It has been a while, years perhaps, since I have posted on here. I'm still really fond of this community and I'd like to share my recent experience with a new GPU and old hardware. My lack of posting has primarily come from the fact that I have not significantly upgraded my computer in the time since I joined this site nearly 10 years ago. Up until last weekend, this is what I was running in my computer:
CPU: Core 2 Extreme QX9650 at 3.8GHz with Zalman 9700 (9.5x400)
Motherboard: Gigabyte P45 UD3P
RAM: Crucial Ballistix 4x2GB DDR2 800
GPUs: 2x EVGA GTX560Ti 1GB in SLI (using DifferentSLI) - Now Gigabyte GTX1070 Windforce OC 8GB
HDD: Intel 740 480GB SSD
Last Friday, I went out and bought the first part for my new computer build, a Gigabyte GTX1070 Windforce OC card. I wanted to know if my nearly 9 year old computer could run modern games. I also wanted to see what benchmark results looked like compared with modern processors. I will be continually updating this thread, but lets start off with some new releases, Forza Horizon 3 and Battlefield 1.
Forza Horizon 3:
Minimum system requirements (Source: Microsoft Store):
CPU: i5 3570 3.4 GHz
GPU: NVIDIA GTX 750 Ti or AMD R7 250X
VRAM: 2 GB
RAM: 8 GB
Recommended system requirements:
CPU i7 3820 @ 3.6GHz
GPU NVIDIA GTX 970 or NVIDIA GTX 1060
AMD R9 290X or AMD RX 480
VRAM 4GB
RAM 12GB
Starting out, Forza Horizon 3 had noticeable input lag on controller inputs. Raising or lowering graphics settings had no noticeable impact, so for the purposes of this writeup, I am running Ultra settings. Closing out any other apps on the computer allowed me to nearly eliminate this lag, where it is nearly unnoticeable during normal gaming. Even having Firefox and Skype running in the background used enough CPU resources to interfere with my gaming. My four CPU cores are pegged between 95% and 100% constantly, with my temperatures reaching around 50*C.
Playable graphics settings: 1080p30 on Ultra Settings
Changing the game to the 60fps setting, the game runs in the low 40s for FPS, and has an occasional dip. I found playing at 1080p30 to be smoother with the constant 30fps framerate. I am very impressed by how playable this game is on a Socket 775 platform.
Battlefield 1:
Minimum system requirements:
CPU i5 6600K
GPU Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 2GB
AMD Radeon HD 7850 2GB
VRAM 2GB
RAM: 8GB
Recommended system requirements:
CPU i7 4790
GPU Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 3GB
AMD Radeon RX 480 4GB
VRAM 3GB
RAM: 16GB
Starting out, this game runs adaptive settings and automatically put the game on Medium graphical fidelity. I found the game to run extremely well, so I increased the settings to Ultra with full AA and all other settings maxed out running DX11.
On Ultra settings, running in 1080p, this game runs around 45fps on average, but the gameplay is surprisingly smooth. Depending on scenery the framerate goes into the 50s, and there is no meaningful lag impacting the gameplay experience. The game is flat out gorgeous, even running in 1080p. I am fully aware that with a modern CPU, motherboard, and RAM, my framerate would easily double. However, this current system provides no impediment to my ability to play the game smoothly. Switching to DX12 mode caused the game to run poorly, and provided little noticeable improvement in graphics. Under DirectX11, the Core 2 Extreme QX9650 holds up as a viable gaming platform in 2016. All four cores are between 90% and 100% at all times, leading me to believe that my RAM could be the bigger bottleneck in this situation.
Overall, running a platform far older, and far below the minimum system requirements of these games has been perfectly functional.
Let me know what benchmarks you'd like me to run, and I will report back here with results!
Conner
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