Yet another spec me a BF3 GPU thread

[L33]

I appreciate these threads are getting a bit tiresome but hopefully someone will stumble in here to help me out
I currently have 2x4890's and want to replace them for BF3.
I seem to be very sensitive to low FPS and even though the 4890's will play BF3 at 30-50fps on a mixture of medium/high/ultra, I've set everything to low and dropped the res from 1920x1200 to 1680x1050 with no AA because it is much much smoother (70-100 fps).
I'm after a new card that will let me play BF3 with most/all of settings at maximum (bar AA, 2x or 4x will do) at 1920x1200 and not drop below 60fps.

Doing some investigating, I've only come across a few options that can realistically deliver this:
6990 4Gb
GTX 590 3Gb
2x 6970 2Gb
2x 580 3Gb

...unless I am missing something?
I'm guessing that the single card solutions (6990/590) may be better options for me as I could add a second at a later date if needed?

Any help, advice or personal experiences appreciated

 

[L33]

single 570, 580 or single 6950, 6970 will be fine for 1080p

I'd personally get a 580 3GB and SLI it later.

I don't think a single 580 would maintain 60fps+ on ultra settings though: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=20190251&postcount=301

Although I do appreciate that the game may be more optimised upon release.

 

[L33]

Perhaps we should find out what motherboard the OP has before suggesting Nvidia cards and then "SLI in the future".

Also what power supply does the OP have?

Whoops, forgot to mention that

Current spec is:
Asus P6T Deluxe (x58)
i7 @ ~4.4Ghz
PC Power & Cooling 910w PSU

You know, I didn't even think of that - do the x58s even support SLI?!
Upgrading motherboard isn't out of the question, but it would be silly to not change to socket 1155 meaning a CPU upgrade too. What I have seems to be good enough for the time being.

 

[L33]

Your motherboard is SLI compatible and your PSU would be fine for 2 GTX 580's if it came to that.

Thank you, appreciate the info

 

[L33]

OP, I bought a Gigabyte 580 3gb the other day mainly for bf3 and it runs around 70 FPS highest settings with temps of 52C. Im running my 860 at 4ghz which might also help. when ultra is activated it shouldnt be much less FPS than this. My opinion anything more is overkill sli, quad sli etc etc just for guys who the bench on 3dmark and people with high res and more than 1 screen. The 580 lightning is better than mine, probably the best but depends how much you want to spend. Dont go wasting money if you dont need to the games developers arent even up to speed with these high end cards anyway.

Thank you for taking the time to post that, exactly the sort of info I was looking for
I think I've narrowed it down to either a 580 3Gb or a 6990. Just weighing up whether it is worth the extra £100 for the 6990 for a little extra future-proofing.

 

[L33]

Thanks everyone for all the help and advice. Think I am going to go with a 6990 after doing some more research

I have the gtx 580 3gb I play at 1080 res and I can max out all setting with max AA with an fps of 70-100...

I disagree that a single 580 is enough for BF3 on ultra settings, mine is clocked at 972MHz and I have had to lower a number of settings already to achieve 60+ FPS.

I'm thinking that a single 580 isn't enough too, however people are reporting such varied results. Whether some are over-optimistic or maybe bending the truth a little I don't know.

 

[L33]

Can I ask OP.. what is your system spec and what drivers are you using with your xfire 4890's? I cant seem to get above 40fps on even the lowest settings at 1366x768 with 4870x2 :/

Do you have Catalyst AI turned on and to advanced in CCC? That made a big difference for me. My spec is an i7 at 4.4Ghz, Asus P6T deluxe and an OCZ vertex 2e.