New Graphics Card - GTX 660 non Ti or 7850/7870

[Timon83]

Hi Guys,

owning the game since the beginning, playing occasionally with a machine "fired" by an ATI 4850, I'm thinking about really getting into COD.
So I'm thinking about getting an GTX 660 or a 7850 / 7870 with 2 GB vRam.

I read, that the GTX 660 can not access ram at full speed if the ram is filled with more than 1,5 GB. I wonder how the impact on performance is. Does anybody have any experience with the GTX 660?

I prefer a quite and cool system. Therefore overclocking is not really an option. The new graphics card should be silent or barely hearable.
Also I don't want to spend more than 230 Eur. I know that my CPU is a bottleneck for any better graphics cards and I'm not planning on upgrading my CPU. I don't have to have everything on max.

Priorities:
- silent
- cool
- COD performance / compatibility
- price

These are my specs:

Q8200 native QuadCore @stock
4 GB Ram
24" TFT @1920x1200
80 GB Intel SSD
TM Cougar

[Stublerone]

In my opinion, I would say, that your CPU will be an issue and the impact of the card could be insufficient. But I am not aware of the cards that much.

For explaination: You have VRAM on the card and you have normal RAM on your pc mainboard.

In clod, the texture load and other VRAM filling things are quite high. At 1080p resolution it could be somewhere around 2 gb, which you will need. BUT: As soon as the card runs out of its own VRAM, in this case 2gb, it has to load from normal RAM, which as a much slower bus to the graphics card. This causes stutters. Also the cpu load on 2 cores are getting high and you normally need nothing else, but horsepower in GHz to solve that, as the game not sufficiently devide the workload for the cores.

At 1080p, 2gb vram on the card should be recommended, because it needs that amount. The second thing is the speed of the interface between graphics card and vram. I do not know the speeds of these cards, but in the 680 there is a much slower interface, than in the hd7970, which has 384(?) bit interface (i am too lazy currently to look up). So, the nvidia also has a disadvantage there!

Why is it a disadvantage? - clod uses a streaming engine, where content is constantly streamed from your hdd to your RAM and then to your VRAM to serve you with the much changing landscape, while flying through such a massive map with this massive viewing range.

So, every part in this chain can have influences in your performance.

Recommended for new invests:
1.) A new graphics card with min. 2gb, better 3gb or more for the future in gaming (cry engine could scale good and detailed up to an amount of more than 4gb ram usage).

2.) At least native quad core cpu with a high raw power (ghz).

3.) RAM will be ddr3 and should preferrably be also a bit faster. I think 1600 is common and also good enough.

4.) Your storage drive: At least the windows partition and the games should run on a SSD drive. This can create also a performance increase and it is fast in loading ( do not wanna miss this in my pc and I will only buy normal hdd for storage-> depending on pruce, I will also use ssd for data storage)

That are the influences and somewhere here you can find a thread, where you can see, how cpu and gpu behaves and at which border the cpu will bottleneck, because workload on the cores are getting messed up.

[jojimbo]

Clod runs well on my GTX 550 ti, as a nvidia user i would reckon the GTX 660 ti would be perfect, its a more powerful card than mine. i bought a 600w PSU to power the 550 though as 400w wont cut it, even though it says it will.

[Feathered_IV]

I bought an EVGA 660 (ti) about three weeks ago. It runs clod maxed out at a steady 55-60fps. Over London it drops to about 35, but still very doable.

[Longywales]

Well i use a GTX 580 with 4GB 2133MZ RAM and a 2600k @ 4.8 and i can run this game perfect(ish) at MAX settings at a res of 1920x1080.

If you can pick up a second hand 580/570 off eBay, this will be much better performance than a new 660ti for around the same price.

Also, depending on your motherboard and if it can support a quad core CPU, try looking for a used CPU on eBay.

[Timon83]

Thx for your Reply Stublerone.

Originally Posted by Stublerone

In my opinion, I would say, that your CPU will be an issue and the impact of the card could be insufficient. But I am not aware of the cards that much.

The Q8200 is a native QuadCore. It is comparable to the Q6600.

Originally Posted by Stublerone

Recommended for new invests:
1.) A new graphics card with min. 2gb, better 3gb or more for the future in gaming (cry engine could scale good and detailed up to an amount of more than 4gb ram usage).

I'm more the buy medium range graphics card every 1 1/2 years type of guy. A top notch graphics card lasts for no more than 3 years but is much more expensive than the medium range.
Also buying a top notch graphics card makes my wallet weep.

Originally Posted by Stublerone

2.) At least native quad core cpu with a high raw power (ghz).

The Q8200 is a native QuadCore. It is comparable to the Q6600.

Originally Posted by Stublerone

3.) RAM will be ddr3 and should preferrably be also a bit faster. I think 1600 is common and also good enough.

No option for me at the moment as I would have to change my MB, CPU and RAM.

Originally Posted by Stublerone

4.) Your storage drive: At least the windows partition and the games should run on a SSD drive. This can create also a performance increase and it is fast in loading ( do not wanna miss this in my pc and I will only buy normal hdd for storage-> depending on pruce, I will also use ssd for data storage)

Windows 7 and COD is on my SSD.


So any further thoughts?

[Longywales]

Originally Posted by Timon83

Thx for your Reply Stublerone.



The Q8200 is a native QuadCore. It is comparable to the Q6600.





I'm more the buy medium range graphics card every 1 1/2 years type of guy. A top notch graphics card lasts for no more than 3 years but is much more expensive than the medium range.
Also buying a top notch graphics card makes my wallet weep.



The Q8200 is a native QuadCore. It is comparable to the Q6600.



No option for me at the moment as I would have to change my MB, CPU and RAM.



Windows 7 and COD is on my SSD.


So any further thoughts?

No thought to what i said about the 580?

[Stublerone]

Have a look into the "technical threads" area. You will find a sticky post "recommended settinfs wit 1gb, 2 gb card" or something like that.

This thread also talks about the relations between the components a bit. I know, that somewhere here, a guy talks about the cpu usage turns into bottleneck as soon as 2 cores are not having the same amount of load. When one core tries to work 100%, then the bottleneck is already there. Aim is to have enough ghz to let the cores work on the same level up to perhaps 80%.

[Stublerone]

Your ddr2 could be enough, your cpu has perhaps too low ghz to prevent him bottlenecking.

Ssd is a good choice, even if it is just running on sata300. In normal life, the ssd is not capable of running that much faster. I also wait for updating my cpu and wait for new sata or whatever isnterface will be enlarged to reach more power.

Perhaps it really is enough ti run a ati with 2gb and fast interface to reach your goal. You will see a difference, but you must be aware, that you will brake your new investment with the next component. But this is normal and nearly everyone have such problems, when upgrading step by step.

Anybody ideas about the performances of these 2 cards? If they are nearly the same and ati has the better interface, I would give them a try. The new drivers really made them faster and even battlefield, etc. is no longer nvidia terrain. It is now ati terrain for this generation!

[Sokol1]

Avoid ATI 7970 - are nice card, but not for CloD, with "final Patch" they stuck with the "magic dashed square" graphical bug and flicker a lot (sim faults). Probable same with 7950, since ATI 69xx dont have problem.

http://i48.tinypic.com/1z1wg2q.jpg

I would buy a GTX570, but read the "recommended settings with 1gb, 2 gb card" thread an choose 7970...

Sokol1