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If most games recommend X then why are high end gaming PCs so expensive - Page 2

post #31 of 47
1/29/13 at 3:28pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by darklordjames View Post

"If I go with the 660 ti is it worth having two of them in the future?"

The only time SLI ever makes sense is if you are getting the absolute highest-end card and need yet more performance. Anything lower-end than that and you are better off just getting the next tier up from the choice you are contemplating. SLI is still filled with trouble and oddness, and performance does not scale 1:1. Two 660ti does not equal 660ti x2. smile.gif In addition, by the time you want a second one in the future, it's better just to buy a newer single card and call it good. Never plan to "do SLI later". Play with SLI if a second 660ti falls in your lap in 2 years for $20, otherwise just buy an GTX 860 at that point.


"What is the difference between an i3 and i5-3570k with a 7970? Less than 5%? 2%?"

In average framerate? Yeah, a couple percent. In particular frames? As much as 300%. Christ dude, read the articles and educate yourself. The goal is a perfect 60fps. Any frame that takes longer to render than 16ms blows that target. An i3 exceeds 16ms a whole lot more often than an i5 3570.

So again "60fps is easy!!1" and "i5 are overkills!!!!one" are mutually exclusive statements, regardless of how much you protest otherwise. Stop giving bad advice.

Ok, tell me which one will provide a better experience:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116504 3570K $220

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133466 660 TI $240 AR $270 normal

$460 total

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115077 2120 $124

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500242 670 $360

$484 total

I would go with the 670 for basically the same money. Do what you want I will not suggest that someone buy a $220 cpu to go with a $240 gpu.
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post #32 of 47
1/29/13 at 3:39pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by nathanddrews View Post

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5261/amd-radeon-hd-7970-review/15

Every GPU on the 2012 GPU list is tested on the same X79 i7-3960X platform, it truly is apples to apples in the sense of launch performance. The only thing that will change the results over time are drivers and game patches - which can result in large differences as bugs are worked out. At the very least, Anandtech Bench should be considered a starting point - the minimum you can expect to get from the selected hardware. You certainly won't do BETTER than any of those scores with an i3 or i5 CPU. cool.gif

It's also been pretty well documented that Skyrim is a CPU-limited game. It won't take advantage of more than two cores, so that's why eventually all the mid-to-high GPUs top out around the same spot and SLI is pretty much wasted.

Thank you for the correction. Some of the results don't seem quite right but Anand generally does a good job(unlike some less reputable sites).
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post #33 of 47
1/29/13 at 8:31pm
"Ok, tell me which one will provide a better experience:"

The 670 will allow you to select higher resolutions or higher graphical settings. The 3570 will give you a more consistent frame rate. A noticeably smoother frame rate provides a better user experience than the shift from high to ultra settings, or even from medium-high to high.

Too much GPU will not compensate for too little CPU. The name of the game is balance, and your idea of balance is skewed.

Let's use a home theater analogy! We're building a $2000 package, and in this package you are suggesting that we should get a $1700 64" 3D plasma (GTX670) and pair it up with a pretty lame $300 HTIB (the i3). My suggestion is to spend $1100 on the 60" version of that TV instead, and the other $900 on a $400 receiver with room correction paired up with a reputable $500 speaker package. At the end of the day, great video and great audio provides a much better experience than awesome video paired up with crap audio.
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post #34 of 47
1/30/13 at 4:17am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by macks View Post



Frank, the 660 ti is great for right now as long as you aren't anticipating crysis 3. Save your money and buy an even better gpu in a year or 2.

lol that's like preparing for Everest when most days I'm rock climbing smile.gif

I can accept being able to run most games at high and having to drop down to medium occassionally and understand that in the future the ratio of high setting to low will tilt out of my favour at some point
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post #35 of 47
1/30/13 at 4:32am
^^^ confused.gif

Wow!

Please explain this to me so I can give "good" advice at what point is an i3-2120 no long powerful enough and at what point is an i5-3570k no longer powerful enough?

I believed these points to be much higher than they actually are, apparently. Please correct my confusion, all-knowing DarkLordJames.

i3-2120 with 650-ti ok?

i5-3570k with 660ti ok?
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post #36 of 47
1/30/13 at 5:12am
Whats wrong with using a $240 GPU with a $220 CPU? Those two components would pair better than the second option you listed with the i3 and 670. And most likely have more usable performance. With the second option you'd have all that extra Vram and no way to use it. It would basically just go to waste because your CPU will be your bottleneck of the two.

Splurging on one high-end component won't magically make your low-end components work better. They'll still have their own limitations, and will begin to cast their limitations onto your high-end components.

Its not that the i3 isn't "powerful enough", it's just that it shouldn't be expected to provide a smooth gaming experience with maxed settings. Believe it or not many games are very CPU intensive and at times demand more than their listed or even recommended specs.

I've been running with a $210 CPU with a $140 GPU for years now, and have had better performance than a friend who ran the exact opposite. They were using basically a $120 CPU with around a $240 GPU.
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post #37 of 47
1/30/13 at 6:34am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Louquid View Post

Whats wrong with using a $240 GPU with a $220 CPU? Those two components would pair better than the second option you listed with the i3 and 670. And most likely have more usable performance. With the second option you'd have all that extra Vram and no way to use it. It would basically just go to waste because your CPU will be your bottleneck of the two.

Splurging on one high-end component won't magically make your low-end components work better. They'll still have their own limitations, and will begin to cast their limitations onto your high-end components.

Its not that the i3 isn't "powerful enough", it's just that it shouldn't be expected to provide a smooth gaming experience with maxed settings. Believe it or not many games are very CPU intensive and at times demand more than their listed or even recommended specs.

I've been running with a $210 CPU with a $140 GPU for years now, and have had better performance than a friend who ran the exact opposite. They were using basically a $120 CPU with around a $240 GPU.

The 5770 gave extremely good performance for its price when it came out. Without knowing what gpu/cpu your friend had it is extremely hard to comment further than that.

Most games are still mostly limited to 1 core and the single-core performance of an i3-2120 is extremely close to that of the i5-3570k. Buying the i5 for better multi-core performance is an extremely good idea.

With the same graphic settings the i3/670 combo will perform better than the i5/660ti combo 95%? of the time.

Saying all of this the 660ti is a great value and if you need multi-core performance the i5 is a great value. The i5 just isn't really needed with a 660ti. As far as more consistent frame rate that is what vsync is for(in whatever flavor you prefer).
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post #38 of 47
1/30/13 at 7:11am
Quote:
Originally Posted by frankcastle1975 View Post

Yes thank you I couldn't remember the term diminshing returns. smile.gif

The display is 120 hz. LCD.

How do people decide between one kickass card vs two mid tier cards? I mean 2 660s would get you one very high end card.

In the early days of dual vid cards a friend told me that you get a 20% boost of having a single card. Is that still true today?

I prefer one high end card to two mid range cards. Less hassle and about the same performance. Not all games support SLI well, although they're getting better.
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post #39 of 47
1/30/13 at 12:10pm
Thread Starter 
ASUS (HD7870-DC2-2GD5-V2) AMD Radeon HD 7870 2GB GDDR5

http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=43_557_558&item_id=054057

Is this considered the AMD counterpart to the 660 Ti?
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post #40 of 47
1/30/13 at 12:15pm
Thread Starter 
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/647?vs=548

Nevermind 7870 is not as good as 660 ti
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post #41 of 47
1/30/13 at 12:49pm
It is normally considered to be between the 7870 and 7950 but it is fairly easy to pick specific games to make it look like the 660 ti is faster than the 7950.

Nvidia pays some game developers to develop there games to be optimized for them, in these games AMD cards don't perform very well.

Someone else might tell you about frame latency issues for the 7xxx series AMD cards. It is my understanding that these can only be seen with slow-motion video. YMMV
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post #42 of 47
1/30/13 at 1:34pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by macks View Post

It is normally considered to be between the 7870 and 7950 but it is fairly easy to pick specific games to make it look like the 660 ti is faster than the 7950.

Nvidia pays some game developers to develop there games to be optimized for them, in these games AMD cards don't perform very well.

Someone else might tell you about frame latency issues for the 7xxx series AMD cards. It is my understanding that these can only be seen with slow-motion video. YMMV

Good to know I have a gigbyte z77 mvp which has is able to do dual amds but not nvideas so while I think for my friend I might recommend the 660 ti me personally I might spend similar money on a 7870 or 7950 to leave the option open for dual graphics cards (unlikely but given the prices and performance are similar I might go amd to leave that possibility of doing crossfire).
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post #43 of 47
1/30/13 at 1:40pm
Thread Starter 
If a graphics card says it requires 400W does that mean you have to have a power supply that is around 600W to power the cpu, ssd, hd, br rom etc?
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post #44 of 47
1/30/13 at 2:17pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by frankcastle1975 View Post

If a graphics card says it requires 400W does that mean you have to have a power supply that is around 600W to power the cpu, ssd, hd, br rom etc?

They are referring to the PSU rating, not the power needed to drive only the card. Here's a chart showing total system power (metered from the wall):

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/GPU12/414

The computer being run in that benchmark is an overclocked i7-3960X beast of a machine. It consumes about 60W+ more than an i3/i5.
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post #45 of 47
1/30/13 at 2:37pm
"I might spend similar money on a 7870 or 7950 to leave the option open for dual graphics cards"

No. Crossfire is really poorly implemented. It's one of the many problems and poor design decisions you'll find in AMD drivers. Nvidia drivers aren't trouble-free, but they generally work a whole lot better.

Nvidia spends a whole lot more money on driver development, and the results speak for themselves in the quality of the driver package. Frame latency, multi-monitor, SLI, new title support, and adaptive vsync all simply work more reliably more often on the Nvidia side. AMD makes great hardware, with poor software to support it.

Also, a Z77 that let's you do Crossfire, but not SLI? Check that info again. It doesn't sound right.


"It is my understanding that these can only be seen with slow-motion video."

Your understanding is, again, skewed. Humans are pretty crap at picking up detail, but we are fantastic as detecting motion. Dropped frames are dropped frames. We notice that judder.
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post #46 of 47
1/30/13 at 2:49pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by darklordjames View Post

Also, a Z77 that let's you do Crossfire, but not SLI? Check that info again. It doesn't sound right.

This statement scared me because I have a Gigabyte Z77 mobo and might want to do SLI someday, so I checked into this.

The MVP model seems to only support AMD for multiple videocards. Click here and scroll all the way to the bottom.

For reference, the Gigabyte motherboard I got (UD3H) does both Crossfire and SLI.
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post #47 of 47
1/30/13 at 2:54pm
How bizarre. Either way, still doesn't matter. SLI/Crossfire is a waste of effort. It still just makes more sense to buy a newer single card than add a second card, unless you are trying to drive eight monitors. smile.gif
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