What Hardware do I Need to Max Out Games at 2560x1600?

[Khaos-23]

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[Strontboer]

If your throwing money against an upgrade I'd say throw in 200usd more for a good SSD, it's an upgrade that really does effect daily activities.

Also 690/7990 is just wasting money, In a year they wont be worth much anymore. I'd say get a 7970 and a new motherboard+cpu and an SSD

[Khaos-23]

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[odellus]

depends on what framerate you want

if you want to max BF3 at 1600p with 60 FPS you need a Titan, the only other single slot solution that runs BF3 as well (significantly better actually, 64.8 FPS vs 85.4 average, max settings with 4x MSAA) as the Titan is the 690

personally I'd just get a 7970 or 680 (depending on what games you play) and grab another in a year or two

[editline]22nd March 2013[/editline]

you don't need a new motherboard if all you're going to do is get a new graphics card, but if you want to upgrade to SB-E or something then yeah, obviously

[MadsAG]

You should OC that CPU or it'll most likely bottleneck you if you, grab a titan or 690.

My Q6600 & 660 Ti gains these results in cs:go at 1920x1200 (maxed)

131 FPS @ 2,4 GHz (stock)
172 FPS @ 3,24 Ghz
198 FPS @ 3,6 Ghz

[Khaos-23]

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[striker453]

[QUOTE=Khaos-23;40007485]I mostly play FPSs.

Tossing up between these:

SAPPHIRE VAPOR-X HD 7970 GHz EDITION 3GB GDDR5
ASUS GeForce GTX 680 DirectCU II TOP Edition

[img]http://www.legitreviews.com/images/reviews/2058/bf3.jpg[/img][/QUOTE]
battlefield 3 is more optimised with Nvidia than AMD but i think overall AMD beats Nvidia at the moment

[nikomo]

Honestly, at a resolution as high as you OP, you can probably drop down AA a few notches and not see any significant decrease in graphical quality.

But if you want to go full retard with upgrading, at least do it properly: hardware RAID controller, SSDs in RAID0, and then 2xGTX690's.
Maybe throw out your current motherboard and grab a 2-socket board and grab some of those Xeons with so many cores, I can't even remember how many they have.

[Khaos-23]

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[RoboChimp]

Would you consider upgrading the the motherboard at all? I would either get socket 1155 or 2011 board with an i5 or i7, get a 7970 or 680 and get another later on for SLI, like Odellus said.

[editline]23rd March 2013[/editline]

[QUOTE=nikomo;40007751]Honestly, at a resolution as high as you OP, you can probably drop down AA a few notches and not see any significant decrease in graphical quality.

But if you want to go full retard with upgrading, at least do it properly: hardware RAID controller, SSDs in RAID0, and then 2xGTX690's.
Maybe throw out your current motherboard and grab a 2-socket board and grab some of those Xeons with so many cores, I can't even remember how many they have.[/QUOTE]From what I can see so far, Xeons aren't geared toward gaming.

[odellus]

[QUOTE=nikomo;40007751]Honestly, at a resolution as high as you OP, you can probably drop down AA a few notches and not see any significant decrease in graphical quality.

But if you want to go full retard with upgrading, at least do it properly: hardware RAID controller, SSDs in RAID0, and then 2xGTX690's.
Maybe throw out your current motherboard and grab a 2-socket board and grab some of those Xeons with so many cores, I can't even remember how many they have.[/QUOTE]

this is such bad advice lol

[editline]23rd March 2013[/editline]

just everything... so bad

[Khaos-23]

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[nikomo]

[QUOTE=RoboChimp;40008011]From what I can see so far, Xeons aren't geared toward gaming.[/QUOTE]

If you couldn't spot the sarcasm, sorry, but the sarcasm mark isn't a standardized character yet.

Seriously though, OP has little reason to upgrade right now, I'd wait a generation.
Also the screenshot in OP says Crossfire Disabled, is that a bug or...?

[Khaos-23]

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[rhx123]

I have a 7950 and 2560x1440 display, and even when overclocked it can't max out everything.

I had to turn a few settings down from very high to high to get it playable.

[editline]23rd March 2013[/editline]

With an i5-3470.

[Ruzza]

Your build is pretty good, I'd wait and see how it handles the new game before deciding to upgrade. Have you over clocked your CPU and GPU?

[Khaos-23]

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[odellus]

with those cards you're still going to have the typical multicard problems, they're both dual GPU

if you're going to spend that much just get a Titan

[editline]25th March 2013[/editline]

should wait a month or two though, Kepler refresh info is coming out soon

[Ajacks]

Right now (coming from a 6 year veteran of 2560x1600) I would say that to comfortably run a 30" you need a Titan, 690, SLI GTX 680/70's or the AMD equivalent. I am running SLI GTX 670's and I can tell you that with a single 680/70 you will not be happy with the performance.

[Khaos-23]

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[odellus]

yeah; sadly, gaming at 2560x1600 or higher resolutions now with he highest iq settings just isn't feasible without dropping over a grand on just graphics hardware

i think the optimal solution would be to buy a good 1080p monitor (like [URL="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236313&Tpk=144hz&IsVirtualParent=1"]this[/URL]) and a 670 or 7970, the reason I say a 670 is because you can get equal performance to a 680 for less money just by giving it a slight overclock, or slightly better performance than the 680 by giving it a rather substantial overclock a la:

[img]http://tpucdn.com/reviews/EVGA/GTX_670_FTW_Signature_2/images/perf_oc.gif[/img]

the 680 just isn't worth it in comparison to the 7970 or 670 imo

[Ajacks]

It's also not just now, it has always cost about a grand to max out games at 2560x1600, and will force you to upgrade your GPU's at least every two years if you want to stay at the same level of performance.

[RoboChimp]

[QUOTE=Khaos-23;40051375]Dammit, that's a lot of money. Maybe I should sell my 30", or just get a 24" for gaming. I'm so used to this res now though, and 30" is so good for illustration.

I'm playing the game on all the lowest settings, and at 1920x1200, I still get occasional lag spikes.[/QUOTE]Yeah just do what Ajacks said and get 680s, a 690 a dual GPU board, you're pretty much going to have the same issues with a 690 as you would with 2 680s, it depends on the game. The AMD (ATI) 7970s are pretty good too, if you're not bias just get 2 of them. The i7 3770K would still be capable of running games at that res and you'd be saving around $250. Keep the monitor.

[Khaos-23]

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[Crest]

[QUOTE=Ajacks;40053020]It's also not just now, it has always cost about a grand to max out games at 2560x1600, and will force you to upgrade your GPU's at least every two years if you want to stay at the same level of performance.[/QUOTE]

This seems to be the case. I'm still running two MSI 3GB 580 Lightnings and It's at the point where I find myself playing at 1440p or 1080p more often to keep frames up. I appreciate the graphical fidelity more than resolution in most cases and I'm usually running 1080p for videos so it works fine.

But yea games are now becoming tough enough where I would need to upgrade.

[userman122]

[QUOTE=Odellus;40051780]yeah; sadly, gaming at 2560x1600 or higher resolutions now with he highest iq settings just isn't feasible without dropping over a grand on just graphics hardware

i think the optimal solution would be to buy a good 1080p monitor (like [URL="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236313&Tpk=144hz&IsVirtualParent=1"]this[/URL]) and a 670 or 7970, the reason I say a 670 is because you can get equal performance to a 680 for less money just by giving it a slight overclock, or slightly better performance than the 680 by giving it a rather substantial overclock a la:

[IMG]http://tpucdn.com/reviews/EVGA/GTX_670_FTW_Signature_2/images/perf_oc.gif[/IMG]

the 680 just isn't worth it in comparison to the 7970 or 670 imo[/QUOTE]

I would say go 660Ti. Minimal performance loss in comparison to the GK104 chip they use in 670s and 680s. Also, the 660Ti is quite the cheaper buy. Also, one can OC it to outperform a stock 670 easy.

If not 660Ti, then AMD 7950, or 7870. All three are great cards! 670/680 Is overkill unless you want to spend more money on your rig just for the sake of a slight performance increase.

You need better cards to perfectly run games at higher res. anyway!

Edit: I also recommend the 7970.

Here's a graph that shows FPS pr. thousand NOK (Norwegian kroner) in BF3. (Tusenlapp = thousand-NOK-bill)
Res: 1920*1200

[IMG]https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/oimg?key=0AkdlWVAtj3HTdFBaRUdHdWhDR2pybXRFUlVtZU04WkE&oid=1&zx=ud9a599481ca[/IMG]

[odellus]

[QUOTE=userman122;40069175]I would say go 660Ti. Minimal performance loss in comparison to the GK104 chip they use in 670s and 680s. Also, the 660Ti is quite the cheaper buy. Also, one can OC it to outperform a stock 670 easy.

If not 660Ti, then AMD 7950, or 7870. All three are great cards! 670/680 Is overkill unless you want to spend more money on your rig just for the sake of a slight performance increase.

You need better cards to perfectly run games at higher res. anyway!

Edit: I also recommend the 7970.

Here's a graph that shows FPS pr. thousand NOK (Norwegian kroner) in BF3. (Tusenlapp = thousand-NOK-bill)
Res: 1920*1200

[IMG]https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/oimg?key=0AkdlWVAtj3HTdFBaRUdHdWhDR2pybXRFUlVtZU04WkE&oid=1&zx=ud9a599481ca[/IMG][/QUOTE]

nah

[img]http://tpucdn.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GTX_660_Ti_Direct_Cu_II/images/perf_oc.gif[/img]

[editline]28th March 2013[/editline]

i find it kind of funny that you're recommending a mid range card to someone with 5870 cf and a 1600p monitor who's also considering a titan-tier gpu

[userman122]

[QUOTE=Odellus;40069226]nah

[IMG]http://tpucdn.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GTX_660_Ti_Direct_Cu_II/images/perf_oc.gif[/IMG]

[editline]28th March 2013[/editline]

I find it kind of funny that you're recommending a mid range card to someone with 5870 cf and a 1600p monitor who's also considering a titan-tier gpu[/QUOTE]

Why? It's just 10% difference in speed? Also, 660 Ti SLI is a great idea for enthusiast performance! Also, OCed, it can beat a 670. What was the mem and core clocks on that OC in the test?

[Daniellynet]

I might be late here, but when you play at that resolution (I play on 2560x1440) you do NOT need maxed AA, and it's simply idiotic to max it since it destroys your FPS at this resolution.

I tend to play with off, but if anything 2x is enough, 4x is a max if so.

I run two 7970 in crossfire and I can pretty much max every game out there. Crysis is the only game where I struggled with performance, but even then it dipped to ~37 FPS at its lowest, and there were plenty of areas where I did get 70-90 FPS.

[Romka]

I got 2x GTX590 running with a 2560x1600 display. I'm able to max out games like BF3, Metro 2033, Crysis etc... and run them at at least 60fps.

Getting 2x used 590's is cheaper than getting one 690, which would probably do the same job.