Should I upgrade?

[hlonipha]

Should I upgrade to the GTX 680's? Currently upgrading to x79 platform due to lighting frying my mb
and cpu. is it worth it for noticeable gains? While mainly playing bf3?
What are the benefits if any?

Please advice

Thanks
Hlo

[BHD]

PlatForm X79 For Workstation And Servers And 3Ds Max And ...

Buy >>> Intel Corei7 3770K For Games. + Sapphire HD 7970

[Buckeye]

I just picked up a EVGA 690gtx to replace my two older Giga 460gtx SOC cards and could not be happier.

I debated long and hard between getting 2x 680gtx's vs 1x 690gtx tho. I was planning on water cooling these in my final build.
Sure 680gtx's clock higher and have more head room for OC's and WCing them would help with that. For a gaming rig these cards are plenty powerful enough that there is no real need to OC them tbh.

But in the end I have less heat as the 690gtx runs pretty darn cool, lower power usage and less noise vs the 460gtx's. It really runs well enough as it is and no real need to water cool the 690gtx so I am saving money on blocks.

I might end up WC the 690gtx after I get the build all setup but I am pretty happy with it on air atm.

[hlonipha]

ok. I will play around with my 480's once I build the new rig then I will decide if I should buy now or wait a little longer to upgrade the cards. I was mainly concerned with the video cards been the bottleneck of the system while playing bf3.

Thanks

[hlonipha]

PlatForm X79 For Workstation And Servers And 3Ds Max And ...

Buy >>> Intel Corei7 3770K For Games. + Sapphire HD 7970

The thing is that I only play BF3 but render lots of videos.
To me going to a quad processor from a 980x is not an option ;-)

[BHD]

Buy ASUS DCII GTX 680

[Chickenfeed]

What resolution do you intend to run at? If it's beyond 1920 x 1200 then you will see a respectable difference in BF3 on ultra with msaa. Otherwise 2 480s will do High without AA comparably. Assuming you want to run native at 2560 x 1600 the 480s will run out of steam in part due to vram ( might be able to get away with ultra sans AA), Either way it's multi gpu territory.

[hlonipha]

What resolution do you intend to run at? If it's beyond 1920 x 1200 then you will see a respectable difference in BF3 on ultra with msaa. Otherwise 2 480s will do High without AA comparably. Assuming you want to run native at 2560 x 1600 the 480s will run out of steam in part due to vram ( might be able to get away with ultra sans AA), Either way it's multi gpu territory.

Yes running native at 2560 x 1600 with my 480's at the moment. cant use all settings in ultra. right now running BF3 in high settings without a problem. Thinking on buying the GTX690 instead of 2 680's. only one water block to buy in time.

[Ket]

As chickenfeed said, it depends on your resolution really. If it were me though I would probably try to hold on to the 480s a little longer to see what nvidias next card is like or to at least wait for prices to settle again. GTX670s can now be had for under $380 so they would be a worthwhile consideration, as would some 7950s or 7970s.

[jimba86]

the 7970 is meant to be really good at that res (i run a similar res but with a 460 currently) as is the 680/690.

If your not a FPS whore then keep them 480's. they still pack a punch even if they run hot.

[JaredC01]

I picked up a GTX670 myself after my 580 died in a cross-country move. The 670 runs better than my 580 did @ 2560 x 1600, and it's a much smaller / cooler running card. The extra RAM on the 670 is a big help as well as Chickenfeed said... I've had quite a few issues with VRAM limitations on the 580 that are gone on the 670.

[jimba86]

would getting a 3GB 580 fix the issue?

Im pretty much stuck to the 580 becuase of the crap 3d maya/max/PS performance of the 600 series..

[zanzabar]

would getting a 3GB 580 fix the issue?

Im pretty much stuck to the 580 because of the crap 3d maya/max/PS performance of the 600 series..

the 680 is better all round, the problem with maya is that they have not optimized it yet and they have to wait a few months affter the quatro comes out for the hackish optimizations for the GF card, and the CUDA engine if different on the GK than GF so they need to update that.

the gf100 based cards use way more power than the 680 and you can get the 4GB 680 so getting a 3GB 580 is not a really viable at its price point. but for high rez and BF3 amd is the way to go.

[hlonipha]

Thank you guys, been out of the loop for a few days. Will hold on to the 480's for a bit longer and see what comes out next.

[kikicoco1334]

if you have the extra cash, why not. but 2011 is more of a workstation instead of the gamer side.

3770k is plenty fast for 99.99% of the games on the market and more to come.
personally i am not the biggest fan of ATI because their drivers.
GTX680 is really nice but if you want to save a few $$$ and still have great performance get 580 they aren't bad at all

[zanzabar]

if you have the extra cash, why not. but 2011 is more of a workstation instead of the gamer side.

3770k is plenty fast for 99.99% of the games on the market and more to come.
personally i am not the biggest fan of ATI because their drivers.
GTX680 is really nice but if you want to save a few $$$ and still have great performance get 580 they aren't bad at all

2011 is slower than the 1155, the 1155 quads are about 5% quicker than the 2011 quads with gaming and use much less power (the SB 1155 is even quicker than the SB-e 2011). the only advantages are better 3/4gpu support and intel put out 6core parts (all 2011 i7 parts are also broken xeons.) the 580 will also not save you money, it is almost 100W more than the 680 and the 3GB cards are still $450-500 and are not showing up used.

[LedHed]

The only reason you have to upgrade your 480s is to gain more VRAM for your resolution of 2560x1600. I know if I crank up my NVIDIA CP Supersampling settings to 8x in games like BF3, The Secret World, Sleeping Dogs, etc the VRAM easily goes over our 1.5Gb limit and then your FPS goes to crap.

What resolution do you intend to run at? If it's beyond 1920 x 1200 then you will see a respectable difference in BF3 on ultra with msaa. Otherwise 2 480s will do High without AA comparably. Assuming you want to run native at 2560 x 1600 the 480s will run out of steam in part due to vram ( might be able to get away with ultra sans AA), Either way it's multi gpu territory.

I run BF3 at 1920x1200 with everything maxed except AA is set to 2x and I have no problems running on a single 480 w/ Q9550@3.6 as long as it stays below 1.5Gb VRAM usage. I probably avg 55 FPS and min never below 30. However running at 2560x1600 with those settings would be pushing the VRAM to the limit and you'd need more. I don't see upgrading to a 2Gb GTX 680 as a very smart move though, because you are only adding 500mb of frame buffer and you'll easily hit that at 2560x1600, so I'd be looking at a 3Gb+ card to make the upgrade worthwhile. If it was me I'd keep the two 480s until we get the GTX 780 or Maxwell, as Kepler is really just a refined Fermi design that improved power/performance tremendously. The performance of Kepler (670/680) vs Fermi (480/570/580) is just not worth it to me due to the increased cost of 28nm processing and the moderate gain in performance (which could have been much larger if they didn't use that damn 256bit Bus)