serial nature of input-compute-output will always limit performance to the slowest thread.
again shows the 690 pulling out ahead away from the pack. 2x780/Titan/780ti's would perform even better.
Given that none of the cards could average 120FPS (highest being 93FPS from the 690) frame rates some major game/driver optimization may be needed if ever 3DVision/S3D is usable for BF4.
i7-2600K-4.5Ghz/Corsair H100i/8GB/GTX780SC-SLI/Win7-64/1200W-PSU/Samsung 840-500GB SSD/Coolermaster-Tower/Benq 1080ST @ 100"
That being said bf4 might not be the best benchmark point with it's AMD sponsored thing and soon to be mantle testing ground.
And for the 120fps thing I'm not talking about maxing it out with 120fps :) I would definitely turn the AA deferred off, set something on medium/high and maybe even use SSAO instead of HBAO.
I'm also not that much into 1080+ gaming atm because with my love for the high framerates I would have to upgrade again anyway.
edit: I just run some additional testing and I can maintain 120fps in 720p on LOW :) although still my gpu usage is not 100% in that resolution, nor is cpu anywhere near 50%
interesting thing is that when I lock game fps on 60 (which I can maintain on high details/1080p) the GPU usage is going down to 60% (with fps locked at 120 its 99% but than fps vary from 60 to 120). With locked fps at 60 cpu usage is even lower at around 25%.
Acer H5360 / BenQ XL2420T + 3D Vision 2 Kit - EVGA GTX 980TI 6GB - i7-3930K@4.0GHz - DX79SI- 16GB RAM@2133 - Win10x64 Home - HTC VIVE
Looks like BF4 is optimized for 8 threads, and 8 threads only. Any extra, and they are ignored.
From: http://gamegpu.ru/action-/-fps-/-tps/battlefield-4-beta-test-gpu.html
Notice that the other hyperthread cores are not being used. 5/12 threads are idle, which drops you to a maximum of 60% CPU usage. You aren't hitting even 60% though.
I think that is a factor of the problem that Mantle is intended to fix. The draw calls problem. From my reading, it looks like draw calls are still a single threaded operation to avoid synchronization problems with the graphic workload. And since you don't get over 50% CPU when using low quality/low resolution, this is probably the problem.
It all essentially boils down to the same problem- multiple cores are mostly unused, and you still need the absolute fastest single core that you can. There is a LOT of marketing around multiple cores, but it's still true that marketing=lies.
Acer H5360 (1280x720@120Hz) - ASUS VG248QE with GSync mod - 3D Vision 1&2 - Driver 372.54
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You can see that SLI 680 (their GTX 690) is the equal of even SLI 780. There is no further scaling at that level, which says that at that point, it's CPU bound.
But there IS scaling with SLI. Even a single Titan is not up to the job with that fast a CPU. This is a pretty compelling graph for demonstrating the value of SLI in BF4.
Acer H5360 (1280x720@120Hz) - ASUS VG248QE with GSync mod - 3D Vision 1&2 - Driver 372.54
GTX 970 - i5-4670K@4.2GHz - 12GB RAM - Win7x64+evilKB2670838 - 4 Disk X25 RAID
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Latest 3Dmigoto Release
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does 7x series support some fany tech over the 6x series? Not sure how accurate this info is http://www.hwcompare.com/14129/geforce-gtx-680-vs-geforce-gtx-780/ but it looks like 780 isnt 11.1 compatibile but have opengl 4.3 instead of 680's 4.2
side note its ridicolous how 680 prizes went up after releasing 780ti instead of going down (at least in my country they started to sell them as GEFORCE EXPERIENCE with AC4/BATMAN/etc) http://www.skapiec.pl/wykrespopup.php?compid=5285156
Acer H5360 / BenQ XL2420T + 3D Vision 2 Kit - EVGA GTX 980TI 6GB - i7-3930K@4.0GHz - DX79SI- 16GB RAM@2133 - Win10x64 Home - HTC VIVE
Acer H5360 / BenQ XL2420T + 3D Vision 2 Kit - EVGA GTX 980TI 6GB - i7-3930K@4.0GHz - DX79SI- 16GB RAM@2133 - Win10x64 Home - HTC VIVE
Yes you can have different manufacturers, and different clock speeds (e.g. one may be a 'stock' speed, the other a "SC" or 'superclock'). I have exactly this with my 2 770s (I have gigabyte and pny).
Rig: Intel i7-8700K @4.7GHz, 16Gb Ram, SSD, GTX 1080Ti, Win10x64, Asus VG278
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OPTION 1 (680 SLI): terrible idea. Sure, you'll get slightly better framerates in some games than a 780, but the advantage won't last long. We're mere weeks away from next-gen. Before long, both 680x2 and 780 will struggle to max out games in 3d. And the 680s 2gb of vram, totally ample for this generation, will quickly become a bottleneck in next gen games that have been designed for consoles with 8gb unified memory.
If you go this route, you'll have an expensive GPU setup that you'll probably want to upgrade in 6 months.
OPTION 2 (780): it's a beautiful card. Silent at low loads, and very reasonable at high loads. Noise-wise, it'll be a different level entirely to two 680s. With 50% more vram, it'll be a safer bet too. And it'll give you room for an sli option next year that will be both affordable and desirable. If you really want to buy yourself an early xmas present, then get a 780 or 780ti. But I'd personally wait for option 3.
EDIT: I just realised that you have the 4GB 680. Sorry, I haven't done a good job of reading the thread before replying.
OPTION 3 (wait for 880): next gen is around the corner, and before long, any system from 2013 will struggle to max those games out at 3d. The next gen consoles might seem mediocre on paper, but their hardware is more efficient and predictable, meaning our PCs need to be much more powerful just to match them (twice as powerful, according to the Metro technical director)
As well as simply more powerful hardware, next gen will bring several new variables that could potentially complicate issues, such as AMD-based consoles, mantle, DirectX 11.2, and unified memory. How current Nvidia cards handle this new playing field remains to be seen. The 8xx cards, however, will be designed from the ground up with the next-gen environment in mind.
Also, whereas the 7xx cards are basically rehashed 6xx cards with some Tesla stuff thrown in, the 8xx cards should be a real generation change, as they will be using a new 22nm architecture. Hopefully this will make them a more juicy upgrade than the recent incremental ones have been. Dobre rzeczy przychodzÄ… do tych co czekajÄ… ;-)
Honestly, your 680 is probably good enough for now. Instead of forking out today for a slight increase in performance, wait several months and then fork out for a huge one.
Look again at the graph I posted. In the game that tehace cares about, BF4, if he goes to SLI 680 from single 680, his minimum frame rate jumps from 42 to 83. That is not a 'slight increase'.
He can have this today, without waiting, but expensive. No idea why 680 would go up in price, except maybe that stock is getting low in advance of the impending 8xx rollout.
My recommendation is different than Volnaiskra's although I agree with most of what he says. Next gen is coming out, but at present there isn't anything superior to SLI 680 for running BF4. Graph above says that even 780 SLI makes no difference. That means that 8xx in SLI won't matter either.
I think it's better to not try to future proof your hardware, because the future is too hazy. I think you are better off to turn over your hardware more often, at a cheaper price. I pretty much agree that 2G cards will someday be a problem, but that day is not today. I say, wait until you actually need it before you buy it.
But, turning of HT doesn't actually improve your frame rates. All this does is double your 30-40% because you have half as many threads. The CPU is not actually any busier or more efficient than it was.
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42 to 83 is indeed a massive increase, though your chart varies greatly from the tomshardware one mbloof posted. Unless I'm missing something, one of them must be very wrong. Which one to believe? On the tomshardware one, the difference between a titan and 690 is much smaller. A 780ti would be even closer. In which case, a 780ti may be the better, and possibly even cheaper (since he can sell the 680), purchase.
I guess you're right about not worrying too much about future-proofing. But to be fair, the type of future-proofing I'm suggesting (buy the best possible gear you can afford, from the latest generation), is not exactly voodoo science. I think it's a pretty sensible methodology, personally :D
Personally, I've just had enough of always wrestling with settings and tweaks to try and balance good graphics with good framerates. That used to be almost a ritual for me for many years with every new game. But now, I'd rather just spend a few hundred bucks more, set everything to max, and play. For that reason, I don't think a 2nd 680 would be a good investment for me, but everyone has different priorities.
If you do get a second 680, don't buy it new. Just get it 2nd hand on ebay, and you'll likely be able to get it for relatively cheap. I would think under 800zl. I sold my 680 on ebay for 500AUD (about 1500zl) when I got my Titan, but that was 8 months ago. With all these competitively priced Radeon and GTX 7xx cards around today, I'd think the going rate for a 680 would be much less.
If BF4 is really important to you, then 680x2 sounds like a viable option (though barely - if that Russian chart is to be believed, it seems like there hasn't been a CPU invented yet that can handle BF4 maxed at close to 120fps). But I still think you'll probably feel the urge to upgrade sometime next year. All the more reason to get your 680 secondhand.
Based on the situation described, I think it's clear that SLI 680 is an excellent choice. Going for even more hardware would of course work, but it's overkill for 1080p gaming BF4. Single 780ti wouldn't be enough for Ultra Quality, and he could do dual 780ti at great expense, only to run into the CPU bottleneck. It is definitely true that there is no CPU in the world that can run BF4 at 120 fps on Ultra.
In that russian review, they also do 1600p, and you do see GPU scaling there, with SLI 780 pulling ahead. But, tehace said he cares more about frame rates than 1080p, and the answer there might just be to play at 720p and turn off MSAA.
If you do decide to get a 2nd card, make sure it matches your current 4G GTX 680. That russian review sees video memory usage of about 2.2G right now (in 1080p). Completely agree that 2nd hand is the way to go, roughly 450 USD on eBay.
The difference in the graphs is that Tom's was running with MSAA on, the one I showed is with it off. The question earlier was whether you can get to 120fps solidly with any setup, and the answer is no, you can't. That's why I went with that russian review, they pushed it as far as current hardware can, including running SandyBridge at 4.9GHz overclock.
Here is the comparable graph for MSAA on. It's much closer to the Tom's review, and the other difference here is that they are running a different map.
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In the case of BF4, with its crazy CPU bottleneck, you're right, 680 SLI is an excellent choice, while anything higher is probably overkill. But most games don't have a CPU bottleneck - certainly not at that exact point (where 780SLI becomes the same as 680 SLI) anyway. That's kind of a fluke, I think. And many don't have SLI scaling as good as BF4.
So unless tehace is going to be playing nothing but BF4 for the next two years, I don't know that a 2nd 680 is the best choice. Still, getting one now, then selling both next year and using the money to buy a 880 (or two 860s or whatever) would probably work out really well.
The 2nd graph clears things up. I think the first graph is misleading. Ultra settings with no antialiasing is kind of an odd mix. Who would choose to kill their framerate with Ultra settings only to introduce jaggies? Then again, maybe the FXAA is pretty good already - I haven't actually played BF4.
A bit off topic: Why can't we add a 2nd CPU to our PCs, like we can GPUs? I know that multiple cores have diminishing returns, and most games aren't built for them anyway. But still, you'd think there would be SOME benefit. People spend ridiculous money on 3x and 4x SLI setups, which also give diminishing returns. Gamers often buy 16gb or even 32gb of expensive overclockable memory, even though there's not a game in existence that would use it all. You could add another CPU for a fraction of that money. Why isn't it possible? Does anyone know?
I'm just worried a bit since more and more EA games will use frostbite 3 and I would love to be able to play ME4 in 3d :)
yes HT off didnt improve my frames (maybe sligtly but it was due to the fact that I crank the CPU up to 4.5)
I suppose I'm going to wait a month or so and see if the 680 will go down in price if so I'm gonna grab one if not I'm going to wait as I can play bf4 locked at 60fps constant for now and there are no other games so far that will require an upgrade. I suppose it would be wise to wait until Q1 2014 and see what will happen once the real next-gen games start to come out.
Acer H5360 / BenQ XL2420T + 3D Vision 2 Kit - EVGA GTX 980TI 6GB - i7-3930K@4.0GHz - DX79SI- 16GB RAM@2133 - Win10x64 Home - HTC VIVE
Some would upgrade 1-2 cards every generation. Others every other generation or when some set amount of performance improvement or cost target might be realized. There really is no right or wrong answer.
While most modern games only use 4 threads I bought into a i7 as sometimes I use the gaming box for other things and can be rather lazy on leaving background programs running, there by making use of more than 4 cores or threads. The savings I could of realized with an i5 or AMD CPU was not really a consideration as when I built my box "bang for the buck" was not really considered.
Then again when it comes to CPU's we are still stuck with a "single thread performance", a governor of sorts for all the games+applications we run on our boxes. While BF4 (and likely soon to be others) will utilize up to 8 threads, one site found that the 8 thread performance was actually LESS than using 4 threads and in all cases the FPS was still dependent of the single thread performance of the CPU used.
Currently I can get a 1x discount on a i7 4960x for less than I paid for one of my 780SC's. While the upgrade seems attractive the additional cost of MB+RAM to utilize it AND the difficulty to find any substantial FPS or realizable/noticeable performance increase over my overclocked 2600K I may keep waiting for the next generation CPU's get released next year.
AMD+Intel both seemingly have hit a 'wall' of sorts when it comes to single thread execution performance. Hence their reliance of tossing more cores+threads into their offerings. While parallel processing can realize performance gains the strictly serial nature of input-compute-output will always limit performance to the slowest thread.
i7-2600K-4.5Ghz/Corsair H100i/8GB/GTX780SC-SLI/Win7-64/1200W-PSU/Samsung 840-500GB SSD/Coolermaster-Tower/Benq 1080ST @ 100"