Enthusiast Index vs. 'The Witcher 2'

[Ratsneve]

I'm building a new PC while playing The Witcher 2 on my old high-end laptop. The Witcher 2 is now the first game telling me for sure that the laptop's gaming days are numbered.

So, if I'm understanding the explanations of the gamer and enthusiast indexes correctly and I work with a 100% or higher on the enthusiast scale I need to pick a card in that range and it should be able to play 'The Witcher 2' with its Ultra game settings? What Fraps fps would I expect to get too--what is the normal range--or what is the fps enthusiast range?

What does it mean if a card index rates 200% on the enthusiast scale? Would that mean that one of those cards would be 'twice' as likely to run 'The Witcher 2' with its highest settings and/or twice the fps?

[Edited heavily...]

 

[Ratsneve]

It turns out that EVGA is one of the largest graphic card manufacturers including overclocked versions yet even their overclocked versions are not mentioned in the charts. What is the explanation I am still missing?

Thank you for the help.

 

[bypolar]

I am too curious why Toms has no EVGA cards listed?Concerning the FPS I am under the impression that 60 is max on most panels these day since they have a 60hertz spec.

 

[Ratsneve]

I'll sure be glad when my new build is done!

I found this article on frame rate in Wikipedia interesting...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frame_rate

I think I've read enough here and there to conclude that 30 to 60 fps during intense action is acceptable. Considering the gamer and enthusiast indexes of graphic cards and lack of any information yet otherwise that I have found anywhere I'm going to assume that a gamer index of 100% on a card will mean that that card during an intense action situation should at least meet a minimum of 30 fps. Likewise for the enthusiast that same card would not be satisfactory but a card for the enthusiast 100% index should exceed well past 30 fps during battle...maybe 50 or 60 fps. Does this mean a 200% mark will peg fps at 60 in very intense action/battles? Who knows!

To me it is pretty obvious that this thread is being neglected because the issues with frame rate and EVGA overclocked cards not included in your rating index have been discussed 1 million times already and you are all sick and tired of the subjects. That still doesn't help me one darn bit. Just using Google now I found this thread on the subject finally here on Tom's Hardware no less...

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/evga-geforce-gtx-460-ftw-01g-p3-1378-tr-overclocked,2795.html

I'm sorry putting EVGA's overclocked cards in your graphics card chart(s) 'doesn't sit well' with you even when nVidia asked you too. Get over it TH. If you are going to be biased this way about it I should look elsewhere for unbiased charts--but that would be really to bad because you may very well do the best charts otherwise.

 

[jyjjy]

Factory overclocked cards are nothings special. Any card can be easily overclocked by the user. Paying the company to do it for you(and usually to a level well below what the card can handle) is just a waste of money. Don't look for a card with a high speed, look for one with the best cooling and overclock on your own.
As for Tom's not including the cards you specifically want in their charts you are the one who should get over it. They don't have to do what you or Nvidia wants and their reasons are good ones. Nvidia didn't have to start selling cards with artificially low reference speeds while most of the cards are actually sold with an OC that varies widely from card to card. I don't know why they started doing it but it has a lot less sensible reasoning behind it than Tom's reasons not to list the OCed cards. If Tom's doesn't do things the way you want look at any of the dozen's of other tech sites that cover graphics cards or simply do some quick mental math to estimate where a card with whatever OC you are looking at would fall on the chart. It's not a big deal.

 

[Ratsneve]

I certainly don't have the technical understanding to see or accept why EVGA seems to be singled out and absent in the charts while, for all I know, all the other OC cards are there. I thought that was how charts were suppose to help me? And I don't understand TH's reasoning or bias against not only EVGA but apparently some dislike of nVidia. And here I thought TH was independent and fair?

 

[jyjjy]

I don't use Tom's charts to be honest. There are better sites for that kind of thing.
Techpowerup is a good one. Every video card review includes all current cards and has a performance summary at the end for every resolution.
http://www.techpowerup.com/

 

[Ratsneve]

Thanks for the input. I've added TechPowerUp.

 

[Ratsneve]

Best answer selected by Ratsneve.

 

[jyjjy]

If you are interested in overclocking on your own this is a good site to look at;
http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/
All the card reviews have benchmarks for stock as well as fully overclocked both for the card being reviewed and a bunch of other cards in the same general performance area.