Query on Graphics Card

Dazice

Hi All,
I have decided to try and build a gaming PC.

But I read a recent review in PCFORMAT magazine issue 263(March 2012), were they built a budget rig (300 euro) and a performance rig (3000 euro) and got 4 people to play games on both without knowing which rig was which.

They couldn't tell the difference between the two based on perceived gameplay.

The performance rig ran on ultra settings and the budget rig ran as close to ultra settings without killing the frame rate. Once the frame rate was sufficient most players couldn't distinguish a drop of 16AA to 8AA or if the settings were dropped from ultra to enthusiast.

http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/pc/can-a-300-gaming-pc-compare-to-a-3000-one-1071338

With this in mind and the fact I'll probably buy a 1080p monitor, is there any point in buying a top of the range graphics card, (I was thinking of getting a 7970 or GTX 680 but now I'm considering getting a 7850)

Skylinehead

Not sure about that, I'd definitely know the difference between a 3k and 300 build. You could barely build a system on 300 quid, let alone one capable of playing games like BF3 on ultra. If you have 350+ quid (for the GPU alone, say 1100 for the system) I'd suggest a GTX 670, otherwise the 7850.

Genghiz Cohen

Skylinehead wrote: »

Not sure about that, I'd definitely know the difference

Said everyone ever who has never taken part in a double-blind experiment.

That is a very interesting article.
Would like to see someone try to replicate it.

Skylinehead

Genghiz Cohen wrote: »

Said everyone ever who has never taken part in a double-blind experiment.

That is a very interesting article.
Would like to see someone try to replicate it.

I know what you mean, but a £300 build is a Celeron/Pentium with a 7750 or similar, and a 3k build will have a monstrous 3960x and a 690. There's a huge difference.

Dazice

The builds listed in the linked article are;

i7 3960x
Asrock x79 Extreme 4
HD 7970

vs

AMD Phenom II x4 960T Black Edition
Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3
HD 6850

And although the Performance rig shows benchmark results 10 times that of the budget rig, the point is when playing a game, no noticable difference can be seen (at 1080p), so why pay double the money for a 7970 (450euro) and just opt for a 7850 (230euro)

Genghiz Cohen

Skylinehead wrote: »

I know what you mean, but a £300 build is a Celeron/Pentium with a 7750 or similar, and a 3k build will have a monstrous 3960x and a 690. There's a huge difference.

I made the same build, except for the CPU as HWVS don't seem to stock it anymore.

The 965 gets a better score on cpubenchmark.net and is €91 now where the 960 was £101.

Item|Price
AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Box, Sockel AM3|€91.33
Powercolor HD6850 1024MB Dual-DVI/HD1M2I5|€113.23
Gigabyte GA-970-UD3, AMD 970, AM3+, ATX|€88.73
4GB-Kit G-Skill Trident PC3-12800U CL8|€39.71
Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.D 1TB SATA 6GB's|€83.42
Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold 800 Watt|€148.60
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€584.01

The article title may be misleading. :pac:

Dazice

Yeah some of the comments attached to the article suggest its more like 500 to 3000. (and thats sterling),

but still, the point I would take away from this article is the newer ultra cards (680/7970) in the 500 euro price band are not necessary to build a decent gaming rig and are overkill.

Unless your running 3 monitors at extreme resolutions

ShadowHearth

Sorry but it is a wee bit of bull****...

If they put both games on same lower settings then it would be barely Noticable. I doubt that 6850 could have bf3 on ultra settings even with AA off. Then again it is very Noticable when you got AA on or off ( not in a good way, I don't like the damn thing in the first place ).

If they did this test on older games and console ports, then I would not be surprised.

OP I own gtx680, it looks like a real waste of money, but I love it. It's not a card with bang for its money tag. It's overpriced powerhouse. I am able just t put any game and play max settings. I love it, I don't need to fiddle around with settings to find a golden spot. The whole max settings are my gold spot. I only turn off AA or make it very low on some games ( not a fan of it ).
Keep in mind that games get newer each year, it's always nicer to have some extra power in your rig. It saves you the hassle of checking te other side of the box

frozenfrozen

I bet you a 3000eu gaming system that I could tell the difference.

Maybe someone moving from a console wasn't able to tell the difference, but seriously anyone who knows their stuff would be able to tell.

Dazice

Fair point ShadowHearth, knowing you have the grunt for any game and not having to check the back of the box . But you paid a lot for that luxury.

In fairness to the review, they didn't pick BF3 but used Dirt3, Crysis 2 and Skyrim. But the article made for intresting reading, it gives hope to the budget builders out there.

And it seems the reviewers weren't joe soaps off the street, but seasoned reviewers from PCFORMAT mag.

Quote:
For Crysis 2 we had to knock a few of the advanced IQ options down a notch. For Skyrim, it was a case of winding anti-aliasing back from 8x to 4x. And for DiRT3 it was even simpler - both systems ran at maximum detail.
Most of the time, most of our subjects literally could not tell the difference. In fact, it was worse than that. It wasn't just a case of putting hands up in the air and declaring it a dead heat. Frequently, our testers actually got it the wrong way round, declaring the low-end rig to be rendering with greater fidelity or actually running faster.


Note: I have a budget of 1500 for my build (including monitor), but I can't justify 500 euro on a single card, when something half its price can produce fairly decent results, (if the 6850 produced decent results in this review, I'm assuming the 7850 I'm considering will be 40%-50% faster.)