GPU snobbery?

ojgbrown

ojgbrown

ojgbrown

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I wanted to get peoples general thoughts on this. I have posted in general rather than graphics cards as the topic relates to a GPU's performance relative to other components and peoples perceptions of what they do and do not need, so it is a more 'general' topic.

I recently upgraded from an M4A78-VM mobo, X2 550 BE cpu @ stock, 4GB DDR2, to a Z68 ASRock pro3, i5-2500k @stock, 8GB DDR3.

My GPU is a 5770 1gb.


Whilst I was of course eagerly anticipating a significant leap in performance across the board- including in gaming, I have been stunned by just how big the leap has been. Gaming performance was not satisfactory before the upgrade and from what I had seen and read I was convinced my 5770 wasnt up to snuff when it came to playing the latest games at the highest settings.

However, with a 2500k and 8gb ram all of a sudden the 5770 is running the most demanding games at the highest settings. Perhaps not at 60fps sure but at more than playable rates. For example:

- I can play Deus Ex: HR at 1080p with eveything absolutely maxed at a constant 30fps+

- crysis runs at 1080p with everything maxed apart from AA which is at 4x at a consistent 30fps+

- The witcher 2 runs at 1080p at a solid 20-25 fps with everything maxed apart from ubersampling and draw distance.


I haven't even overclocked the CPU yet. The 5770 is overclocked to 900/1350.




My point is that I constantly see people commenting on how much GPU horsepower you need to run the latest games on max settings and whilst I accept 'run' is a vague term (can mean anything from booting up, to playable to consistent 60fps gaming depending on who you are asking). I see all kinds of posts that just confuse me- one I read recently said you would need two 460's in SLI to run Crysis on max at 1080p. TWO. From my experience as long as the rest of your components are good quality one will more than do the job (460 is notably faster than my 5770).

Why pump hundreds into 6970's and 580's when from what I am seeing a 2500k/8gb ram/6870 or equivalent combo would blitz anything available at the moment.


Obviously playing at higher resolutions and with multi monitor gaming things change but I am not talking about this, I am referring specifically to 1080p gaming on a single monitor.


My opinion is that people talk a lot of crap to justify the huge amounts of cash they spend on GPU power that they don't need to obtain the performance they desire.

Not having a go at anybody, this is just meant as an open forum for a well meaning debate on the subject.
 
Todays highest spec graphics cards are tomorrows ebay bargains, I certainly dont lose any sleep over not having the best gpu at all times.
 
Absolutely, but I think it goes further than that- I think that enthusiast generally hype up products to such an extent that people think you need a lot more GPU power than you actually do to run everything on max.

Think about it, look at the tech thats in a 360 or PS3- it is dated, ageing technology. Something like a 5770 or 460 is an absolute monster in terms of gaming grunt in comparison but you still get people insistant you need 570's and 6950's to max games that they have running (albeit in lesser quality) on consoles.
 
Not anything, most things. Some games require horsepower to get the best out of them. At the moment, games don't really stretch PC hardware, the vast majority of them are console ports. But I'd agree to some extent. I'd get a 6950 2GB at the moment (although I have a 560ti). I've always aimed at the high-mid range market, used to be £150, now it's more like £200. Inflation and all that.
 
I had always intended to ugprade my 5770 as well, and I still intend to but whereas I was going to do it a couple of months ago I am now waiting until the 7000 series cards come out then I will try and pick up a cheap 6000 series card such as a 6870 or 6950 and sell my 5770 so hopefully getting a big increase in power for not much money.
 
I don't know what threads you are speaking of. However certainly in the builds threads i've posted on we try to get the best level of performance to the budget.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/296?vs=290

That link compares the 5770 to the 6870. Both cards can be bought new for roughly the same price especially with offers. It's not that the 5770 isn't capable of gaming it's just been outclassed at it's price point.
 
ojgbrown said:
- I can play Deus Ex: HR at 1080p with eveything absolutely maxed at a constant 30fps+
Click to expand...

30fps isn't really enough for me though. I'd rather 50-60fps :P

And I didn't pay too much more than £100 for my 5850 :)

I wouldn't really go far past a 5850 though. I'm more one for "best bang for the buck", and 5850 was last gen's best bang for buck (or this gen's, if you can get it for around £1-130), and 6950 is the current best bang for buck (assuming around £200).
 
With most new games using >2 cores I wouldn't be surprised if you got a similar performance improvement from something like a Phenom II X4 955, which can be had for very cheap. Lots of people build the most powerful computer they can afford, rather than saving money for upgrades and building something cheaper which will still do everything they want it to.

Oh and consoles aren't comparable to PC's as far as graphics goes.
 
ng93 said:
With most new games using >2 cores I wouldn't be surprised if you got a similar performance improvement from something like a Phenom II X4 955, which can be had for very cheap.
Click to expand...

the OP would see nothing like the improvement he got by simply upgrading to a Phenom II X4 955. yes he would get an improvement, but each of the i5 2500k's cores can do so much more work per clock it would be an amazing upgrade from a Phenom II X4 955
 
Reaper 392 said:
the OP would see nothing like the improvement he got by simply upgrading to a Phenom II X4 955. yes he would get an improvement, but each of the i5 2500k's cores can do so much more work per clock it would be an amazing upgrade from a Phenom II X4 955
Click to expand...

I disagree. In gaming I noticed no change in fps going from an athlon II x4 620 to an i5 2500k at 1080p in all the games I play. This is with a GTX 470.
 
Reaper 392 said:
the OP would see nothing like the improvement he got by simply upgrading to a Phenom II X4 955. yes he would get an improvement, but each of the i5 2500k's cores can do so much more work per clock it would be an amazing upgrade from a Phenom II X4 955
Click to expand...

I'm not saying a 955 is as powerful as a 2500k (it's obviously not), just that it would be enough of an upgrade to shift the bottleneck from the CPU to the GPU.
 
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Well ive just upgraded my 3870 after just over 3yrs of service, and it was still running all the latest games at 1600x1200 with mid to high detail smoothly, but just wasnt cutting the 1920x1200 that I wanted to use, so I have lovely 16:9 instead of 4:3.

So with a bit of luck my 6950 will last as long as my 3870 did
 
My sons system (my old one) still plays everything without any problems and thats a 7750 be cpu. on a £30 gigabyte MB. with a 2gig of 800mhz ocz ram. and a cheap 9800gt 1gb graphics card.

That system never let me down once. And as said it still plays everything thats out today. only in dx10 mode but it does play it. 36fps in crysis on max settings isnt that bad at all and was pretty playable.

And my new system that i spent a lot of money on is now a redundant box as after only 2 months the £300 motherboarrd needed to be RMA'd. wile the cheap 30 gigabyte still soldiers on.

his cpu cooler broke the otherday. well the fan that clicked into the centre. so I just celotaped a 140mm fan in between the towers and it still works fine. the rig is ghetto as anything. but it does what it is supposed to do. I think it only cost me £300 to build the whole thing about 3 years ago lol.

Never let snobbery put you off m8. their is far to much of this keeping up with the jones's going on nowdays. All because some numpty that does video reveiws on youtube says you need the latest tech. when in fact its fine for them to say that because they don't ever have to actualy pay for their own rogs. they just use what ever is donated to them for that period of time.

If you are happy the way your system i.s dont let people bully you into thinking you need the latest tech.

When you need an upgrade then you will know when you need it. after all its you that uses it.
 
Which is why I've switched focus to *value* - I find it far more pleasurable running cheap hardware than being lazy and forking out for the most expensive card out there.

Tweaking / overclocking and OS tuning in the value range gives one rewarding challenges :) Guess you understand my signature now ?

Threads like this : http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18307630 are simply inspirational :D
 
Interesting, the OP has kind of confirmed what i have experienced very recently.

Having bought a 560ti OC, i was finding that on Deus Ex: HE that at times when outside in the world framerate would drop through the floor, determined this wasn't the GPU i went and overclocked my QX6700 to 3.1Ghz.

I was amazed the difference it made, so much smoother and mostly it runs at 60fps limit for my TV (60hz). Now i'm left contemplating a mobo,CPU and RAM upgrade to cope with todays gaming :/

And there was me thinking gaming was no longer so CPU dependant!
 
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I was recently planning a full upgrade myself,but after sitting down and thinking about it i really don't need to my rig plays all my games at 1920x1080 with great fps,Maybe ill wait till BD comes out,But i doubt i'll need to upgrade then tbh.
 
I hope this is relevant to the topic at hand, Currently planning a I5 8gb build to replace my ageing e6600 system but iam hoping to keep my ati 4890 1gb in service for at least another year.

I always used to keep on top of the latest graphics cards but have found that the latest bigger and better numbers dont always help as much as you want.
 
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