Cant max the new games with R9 280 and i5 4430s 2.7 ghz CPU, what should I upgrade or it's normal?

[M05K]

Hello everyone!

I cant max the new games with R9 280 and i5 4430s 2.7 ghz CPU is it normal? and what should I upgrade?

Thank you!

 

[maxalge]

Hello everyone!

I cant max the new games with R9 280 and i5 4430s 2.7 ghz CPU is it normal? and what should I upgrade?

Thank you!

would help if you posted which games you are trying to max

plus the resolution you play at

 

[Archaic59]

If you want to max games you need a high end video card like GTX 970. Your i5 is still good enough to use for a while longer.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 970 4GB STRIX Video Card ($318.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $318.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-08-11 06:14 EDT-0400

 

[M05K]

GTA 5 - 1920x1080
Witcher 3 - 1920x1080
Tomb Raider - 1920x1080
Far Cry 4 - 1920x1080 (ONLY CAN PLAY IT AT MEDIUM, to get 60fps >.<)

 

[maxalge]

GTA 5 - 1920x1080
Witcher 3 - 1920x1080
Tomb Raider - 1920x1080
Far Cry 4 - 1920x1080 (ONLY CAN PLAY IT AT MEDIUM, to get 60fps >.<)

you do not have the components to max those games, sorry

tomb raider you should run very high/high

the rest mixing medium/high

 

[M05K]

All the games I want to play are NVIDIA, I will uprade my GPU to NVIDIA thats 4 sure.

 

[Jak_Sparra]

GTA 5 - 1920x1080
Witcher 3 - 1920x1080
Tomb Raider - 1920x1080
Far Cry 4 - 1920x1080 (ONLY CAN PLAY IT AT MEDIUM, to get 60fps >.<)

Well they are pretty much the most demanding games out at the moment and even top end cards will struggle with certain settings like that hair effect in Witcher 3. I think you should buy a GTX 980Ti and then you can play them pretty much maxed out, or just put a few of the settings down to get a nice frame rate on your existing card.

 

[cdrkf]

GTA 5 - 1920x1080
Witcher 3 - 1920x1080
Tomb Raider - 1920x1080
Far Cry 4 - 1920x1080 (ONLY CAN PLAY IT AT MEDIUM, to get 60fps >.<)

Well I wouldn't rely on the presets for one thing. What I think you'll find is if you go through the various settings individually you'll be able to get most of them up to decent visuals (I have a 280 and it's a pretty decent card).

Things you should leave off for more performance:
- All forms of AA (seriously I don't get why people are obsessed with AA when frankly I think it makes things look worse).
- Anything that says the word 'Gamesworks' on it as that is nVidia propriatory software that generally runs poorly on AMD cards (e.g. HairWorks in Witcha).
- Games with a 'tessalation' setting need to be turned down a bit on older AMD cards like the 280 (their newer 285 / 380 has improved tessalation performace but the 280 is first gen GCN which supports it but not to the level of the newest cards, frankly it only makes a minor difference anyway).

Things you shoudl be able to crank up to keep the game looking lovely:
- Textures shoudl be fine as that card has a nice big 3gb frame buffer (plenty for 1080p).
- Shadows and lighting effects should all be fine as the 280 has good shader performance
- View distances and so on.

The other thing I'd point out, when you actually do a visual comparison of a game configured like the above, to absolute max settings, most people would struggle to tell the difference 😛 I mean Toms recently did a Freesync vs Gsync test where one of the tests had Battlefield 4 on max on an AMD card and reduced to high on the nVidia card (to get higher frame rates) and most people didn't even know the settings were difference despite the reduction adding 20+ fps.

Also your targeting a pretty high FPS, a 280 should manage close to maximum settings at 30fps in all modern games. To get minimum fps above 60 will require a reduction in settings though (I mean even GTX 980 / R9 390X cards can't always maintain 60+ fps max settings at 1080p in those games).

I would consider how many FPS you actually need in those games. Only really Far Cry 4 should need it being a FPS. 3rd person games like GTA, Witcher and Tomb Raider should play fine if you keep minimums above 30 and average in the 40+ fps ranges.

Final thought have you tried the AMD Raptr Gaming Evolved app, all of those games should be covered and I'd imagine it will sort all the advanced settings out for you...

Edit: In answer to your question about upgrades- your CPU is pretty good for gaming so probably no need to upgrade that (base clock is a little low but remember i5's turbo up like crazy). To get higher FPS you'd need a more powerful GPU, although the 280 is a pretty good upper mid level card so you'd have to look at something quite expensive to make it a worthwhile jump (probably an R9 390 / 390 X or GTX 970 / 980 card to be worth doing). That said if you can live with lowered settings a little longer there will be new 'HBM 2' equipped cards coming out towards the end of next year from both AMD (Arctic Islands family) and nVidia (Pascal family) which should both be substantially faster than the current gen stuff.

 

[corndog1836]

The answer to your question is you need yo update your vid ed o card... a 980 or as 980ti will be great for 1080 p ultra for those titles...

 

[M05K]

For Far Cry 4 I need 60FPS 4 sure, for being a FPS, I would like to play all the games at 60 FPS it would be smoother and better gameplay experience, I can handle with 40-50 too but everyone loves the max. If we have the money to buy the hardware...

 

[corndog1836]

For Far Cry 4 I need 60FPS 4 sure, for being a FPS, I would like to play all the games at 60 FPS it would be smoother and better gameplay experience, I can handle with 40-50 too but everyone loves the max. If we have the money to buy the hardware...

Absolutely. SEE RIG IN SIG....if you got the money get the 980 or 980ti

 

[corndog1836]

is your issue resolved? can we help further?

 

[M05K]

Yes it is Sir, sorry for late answer, was in vacations. I'll choose the Best Answer 😀