GPU for crysis 3

Jan 21, 2013
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Would a gtx titan be better than two 7950s or two 660ti ? I mainly play crysis 3...but the recent articles about frame time or something like that confuse me from buying these setups and even 670s and 7970s are in the list..!
 
The Titan most of the time is only around 40% better than the 7970 GE. Of course the 7970 can be OCed astronomically, and thus most of the time its only around 30% (The titan can be oced too, but like the 670/680 the OC's scale much worse than ocing on the 7950/7970)

It would be cheaper to get 2 7950's or two 670's, I'd skip the 660TI because of the crippled memory interface.
 
I play Crysis 3 on a single 7970 (non GE), overclocked to 1050/5700 . Works just fine on 1920x1080 WITH the new SMAA mode (getting over 40 fps in most cases, and reaching 60 easy when not in heavy battles)

Of course, if you want to go crazy with anti-aliasing, you need multi-cards, but I think that's a waste of money and electricity.
 
It is on max settings. And current generation (7000 series) AMD GPU can be overclocked more than nVidias. (Yes, it does consume more power but eh...)

Mine is a 925Mhz at default chip, and I keep it at 1050 (+125Mhz) without any voltage modifications ( unfortunately Gigabyte doesn't allow it ). There are people around that have taken 7970 to 1200+ ...

Still, nVidia chips are nice if you plan to buy another in 1 year or so, for more frames in future games... so high-end + high-end.

Buying two 660 NOW (even if they are fast in today's games) is recipe for disaster in 1-2 years time, as the 192bit memory interface will be very limiting in the next console ports

Remember, PlayStation 4 has a freekin' HUGE 8GB GDDR5 memory ( which will allow developers to place monster textures in their games ) in 16 memory modules. Assuming each one is connected to a 32-bit bus (that's the norm for GDDR5), this means a 512bit memory interface to the GPU.

Beat that with 660SLIs... !
 
According to this series of articles, in Crysis 3 adding a second 7950 in Crossfire adds absolutely no benefit over a single card. For the GTX 660 Ti, however, there is a clear benefit in terms of near-linear scaling of performance.
http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Frame-Rating-GeForce-GTX-660-Ti-and-Radeon-HD-7950/Crysis-3

Crysis3_1920x1080_OFPS.png


They also cover the Titan, so you can compare the two in Crysis 3 and several other games. Rule out the Crossfire setup though.
http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Frame-Rating-GeForce-GTX-Titan-GeForce-GTX-690-Radeon-HD-7990-HD-7970-Cross-1

Crysis3_1920x1080_OFPS_1.png



In case anyone is still considering investing a lot of money into a Crossfire setup, today's review from HardOCP should end the discussion:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/04/22/nvidia_geforce_gtx_titan_3way_sli_review/10#.UXW0dhPn-Uk

We've been talking about these issues for as long as we've evaluated multi-GPU performance in games. It doesn't take special software, or benchmarking, or frametime analysis or frame by frame rendering to experience and discover these issues. All it takes is actually sitting down and playing games to see and feel the differences between NVIDIA SLI and AMD CrossFire. Since we began our real-world evaluation method in 2003 that simply entails us playing games with these video cards just like gamers do, we've been able to see and feel a difference between SLI and CrossFire that we've talked about in every SLI and CrossFire evaluation.

As you look at every game in this evaluation, you will notice one thing common in all the graphs, the red line of performance is vacillating, sometimes tremendously. This red line depicts the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition 3-way CrossFire performance. It is commonly inconsistent in framerate, has large peaks and valleys, dips and drops, and ups and downs as you play each game. It is erratic, and when you compare it to the two NVIDIA SLI configurations you notice these are smoother, more consistent, and less unruly. We've noticed this for years, we've seen it, we've talked about it, and it is very evident the more GPUs you add. It seems 3-way CrossFire really shows it the worse.

Game players notice this change in FPS, they feel it as they play, and to compensate for it you have to aim for higher framerates out of CrossFire to bring the smoothness back. It is a reality right now, and one needs to keep this in mind when shopping for multi-GPU gaming solutions. While there do exist some granular testing to perhaps explain it, all one has to do is sit down in front of both setups and you will be able to tell which is smoother.

We are looking at some ways to better document this in an objective manner with that aforementioned software. If we can somehow show you this, other than just words, we will. We will be looking at this further in the future, but rest assured you do not need a frame time graph to tell when gameplay is not what it should be and that of course is what we all use these video cards for.
 


It may be the fastest, but its loud and takes three slots. I'd rather go for something else, because it being "faster" can easily be made up with overclocking.