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Jaffacake106

Jaffacake106

Jaffacake106

Associate
Joined
2 Feb 2010
Posts
29
Location
Newcastle Upon Tyne
Hi Chaps, just a quick question here... I currently have the asus rampage 2 extreme motherboard and im after upgrading my graphics card to either a GTX 680/GTX 690 (both PCI 3.0 i believe) I just want to check these cards will run in a 2.0 slot. And also would it be worth updating my motherboard so that i can update my i7 chip as it was one of the first i7's on the market. (socket 1366)

any help would be great, Thanks.
 
What games do you play and at what resolution?

670 is only 5% slower than a 680 but a lot cheaper. 5% is not a lot of FPS.
 
Hi, thanks for the replies, I play a lot of battlefield and DayZ, Ideally i want to run DayZ flawlessly on maximum settings, and be updated ready to run the standalone on release so i need a tad future proofing.

I'm kind of wondering if my old i7 will hold me back?
 
Jaffacake106 said:
Hi, thanks for the replies, I play a lot of battlefield and DayZ, Ideally i want to run DayZ flawlessly on maximum settings, and be updated ready to run the standalone on release so i need a tad future proofing.

I'm kind of wondering if my old i7 will hold me back?
Click to expand...

The 670 is close enough to the 680 that when you reach the point where a 670 in not sufficient, a 680 will not be either. The 670 is Nvidia's sweet spot at the higher end, and so going beyond that really pushes you into diminishing returns on your money. If you want Nvidia, I'd say get a 670 and add another if and when more performance is needed. As mentioned before however, 670 SLI will likely be bottlenecked by your CPU, so it may be worth upgrading your CPU, Mobo and RAM before adding a second card (if/when a second is needed).
 
Jaffacake106 said:
Hi Chaps, just a quick question here... I currently have the asus rampage 2 extreme motherboard and im after upgrading my graphics card to either a GTX 680/GTX 690 (both PCI 3.0 i believe) I just want to check these cards will run in a 2.0 slot. And also would it be worth updating my motherboard so that i can update my i7 chip as it was one of the first i7's on the market. (socket 1366)

any help would be great, Thanks.
Click to expand...

A GTX 690 goes very well on X58, but you must get your CPU clock speed up to about 4.0ghz or you will bottleneck it. The same applies to using 2 x GTX 670/80s.

If you do change your CPU/mobo avoid i5 3570s or similar they are a downgrade from what you are using now for multi GPUs.
 
Jaffacake106 said:
Hi, thanks for the replies, I play a lot of battlefield and DayZ, Ideally i want to run DayZ flawlessly on maximum settings, and be updated ready to run the standalone on release so i need a tad future proofing.

I'm kind of wondering if my old i7 will hold me back?
Click to expand...

U will not be able to max out DayZ and keep good framerates that engine is too old and badly optimized.

Arma 2 engine is really cpu intensive and it doesnt work very well with SLI so your best bet would be as ppl above me suggested get GTX 670.

Before i upgraded to GTX 690 i had GTX 680 and in DayZ i had better framerates than im having now. It was a mixture of High/very high settings.
 
I can max ARMA 2 out on my 680 with the 8xAA option, do get slowdowns in certain parts though and it's actually a disadvantage using full AA as it makes the foliage appear bushier/blended and thus harder to see people hiding in it.
 
SaTrOx said:
U will not be able to max out DayZ and keep good framerates that engine is too old and badly optimized.

Arma 2 engine is really cpu intensive and it doesnt work very well with SLI so your best bet would be as ppl above me suggested get GTX 670.

Before i upgraded to GTX 690 i had GTX 680 and in DayZ i had better framerates than im having now. It was a mixture of High/very high settings.
Click to expand...

You can easily run a GTX 690 at the same clocks as a GTX 680 and get the same performance off one core.

Heres a little hickup I had earlier today when I benched my GTX 690 on the X Preset of 3dmark11

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/5799274

I forgot to enable SLI and went round on one core and still got a score a lot of GTX 680s would be proud of.
 
Kaapstad said:
A GTX 690 goes very well on X58, but you must get your CPU clock speed up to about 4.0ghz or you will bottleneck it. The same applies to using 2 x GTX 670/80s.

If you do change your CPU/mobo avoid i5 3570s or similar they are a downgrade from what you are using now for multi GPUs.
Click to expand...
Agreed, even with a single card, the 3570k is actually a slight downgrade from my old 4.2ghz i7 920. Bf3 in particular benefited from the 920's hyperthreading.
 
I'm running a Xeon 1155 which is similar in speed to a 1366 quad core being ran around 3.8ghz.

I run 670 SLI which tbh does get held back at the high end of FPS. However, all is not lost as my minimum FPS in Hitman Absolution and Sleeping dogs went from mid to high 20s to 48 and 52 respectively.

What I mean is that yeah there are faster CPUs on the market but what you have will be good enough for gaming for a long time to come. I've not seen a 4ghz quad core as a requirement to any game yet.
 
Jaffacake106 said:
cheers for the input guys, perhaps the 670 is the way to go then. I was planning a completely new rig but i dont have 2 grand handy lol
Click to expand...

You don't need a new rig mate. Absolutely not.

A GTX 670 is the perfect choice for a 1366. You can add another later on.
 
ALXAndy said:
You don't need a new rig mate. Absolutely not.

A GTX 670 is the perfect choice for a 1366. You can add another later on.
Click to expand...

+1

Invest in a better cooler for your CPU and see if you can get closer to 4.0ghz.

Your CPU is good for a few more years as a top gaming processor.
 
Kaapstad said:
You can easily run a GTX 690 at the same clocks as a GTX 680 and get the same performance off one core.
Click to expand...

Do u have some sort of aftermarket cooler or stock one that comes with 690 ?
I dont really want to overclock the card as the full load temps are about 83C.
 
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