New Graphics Card - Minimum Frame Rates?

Rezident

I'd nearly decided on an ATI 5870 Vapor-X but in most reviews I've seen it has lower minimum FPS than the Nvidia cards although the ATI cards seem to be better value for money for performance in general, average FPS, etc.

Average FPS are clearly important but it's the temporary slowdowns (i.e. minimum FPS, say below 25 FPS) that annoy me most when gaming. Anyone with 5xxx series cards notice any temporary slowdowns, say at intense moments during play?

Games I play include BFBC2, TF2, LFD2, Bioshock 2, Just Cause 2 (hmmm lots of sequels) but for future games too. Thanks.

cherryghost

a minimum fps of 25 certainly won't occur on those games with that graphics card.

Unless you have a poor CPU, of course.

The 5870 is an excellent card and one of the fastest you can get on the market. What resolution will you be playing it on?

Rezident

1680 x 1050 at the moment but I'm thinking of upgrading to 1920 x 1200, that's part of the reason for the upgrade. I'm just concerned about infrequent dips in FPS.

BadCharlie

That video card + screen res will get you alot more then 25FPS min on them games. As long as the rest of your system is ok to good, u should have no problems.

lmimmfn

I run at 1680x1050 with a 5850

BFBC2 runs at max with 2xAA and the min FPS is well over 60( averaging about 90FPS ), at 4xAA it can drop to 44FPS( but averages about 76-80FPS )

Just Cause 2 works better on Nvidia cards as its a TWIMTBP game, i havnt tried the full game only the demo, but maxed( as much as can be maxed on ATI cards ) it was never slow so id guess its well above a min FPS of 40

TF2 id imagine on max settings has a min FPS of about 100 lol, i havnt played since i had my nvidia 260 but that was around 100FPS average and the 5850 is far faster

Most likely its your cpu because the only way youre not getting great min FPS at such a low resolution is because youre most likely bottlenecking. You can test by checking min FPS with max settings and min settings with e.g. no AA, it will probably be the around the same.

PogMoThoin

What cpu?

lmimmfn

PogMoThoin wrote: »

What cpu?

i7 920 D0 stepping @ 4Ghz

Rezident

I have a Q9650 @4 and it's never maxed out on all four cores in any game. i7 would be a little faster but hardly worth the money for games.