I currently am running two Radeon 6870 in crossfire in 2560X1440 resolution with medium settings. Would a single GeForce 680 GTX be an upgrade?
Yes and No. Performance wise both setups would be very close. The only advantage of a 680gtx would be a reduction to power use and no microstuter along with a possible few FPS boost.
Consider the fact that "Planetside 2" is a CPU dependent game. * For the majority of the time, the GPU usage is only around 50% With an "Nvidia" card you could use the "PhysX" application, but I would personally suggest a dedicated GPU for that that specific function. * Due to the fact that at times the GPU physics can at times reach over 50% usage. - That being on a single card would require the GPU to work at 110% thus the advantage of a dedicated PhysX card. If your going to go with a single card, at-least your not going to worry about micro-stutter. ---- Personally being a owner of the GTX 690 and using a GTX 460 as a dedicated PhysX card. * I'd personally suggest a SLI config of GTX 670s.
For this game, a single card will always be surpirior to multiple gpu's, due to crossfire / sli increasing the load on the cpu... and as youre most likely cpu limited, going to a single card should give you better performance. I play with a single 680 at 1440p atm, and im still cpu bottlenecked.
Yeah it would be a performance upgrade of about 10% and with a nvidia card you could turn on physx, also the power use should be slightly better. Here is a benchmark: http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html and here is what physx does:
I just moved from two GTX570s in SLI to a 680. The 6970s are probably similar enough that we'd see the same results. My observations: - My FPS is much more consistent. Not always better, but very reliable. - It's hard to recognize a lack of stuttering, but the transitions between views and optics are much less jarring now. - My case's heat and fan speeds are cut back to almost nothing. - It's easier to tell which settings cause me to CPU bound - The Station Cash helped ease my objections to the cost - I have better FPS in other games, so I'm sure that PS2 could get there with more optimizations - I don't regret upgrading.
Massive upgrade yes. 6870 is miles behind a GTX680, don't listen to the guys talking nonsense, it's a huge upgrade, check reviews.
do it while you can still get some decent money back on the radeons, in a year nobody wants to buy those he has 2 of em so thats why people are cautious to recommend one
It's hard to find reviews with benchmarks comparing the new high end cards to two Radeon 6870's in crossfire since the later came out in 2010 or 2011. I doubt I'd get more than $200 for both Radeons. That not too bad since it could cover almost 50% of the cost of a new GeForce 680 GTX. I also need to do more research on the Radeon 7970. That may also be an option. As for the question about my CPU, I have a i7 950 3.06Ghz. Anyone have an idea how my CPU stacks against the more current i5s and i7s?
I've never had an AMD/ATI setup, so I cannot comment on that. What I can tell you is that at 1900x1080, ultra settings, 1 GTX680 will not reach maximum usage without PhysX enabled. So that means that if you were to upgrade, you will be getting the best fps your CPU can achieve. I love my 680s. Best cards I've ever used. -Shadow out.
I run dual GTX580's in SLI mode and I was getting well over 100fps prior to yesterdays patch. Unfortunately now after the patch I am around 30-35fps I'm not a happy camper SOE.
^this^ With a 680 you'll know your CPU is doing all it can because a 680 wont even break a sweat on this game.
Why on earth havent you overclocked that cpu? At stock, its as much as 50% slower than a 3770k with a mild OC. Regarding getting a 7970 instead of a 680... i would recommend doing that, as youll get bandwidth and vram limited in many new games at 1440p (like in crysis 3 or tomb raider, im limited to using 2x AA cause i hit the vram and bandwidth limit, which stupid small on the 680 cards).
