Originally posted by Sam:

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This said, you can still have a long motherboard fault-finding process even if the board isn't at fault - this is what Sapphire insisted on when they sold me two DOA 4GB HD5970s, a 'hand tested' flagship $1100 card with a limited production run of around 5000. When I told them one card was DOA (to the extent it shorted out the board and immediately produced that 'burning electronics'smell) they were difficult, but allowed a replacement. When I told them the second was DOA (a defective GPU attachment I believe) they refused to believe it saying 'you're wrong, these cards are hand tested' - eventually I managed to prove it to them and got a full refund (and still kept the free game that came with it). Still, this was only possible with the efforts of a very good retailer willing to plead the case for me. Things might have been very different otherwise, considering Sapphire don't actually have a technical support line of their own.

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Originally posted by Sam:

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For reference, the Arma III Beta itself carries a score of 430/615 at 1920x1080, and 730/835 at 2560x1600.

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Originally posted by Estuansis:

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Sam, that graph is interesting. I wonder what might happen if you extrapolate that 1100T to 4 or 4.2GHz, though I admit that all the other CPUs there are capable of quite good OCs as well. Still, it would do a lot to show the relative performance differences between BD/PD and Phenom II. I think that would also put it above some of the Intels.

CPU Northbridge overclocking on AMDs also makes a noticeable difference. 2000->2600 on my own netted many benefits in several areas. Sometimes as large as 10%. Thuban has fantastic untapped power. Overclocking transforms them. If only they scaled as high. Considering the relative upper end of Vishera, topping at about 4.8-5.0GHz unless you get a particularly good bin, 4.0-4.2 on a Thuban is almost enough to render them useless as an upgrade.

Also, I wonder why exactly the 955 seems to be the faster CPU, when the 1100T has 100MHz and a superior memory controller. My own benchmarks have shown a relatively significant gap between the two architectures, depending on the scenario. Thuban is a whole different beast than Deneb.

I truly don't mind buying behind the curve when the market is right. Right now, my 1090T is hardly a limiting factor in my performance, and in the long scheme of things is still a fairly good performing chip, considering you need a 4.6-4.8GHz Vishera to match it. I could gain MUCH more video power before it becomes a noticeable issue. I get a lot of pleasure from doing the best I can with what I have. I basically like to hang onto components until they are no longer adequate. The Thuban is currently overqualified for this rig.

Might have some buyers for my 6850s for a pretty good price :)

Kinda looking at prospective cards on both sides of the fence. Something $200-250 would be nice. I've waited long enough that single cards easily outpace my two in Crossfire. Haven't been keeping up on graphics in a while though and wondering what represents good value and what to avoid. Open to both brands.

Currently checking out the GTX760, the 7870 GHz Edition, and maybe a 7950.


The GTX 760 seems like a very solid performer, and faster than or equal to a 7950 from the benchmarks I've seen. That might be my best bet. The 6850s are NOT reliable in Crossfire, so even a boost over a single card would make me pretty happy.

Suggestions? Keep in mind that playing at 1920 x 1200 gives me lots of breathing room, and Nvidia's high-res failings will not become a factor for me. The GTX 760 is very attractive, but the 760 Ti is due to come out soon, driving the price of the base model down a bit. I'm especially interested in a 760 Ti. Buying mid-range won't bother me when my current cards are sooo dated. I'm past the point of buying the best, or going dual card. I just want proper performance in my games. Nvidia's x600's and x60s have always had quite good performance in their class, and I thoroughly enjoyed them, being a former owner of a 6600GT, 7600GT, and 9600GT. The current state of games development means I can probably get away with one quite nicely. And when I finally score a 990 board, SLI would be an option as well. Considering SLI's decent reputation and the good performance of the 760, which would have dropped in price by such a time.

I truly don't mind buying behind the curve when the market is right. Right now, my 1090T is hardly a limiting factor in my performance, and in the long scheme of things is still a fairly good performing chip, considering you need a 4.6-4.8GHz Vishera to match it. I could gain MUCH more video power before it becomes a noticeable issue.

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Originally posted by Estuansis:

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DXR88 thank you very much for the figures. I will be purchasing the Gigabyte version with the excellent 3rd party cooler, so it sounds like I'll be doing some OCing with it :D

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Originally posted by Estuansis:

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Just got Skyrim installed for my final phase of tweaking and ran into a couple of hitches.

With Shadows set to Ultra, you get shadows on distant objects, and with it on High, you only get shadows out to about a hundred yards. Obviously, this looks terrible on wide open scenes and Ultra seems the only way to go. Problem is, Ultra shadows also doubles their resolution from 2048 to 4096, which pushes over my video memory limit and causes HORRIFIC stuttering the likes of which I've never seen. Setting everything to ultra in the game settings, then manually setting the shadow resolution to the quality of High shadows in the ini, seems to have solved the problem. Locked at 60FPS no matter what I do, versus dipping to single digits due to hitching when simply turning on the spot.

I set the ini as Read-Only, so the only variable being changed was their resolution, and not their distance and level of complexity, which turning them down to High in the menu normally does. After making this change, the graphics options show that shadows are set to high, but I get all the great effects as if it were turned to Ultra, with MUCH better performance.

A simple example of what I've accomplished:

High settings
Shadow Resolution = 2048
Shadow Distance = 5
Shadow Complexity = 5

Ultra Settings
Shadow Resolution = 4096
Shadow Distance = 10
Shadow Complexity = 10

Custom Settings
Shadow Resolution = 2048
Shadow Distance = 10
Shadow Complexity = 10

As you can see, it's basically a "middle of the road" setting.

Other than that setting, my PC can handle the game with everything outright maxed barring AA. The game is a video memory hog, and to use AA and texture packs, I'll need a 2GB card. Bonus that Nvidia has a slight performance bias in the game and much fewer issues. Yet another reason to upgrade to that GTX760... I certainly wouldn't need this little mod to get it running properly, and could concentrate on texture mods.

As of currently, even the lightweight texture mods made for <1GB of video RAM still push me over the limit. Skyrim already has fantastic textures, so I'd much rather focus on other aspects of the graphics until such a time when 1.5GB of video memory usage is the least of my worries.

I can already runs tons of mods combined with no noticeable effect on performance. The opening sequence is a great benchmark to see if my video memory is being overtaxed. It has lots of characters on-screen in the middle of a town with a dragon and lots of fire, destruction, and action. As intensive as Skyrim gets. As long as I don't get the horrible stutters within that sequence, I can pretty safely say the rest of the game will be fine. I just have to be careful that the selected mods don't use more video memory, as I am at the limit with the stock game. The performance difference is readily apparent. Goes from silky smooth 50-60, to constant stuttering and dips into the teens, 20s, and 30s.

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