Battlefield 3 Performance: 30+ Graphics Cards, Benchmarked

[sir_martin]

Thank you for taking the time to do this.

I was however curious about VRAM consumption at various resolutions/quality settings and how this could effect performance. Nvidia's 580 gtx, for example has 1.5gb and 3gb offerings. I'm assuming you're using the 1.5gb version in these tests.

 

[peanut_316]

How do u record the FPS on the game? and How do u take screenshots of the game at 5760x1080?

Currently i7-950, 3way sli 570s on 3 25" asus monitors...

thx if u can answer the 2 questions

 

[ern88]

Use fraps to see in game FPS Peanut. The other question. Beats me

 

[Guest]

Fantastic, well done.

I'd like a follow-up with more on CPUs though. You say that any modern CPU is OK, but I'd like to see an Athlon X4 (they're still releasing new ones in 2011) benchmark before I believe you

 

[Mastervivi10]

Great article as always tom.

 

[rromano22]

My hd 5870 runs this game FLAWLESSLY on high settings. Just thought i'd throw that out there in case you were looking at this specific card. I haven't even got the slightest glitch and it's a steady 60fps. (which is plenty)

 

[rromano22]

My hd 5870 runs this game FLAWLESSLY on high settings. Just thought i'd throw that out there in case you were looking at this specific card. I haven't even got the slightest glitch and it's a steady 60fps. (which is plenty)

 

[spentshells]

There should have been a 550ti from nv not a 460 768

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]ojas[/nom]BTW Chris, doesn't the carpet stand a chance of frying all those lovely i-wish-they-were-mine (alternatively: i-wish-i-worked-at-Tom's ) cards due to ESD?Or is that an anti-static rug? Just curious[/citation]

Never had a problem with it before. Normally I wouldn't set them down bare like that, but delirium had set in at some point and the assembly line got a little more sloppy ;-)

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]borden5[/nom]is that 6950 model 1gb or 2gb ?[/citation]

It was a 2 GB. Good question; I'll update.

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]sir_martin[/nom]Thank you for taking the time to do this.I was however curious about VRAM consumption at various resolutions/quality settings and how this could effect performance. Nvidia's 580 gtx, for example has 1.5gb and 3gb offerings. I'm assuming you're using the 1.5gb version in these tests.[/citation]

Correct, 3 GB.

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]peanut_316[/nom]How do u record the FPS on the game? and How do u take screenshots of the game at 5760x1080?Currently i7-950, 3way sli 570s on 3 25" asus monitors...thx if u can answer the 2 questions[/citation]

Fraps/F10

 

[Guest]

Chris, you're one of the best members of TH ever. A Spanish.

 

[triculious]

A great article Mr. Angelini. Lots of hardware, lots of tests, lots of dedication... and it shows!

Keep up the good work.

 

[caamsa]

Any plans to crossfire or sli any lower powered cards like the 4850 or the 5770 or the 250gts etc.......like most of us common folk use on our systems?

 

[zeromikey]

Wondering does that statment about turning off hyper threading smooth it out for most CPUs or mainly have they seen it on the i7-2600k?

 

[Maxor127]

I get bad stuttering and don't have Hyper Threading. I think this game has a memory leak or something because performance seems to degrade significantly over time. A game might be extremely smooth when I join a match, but then become extremely jerky 3 rounds later. What really annoys me is that I'll alt-tab out, and the game will be running really smooth in the background.

 

[clonazepam]

Well I gotta throw my 2 cents in:

Angelini:

Battlefield 3's single-player campaign doesn’t care if you’re using a $130 Core i3 or $315 Core i7

You can throw in a similarly clocked Q6600 ($50 used) paired with DDR2 RAM. With it's 570 and a couple levels into the campaign, I can say that with it at "High" setting and 1920x1080 it averages 60fps all day...

For some reason I have to run the 570 stock to keep away from crashes, unlike other titles and benches, but since it avg's 60 and doesn't fall below 30 its good to go anyway.

Edit: Excellent article, btw... I think your benchmark run is probably very close to 'campaign' performance. I'll find out next week what 2 580s will do in 64 player combat, and 3D Vision (if it works).

 

[-Fran-]

Great article as usual, Mr Chris!

Could you update the SLI charts with 2xGTX560ti's when you can get them, pretty please? 8)

Also, since 2x6990's can max out BF and don't seem to be GPU bottlenecking it, could you make some CPU measurement for the game? You know, the usual Ghz per core scaling you always do 8)

That would be awesome.

Cheers!

 

[peanut_316]

for cangelini...the screenshot is like a 640x480 pic...it won't do the fullscreen 5760x1080

 

[mofogo]

So I'm cheap and finally getting Windows 7 this week. That being said, I have a dated system to say the least. I'm a little encouraged seeing my 4870 at the bottom of the high quality chart meaning maybe I could play it, with few tweak downs to get some FPS back. BUT, I'm rocking a Core 2 Duo 8600 (the 3.3ghz one) and 4GB of GSkill DDR2-1333. (i-7 had just come out and were out of my price range). What would be my realistic expectations of playing this game?

 

[CupoJoe]

I don’t always get to play games, but when I do, I enjoy seeing high-end hardware deliver ever-more realistic experiences.

Nice.
Hey Chris if you hear back from Nvidia on those issues you were having, let us know. I'm experiencing the same thing.

 

[mayankleoboy1]

nice review,toms!
+1

 

[badtaylorx]

well now.......2x6970's beating up on 2x580's....

didn't see that one comming!!!

 

[Guest]

Have my triple monitor system running at 5760x1080. Back when I was building my machine I decided I wasn't worried about gaming on my PC (wish I would have rethought that) but oh well have two Sapphire 5770 VaporXs in crossfire right now at Medium settings, game still looks really good, I played the intro level on Ultra before switching and it worked great but the open levels hurt, so I switched. Now I'll be tuning individual settings more. Wish I could have waited to build my new machine for the 6000 series cards those scaling numbers are great.