Battlefield 3 Performance: 30+ Graphics Cards, Benchmarked

[Novuake]

Interesting reviews showing how the graphics are with gtx 200 series cards. Unfortunately this is just another FPS and hence doesn't interest me enough to jump into the 500 series. Waiting for the 600 series cards is fine by me and at that time I'll try this game out.

GTX 560 is a great card but look at the numbers of the higher cards in the 500 line. Pretty impressive. I've been hearing complaints though that the 500 series cards use too much power. 600 series is suppose to be low power and better performance.

Save for giving me red, I just have too many FPS and am thinking about going to a different platform to play something different such as a side scroller or such.

Why wait for 600 cards??? They will be beyond rediculously expensive and AMD is doing much better at this game so far. Just go with a current HD6xxx. Much cheaper and I have a feeling that new Architectures are coming on both AMD and Nvidia cards, which makes waiting for it a risky business!

 

[Guest]

So....not sure why you would include the snippet about the 6970 achieving better results on the same HQ settings than a GTX 580. They are both the flagship single core cards for each respective company, so this should not be that surprising. Not only that, but the 6970 bested it in High Quality settings by less than a single frame at each resolution, so like I said, I'm not sure why this is noteworthy. If anything they are pretty evenly matched. It does not mean either one is "better" than the other.

And before anyone tries to start a flame war, no I am not just being a fanboy defending Nvidia. I'm just trying to be fair. I just think that both cards are pretty evenly matched on this specific setting for this specific game and should be stated as such.

 

[shin0bi272]

[citation][nom]Novuake[/nom]Why wait for 600 cards??? They will be beyond rediculously expensive and AMD is doing much better at this game so far. Just go with a current HD6xxx. Much cheaper and I have a feeling that new Architectures are coming on both AMD and Nvidia cards, which makes waiting for it a risky business![/citation]

actually there arent too many changes for the southern islands according to the wikipage. The original rumor was it was going to just be a die shrink from the current northern islands chips. Now more details have come to light and there are some changes but its not a totally new architecture like we are getting with the Nvidia card.

 

[Cash091]

Im doing pretty solid right now with 2 GTX460's SLi'd! Playing on Ultra settings with Post off and AA on medium. Runs great!

 

[Novuake]

actually there arent too many changes for the southern islands according to the wikipage. The original rumor was it was going to just be a die shrink from the current northern islands chips. Now more details have come to light and there are some changes but its not a totally new architecture like we are getting with the Nvidia card.

Yeah I noticed, abit of a revision though, it will still be expensive. Atleast until AMD releases HD7000s.

 

[Guest]

My ASUS 6850 gets 54fps to 58pfs at High settings since I installed the latest ATI drivers. They should re-test with the latest drivers. This was done too early

 

[Guest]

Wow! That FXAA looks very interesting.
Though I see that for 4xMSAA you didn't also enable the transparency MSAA, so the trees look jagged.
When using 4xMSAA its always logically a good idea to also enable or force transparency MSAA.
Also, showing the same scene but with low, medium, high and ultra settings would be nice for comparisons.
Thanks for considering this things for your next reviews.

 

[Novuake]

My ASUS 6850 gets 54fps to 58pfs at High settings since I installed the latest ATI drivers. They should re-test with the latest drivers. This was done too early

I believe that was the point.

 

[Guest]

Nice job, I do wish you had included a core 2 duo cpu, just to see any difference and a regular 560 gpu. Some of us will still have to use the older CPU's. And a budget gpu (560).

 

[Novuake]

Nice job, I do wish you had included a core 2 duo cpu, just to see any difference and a regular 560 gpu. Some of us will still have to use the older CPU's. And a budget gpu (560).

CPU strength seem to be irrelevant in this game, I run it on a Pentium Duel E5200.

 

[assassin123]

its a great game specially the graphics of this game are cool

 

[DEY123]

[citation][nom]Novuake[/nom]CPU strength seem to be irrelevant in this game, I run it on a Pentium Duel E5200.[/citation]


Actually I think the article did not do enough testing on CPU strength. I'm running a phenom 2 X3 at 3.7 Ghz, 6GB of RAM, and an OCd 1GB GTX460. I'm playing at 1920 by 1080 with most things on High. I get mid 30s to mid 40s for frame rates in MP.

Anyhow when I alt-tab out I notice that my GPU is sitting at 70 to 90% and I have 2 cores at 95%+ and the third at about 90%. On other games I'll see my GPU cranked at 98 to 100% and my CPU at much lower numbers (which is what I would expect based on this review). Maybe MP is more CPU straining then SP as Tom's test was just on SP.

What I am guessing is that in some set ups on 64 multi player the CPU could limit as it sems to be limiting my current set up a bit

 

[Guest]

GTX 480 Should be in the Ultra since I have it and it gives me 60 FPS average on 1920x1080

 

[shaitis]

Ok one more test pls.

What about latest IMAC GPU... will 6970M(2Gb) be sufficient to invest in BF3 ?

 

[Guest]

very good write up, I have a buddy that will be very interested in this

 

[Guest]

GREAT ARTICLE!

Just wanted to chime in...
My system running 6850's in crossfire results in stutters and the same FPS as I get with crossfire disabled. Pretty much unplayable. There are posts everywhere about the crossfire issues. Updated to 11.10 and CAP4 with no answer in sight. Really disappointing even though the 6850 will manage med/high settings at 1080p multiplayer for now.

 

[Guest]

The 1680*1050 being a 17'' resolution was a sad attempt at being funny (or maybe you were thinking laptops?) - 22'' monitors with 1680*1050 are very common and the difference between that resolution and HD resolution is less than dramatic - there is even a significant number of people playing below that (and no, they do not own a 15'' screen).

Although I really do appreciate the effort put into this, I think the ''cost/performance'' ratio of this review is pretty low. You did mention problems with the validity of the test and i think what you should have realized is that BF3 can be a completely different game given the changing circumstances that develop while playing the game. As such, a part of a level with the most reliable/repeatable scores should be the worst candidate for a benchmark. That part is almost a cut-scene that is easily optimized and very predictable. The results of this benchmark can only say which cards can run the game, and which cant - its sensitivity ends there and leaves us guessing the performance through roughly 95% of the game.

 

[Novuake]

GREAT ARTICLE!

Just wanted to chime in...
My system running 6850's in crossfire results in stutters and the same FPS as I get with crossfire disabled. Pretty much unplayable. There are posts everywhere about the crossfire issues. Updated to 11.10 and CAP4 with no answer in sight. Really disappointing even though the 6850 will manage med/high settings at 1080p multiplayer for now.

The HD68xx have known issues with Xfire, they are the exception to the rule.

 

[rambaye]

MANY THANKS TO YOU AND YOUR TEAM WHO WORKED SO HARD TO GIVE US THE BEST .
VERY INFORMATIVE ARTICLE

 

[Reaver192]

Hey I was wondering if anyone has a benchmark for a AMD 965BE running 2x5870's. I can play on high in single player with textures set to ultra, but only medium OS playable in multiplayer? Does anyone else think that performance sounds weak for my system?

 

[f-14]

nobody else seems to have mentioned something i have noticed, the older vid cards with the beefier memory bus (256 bit and up) and most ram (896MB+)seem to have less problems work load wise to performance ratio considering all the new gpu and ram speed improvements. seems like no matter what you buy if it's bus speed is not 256bit or higher it's not worth spending more then $100+ on.
anybody else noticing this?
yes it sounds whacked, but i see something this chart doesn't explain very well.
charted performance between the current gen cards and their predecessors should show this curve dropping off more and more with each new generation despite speed increases and better optimizations being hidden under the guise of DX11.
the performance ration should be going up radically more with a gtx 570 vs. a gtx 275 and the same with 6870 vs. 3870

 

[metallifux]

Would have been good to see the generic prices of the cards next to there names in the benchmarks charts

 

[dudeguzman]

Any updates since the last driver updates.. WAiting to buy a card but need the info.. Are the 6990 cards working now? How about a set of 6990 +6970 trifire review of bf3....? Man I need that...

 

[dudeguzman]

I play ut3 EXCLUSIVELY. I run a 6990 now with a simple w2252 LG (1680x1050). (I really like this TN) I plan to upgrade with 2 more thin bezels soon. Maybe to 5. I really need to see about the bezels thing first. I see zero issues, as I think I can deal with it.

My saph 6990 CANNOT do max everything with UT3. I get artifacts. Now it does play very smooth and awesome, until it gets VERY busy. Especially on big maps. UT3 is VERY fast.

The other games with fancy leaves, and, fancy details, well you can have fun with that. I LOVE fast paced FSP games. UT3 is king. But with an OCed 930 4.2, MSI bg bang, Mushkin @ 1600, Intel SSD, Corsair 1000w, MS win 7 machine, MY HD6990 cannot do it, full everything. Period.

Maybe, with the extra LCDs, especially at other resolutions, I don't know. My machine rocks. Dont get me wrong. Just not at very high settings.

All of my reports from 3Dmark etc report very good results, all around. If anyone has any input as per my setup. Or, Qs, Please, feel free to ask. Input will always be taken with best thoughts.

UT3???? R u saying you think you can run mulit monitors with this game just off that card?

 

[danwat1234]

Thank you for the article, especially about the AMD 8150 Dual core! Very helpful