HD8800 Series Coming

[dave_beast]

An i7 releases the bottleneck.

Which is probably why I don't get the fps drops some do?

 

[Rusty0611]

Which is probably why I don't get the fps drops some do?

I didn't find it makes much difference with a single card mate - I was already getting 95-99% usage with an i5. I didn't test it thoroughly enough to be sure though.

 

[Cleeecooo]

I'm curious to know why he got perma'd - he never came across as a douche!

 

[ptneps]

It just clicked who you are - why did you get banned?

 

[Rusty0611]

You little devil you .

 

[ptneps]

You little devil you .

I honestly have no idea what you're talking about but I'm okay with being a little devil I guess.

 

[bhavv]

I don't think he is who you think he is.

 

[humbug]

@ J.D.

That was a pretty raw deal you got there, from what your saying and that insane 1.26 stock volts it seems that card was a dead horse

It's good that your happy now, green or red it makes no difference if you got what you expected from it, eventually.

 

[LtMatt]

Are you sure? Not a single CPU scaling review of BF3 on the entire internet shows this:

http://www.techspot.com/review/458-battlefield-3-performance/page7.html

This is one of very few games that is purely GPU bottlenecked.

Forget single player benchmarks. 64 man multiplayer is where its at.

[/IMG]

Was a nice discussion about it on Anand a while back.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2249262

 

[Marine-RX179]

Forget single player benchmarks. 64 man multiplayer is where its at.

Yea...the techspot bench was done when BF3 went out of beta...and seriously...all these single player bench is misleading people into thinking it doesn't matter, as long as they have an quad-core CPU (even if it's old ones like Core2Quad).

Looking at the above bench, I think that's not even showing the worst case scenerio in terms of stress that is being placed on the CPU yet.

 

[bhavv]

I don't get why such benchmarks can't be shown more widely instead of the crappy beta ones plastered all over the net. I almost swapped out my I7 920 to a 2500k because everyone thinks HT doesnt affect game performance, but then I looked up Civ V benchmarks and that is also one CPU heavy game and gobbles up all the CPU speed, cores and threads you can throw at it.

There's barely any games that utilize 6 cores / 6-12 threads, but for the ones that do I'm glad I got an I7 980 instead of a 2500k.

 

[Gregster]

I have just been getting back into Civ V and loving it. One problem I get is if I pan out fully, the game locks up I did a google search but no joy).

 

[flopper]

I don't get why such benchmarks can't be shown more widely instead of the crappy beta ones plastered all over the net. I almost swapped out my I7 920 to a 2500k because everyone thinks HT doesnt affect game performance, but then I looked up Civ V benchmarks and that is also one CPU heavy game and gobbles up all the CPU speed, cores and threads you can throw at it.

There's barely any games that utilize 6 cores / 6-12 threads, but for the ones that do I'm glad I got an I7 980 instead of a 2500k.

got a 2500k and sold of my i7 920 system and never looked back.
4.7ghz+ makes a difference.

I take note BF3 runs much better now with recent driver 12.8 for me at 5040x1050 and 7970 than it did 10 months ago.

 

[LtMatt]

got a 2500k and sold of my i7 920 system and never looked back.
4.7ghz+ makes a difference.

I take note BF3 runs much better now with recent driver 12.8 for me at 5040x1050 and 7970 than it did 10 months ago.

I can't really notice any performance difference in battlefield 3 whether my 2500k is at 4ghz or 4.7ghz.

 

[J.D]

Yeah probably enough for a single card. I haven't tested enough on CPU usage in BF3 with 4/8 threads on a single card.

You need 8 threads overclocked above 4 Ghz if you don't want to bottleneck a pair of 680's/7970's though. Probably the same with 7950 crossfire/670 SLI as well.

The bottleneck with an i5 2500K/3570K is around 10-15% GPU usage in 64 player BF3 MP. Equates to a noticeable amount of FPS difference with a counter on although without you'll struggle to notice any different .

Yeah I agree. Otherwise the GTX 670 would have seen the same thing when I tried it as they were on my system weeks apart. I'm glad I have my Noctua as that should be able to hold HT @ 4.2Ghz on the i7 920. If my processor with HT enabled is dragging too far behind yourself as well as Gregster then I'll have to jump to the 3770k. I was initially going to buy the 3770k but realised it might not be as important but I'll have to wait and see first. I've got 2x680 Lightning cards coming tomorrow but I won't have my PSU until Wednesday/Thursday. I'm getting http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-096-CS - but not too sure about chancing 2x680s on this Corsair HX 620Watt. Do you think I would be ok for 2 days in SLI?.

Thank you for that information. It's making me think I might be able to save £500 on CPU/Motherboard with the HT on my 920 I7. Fingers crossed .

Fair play JD, i guess we'll never know for sure. BF3 does benefit from HT, it loves cores/threads but i doubt that was the reason for your less than stellar performance.

To be honest ive no idea and id just be speculating if i said anything.

All i can say is that bf3 really is smooth for me at the highest details @1080p with 4xaa.

Even if i run my card at 925/1375 stock it feels smooth, thought the fps drop a fair bit.

Come back to the dark side mate, you know you want to. (this is a joke don't start flaming me please)

Sorry if I came across a little hostile there. I just wanted to make it clear before others came in and directed it towards an Nvidia/AMD popularity contest. That's why I stated that the OS was bare apart from 2 games, - (sorry 3, I installed CS:GO) - and that all drivers were removed correctly. Also that I've been mainly AMD, even sending back a 670 that played fine as I wanted the 7970. So it wasn't directed at you, just needed people to know that it was honest user experience using 12.8 drivers @ 1175Mhz on the 7970 gave me less performance compared to the GTX 670 @ 1200Mhz. If you're ever bored out of your skull then go through my posts to see my red shades lol. I've never been one to go overboard with my like for AMD but I have voiced my opinions on Nvidia's practices in the past .

It's only one game that I tested and also Heaven so it's not a total kill off. The card was very fast but with and without AA the GTX was a lot quicker for me. I didn't have a lot of time to be honest so it may have been heavier server load on one card versus the other but for what I tried Nvidia showed me a little different to what these review sites have been posting.

It was the FPS drops that were hurting me. I can start to feel it around 50 mark but the 670 wasn't giving me that feeling at all (I can't remember the FPS on the 670). Both cards were kept cool but obviously with a 1.256v on the 7970 I had to ramp the fan up lol. If you, at 925Mhz felt it smooth then maybe there was a problem with the card, but Heaven should push the GPU as much if not more and the feeling of a sluggish game was instantaneous with the 7970. I'm using slightly aged hardware (I7 920 @ 4.2Ghz/ASUS P6T) so that may be a factor as is it possible that Nvidia require less system resources?. As your CPU/Motherboard is newer then is it possible that maybe I'm experiencing a bandwidth problem with AMD?.

Your graph is spot on to what I need for SLI. Hopefully my I7 with HT will hold up.

Haha, I'm always with the dark side mate, no flame for a brother. I'm a double agent .

@ J.D.

That was a pretty raw deal you got there, from what your saying and that insane 1.26 stock volts it seems that card was a dead horse

It's good that your happy now, green or red it makes no difference if you got what you expected from it, eventually.

Thank you.

Yeah, I was gutted as I looked forward to the card but as soon as I opened the box it went all downhill from there. Using my 6950 just now, cards come tomorrow . Giving my friend this card as he already has a 6950 so it will be a nice upgrade for him too.

 

[555BUK]

Assuming that a 20% shader increase and minor refinements return a 20% boost in performance, the 8870 should sit pretty close to the current 7950. I doubt whether it will perform close to the 7970, especially at high resolutions where it may be handicapped slightly by the 256bit memory interface.

However, 7850/7870 + 20% will certainly blow the currently overpriced GTX 660/660TI's out of the water.

 

[humbug]

Assuming that a 20% shader increase and minor refinements return a 20% boost in performance, the 8870 should sit pretty close to the current 7950. I doubt whether it will perform close to the 7970, especially at high resolutions where it may be handicapped slightly by the 256bit memory interface.

However, 7850/7870 + 20% will certainly blow the currently overpriced GTX 660/660TI's out of the water.

yeah, some have it at + 30 / 40%, others at + 20%

I think 8780 = 7950 is realistic, (+25%) I will probably get an 8950

 

[LtMatt]

I can't really notice any performance difference in battlefield 3 whether my 2500k is at 4ghz or 4.7ghz.

And here's why.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=22970916&postcount=68

 

[Rusty0611]

And here's why.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=22970916&postcount=68

I think it proves that the game is GPU bound on any half decent CPU with a single card.

 

[subbytna]

I don't get why such benchmarks can't be shown more widely instead of the crappy beta ones plastered all over the net. I almost swapped out my I7 920 to a 2500k because everyone thinks HT doesnt affect game performance, but then I looked up Civ V benchmarks and that is also one CPU heavy game and gobbles up all the CPU speed, cores and threads you can throw at it.

There's barely any games that utilize 6 cores / 6-12 threads, but for the ones that do I'm glad I got an I7 980 instead of a 2500k.

Makes no odds now you're permabanned....