Upgrade for Assassin's Creed Unity

[azza-don]

Hi All,

We are upgrading this system:
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit with SP1 OEM
ASRock 970 Extreme3 R2 Motherboard
AMD FX-6300 6 Core Black Edition Processor
G.Skill Ripjaws F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL (2x2G) DDR3
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2GB OC
Western Digital WD Blue 500GB WD5000AAKX

To cope with Assassin's Creed Unity (ACU) for our daughter, preferably on high settings.

We are looking at the following components to do the upgrade:
G.Skill Ripjaws F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL (2x2G) DDR3
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 G1 Gaming 4GB
Seasonic G-550 80Plus Gold 550W

We are in Australia, and parts must come from pccasegear.com
Budget is up to about AU$700

No other parts (keyboard, mouse, monitor) are required, unless I have overlooked something critical to the upgrade.

I suppose my main concern is around the mobo, cpu, and 4 x 2GB ram. If they don't keep up, then the upgrade is pointless.

The game, ACU, is undoubtedly the most demanding task this PC will need to perform.

thanks in advance.

 

[i7Baby]

A motherboard would help

The gtx 970 is $520 - http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=193_1692&products_id=29086

You should get 2 x 4gb 1866 cl9 ram too.

You won't get all this stuff for $700aud

 

[rockie_]

You definitely need a faster GPU . R9 280X at least . FX 6300 can handle even 2x faster cards than GTX 650 ti .

if you got GTX 970 , there would be a good boost of the 3D performance . But i5 4690 would give 63% more FPS . You could overclock FX 6300 but it wont melt this huge difference . So , for now R9 280X seems to be a good solution . it would bring 87% boost in 3D performance compared to GTX 650 ti . But GTX 970 would be more future proof .

 

[azza-don]

Thanks for your reply i7Baby.

how would a different mobo help, and what kind should I look for?

why 1866 ram? and will 4x2 be slower than 2x4?

what about the CPU?

 

[photonboy]

I hate to be rude, but maybe consider just NOT playing AC Unity?

You really need a good modern Intel CPU like the i5-4690K and a GTX970 at least in my opinion and that's not max settings at 60FPS either.

Ubisoft is also still working on the next patch to increase performance (slightly) but that's to minimize stutter so won't affect maximum performance.

So basically you have to spend a LOT OF MONEY and wait for at least the next patch to get a reasonable experience. Personally I'd consider maybe just the GTX970 graphics card and add another 4GB of DDR3 for now and a game that runs better.

Basically I guess your ORIGINAL upgrade plans.

To be clear, if you upgrade the CPU (which is really needed for Unity) you also need to change the motherboard and get a new copy of Windows (which means you have to reinstall Windows).

 

[i7Baby]

Thanks for your reply i7Baby.

how would a different mobo help, and what kind should I look for?

why 1866 ram? and will 4x2 be slower than 2x4?

what about the CPU?

You need a better CPU

See http://www.game-debate.com/games/index.php?g_id=17084&game=Assassins%20Creed:%20Unity
(and that's assuming that the game is fixed enough so it actually works)

CPU Hierarchy - http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,3106-5.html

To get a good enough CPU, you need to get Intel. So you need a new CPU and a mobo to mount it on.

You wont get that for $200

 

[photonboy]

http://techreport.com/news/27351/reports-assassin-creed-unity-is-a-glitchy-performance-hog

 

[rockie_]

FX 6300 is absolutely enough for ACU ! 100% sure . i have charts

also i3 3220 can run the game at Ultra .

R9 280X can run ACU at 1920x1080 High details,FXAA
GTX 770/R9 290 can max out the game

 

[photonboy]

FX 6300 is absolutely enough for ACU ! 100% sure . i have charts

also i3 3220 can run the game at Ultra .

R9 280X can run ACU at 1920x1080 High details,FXAA
GTX 770/R9 290 can max out the game

??
First of all "max out the game" means 1080p, max (Ultra) settings while achieving 60FPS which you obviously don't mean...

That doesn't agree with any of the benchmarks I've seen like THIS one:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8738/benchmarked-assassins-creed-unity/2

On Ultra at 1080p, with an i7-4770K CPU an R9-290X only averages 34FPS and has a minimum of 17.7FPS.

**Read the bottom analysis called "What about the CPU?" and it shows a performance drop with weaker CPU's like an i3.

Or THIS one: http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/194123-assassins-creed-unity-for-the-pc-benchmarks-and-analysis-of-its-poor-performance/2

Or THIS one: http://www.gamersnexus.net/game-bench/1692-assassins-creed-unity-gpu-benchmark

In above benchmark at 1080p, Ultra, the GTX770 manages 30FPS average but dips below that. It would be even lower with an FX-6300 or i3-3220 so that's just not playable.

I'm not trying to be a jerk, but none of these benchmarks indicate that you can run "ULTRA" with a GTX770 at playable frame rates and again it would be lower with a weaker CPU especially the minimum scores which cause significant stutter.

 

[rockie_]

photonboy,

if you play on 4K , nothing will help you a lot
if you read better , you ll see that R9 280X can give a playable performance . If you wish more , get more

 

[photonboy]

photonboy,

if you play on 4K , nothing will help you a lot
if you read better , you ll see that R9 280X can give a playable performance . If you wish more , get more

I said nothing about 4K. I even specifically refer to the 1080p scores.

I'm also only looking at the ULTRA scores since you said a GTX770 could "max the game".

Perhaps the R9-280X is playable with a sufficient CPU and the correct settings but that is not what I was commenting on.

I'm not going to argue further as I have several benchmarks linked so the results are obvious.

 

[azza-don]

photonboy,

if you play on 4K , nothing will help you a lot
if you read better , you ll see that R9 280X can give a playable performance . If you wish more , get more

I said nothing about 4K. I even specifically refer to the 1080p scores.

I'm also only looking at the ULTRA scores since you said a GTX770 could "max the game".

Perhaps the R9-280X is playable with a sufficient CPU and the correct settings but that is not what I was commenting on.

I'm not going to argue further as I have several benchmarks linked so the results are obvious.

Thanks Photonboy, and everyone for the replies. I have my answer; spending the $700 on GPU, PSU and RAM is not really going to provide the value for investment. Our daughter will have to learn to check the system requirements before purchasing.

 

[iamlegend]

Best answer^