4870 X2 / GTX 280

[nitromullet]

vsync + triple buffering in WoW, no vsync in Crysis, and IIRC OpenGL doesn't support triple buffering, so only vsync in Q4.

 

[NitroTurtle]

Originally posted by: Aikouka

Originally posted by: NitroTurtle
Thanks again for your review. It's been impossible for me to get any performance data on either card for WoW, as it's never used in any benchmarks. I realize it's not the newest tech, but with the sheer number of people playing the game, you'd think someone would test it. But it seems people think you can max it with a 6800GT, and that's simply not the case once you get into the higher resolutions and settings in a raid environment.

No one tests WoW because it is simply too hard to get a test that is static. The typical lull in framerates that I see in WoW are attributed to the massive amounts of differing data used in Shattrath (tons of different models and skins combined with a massive amount of NPCs and players). Also spell effects, from what I recall on my 8800 GTX, tend to be really bad on my framerate. It was bad enough that I could literally turn away from a brazier and gain 10 FPS even with more people on my screen. It was pretty bad in Hellfire with how the zone has the random fire spurts out of the ground. I remember sometimes when they spit up, my framerate would drop to below 10 (note, this is with two clients open, so it wouldn't be so drastic with only one and that one being full screen, not windowed-maximized).

WoW is pretty taxing on many fronts though... the sheer amount of memory used... the amount of data needing to be transferred off the source (HDD) when switching areas and such.

Actually, you can type /timetest before taking any flight path and it will disable players and NPCs and give a nice performance summary when you land. I know what you mean about the rest of it though. I've built the rest of my machine with that in mind and I can maintain 50-60 FPS even standing in Shattrath with heavy traffic. I'd just like to enable more AA without a performance hit, and really would like to prepare for the shadow system used in WotLK. Both of which will require a faster video card that my 8800.

After reading all of this, I'm really starting to change my mind and lean toward the 280GTX now. It's cheaper and doesn't have any of the problems associated with the dual card/GPU setup.

 

[chewietobbacca]

i feel like the choice is infinitely harder at 2560 x 1600 simply because the 4870x2 does tend to provide the power needed at that reso, but you still have multi-gpu issues, while a gtx280 might rqeuire SLI to handle more extreme games at those settings too

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

Originally posted by: ShadowOfMyself

But it comes down to - if you wanna play THOSE games, sure buy an nvidia card, if you wanna play the rest, buy the X2

Actually what it comes down to is if you want a more robust solution then go single card whether the color is red or green.

This is what I'm thinking. Of course, with this doing this type of thing you'll always get accused of being biased, so I've been musing about my preferences when I've done direct comparisons in the past.

For the past few generations, this has been my preference:

7850GX2 vs. X1900XTX, I chose the X1900XTX
8800GTX vs. 3870 X2, I chose the 8800GTX

It looks like I tend to lean towards the singe gpu even when the mutlti-gpu card offers the highest overall frames.

 

[ShadowOfMyself]

I understand the point of a single GPU, but if you checked the reviews and know the X2 scales in your favorite games, why go for the GTX? Thats what Im saying, it comes down to the games you wanna play... In your case, its clear if you wanna play Wow, Crysis, and *insert game that doesnt scale* you should get either a 4870 or a GTX

I still think multi gpus have never been as attractive as the X2

 

[sourthings]

Originally posted by: NitroTurtle

Originally posted by: Aikouka

Originally posted by: NitroTurtle
Thanks again for your review. It's been impossible for me to get any performance data on either card for WoW, as it's never used in any benchmarks. I realize it's not the newest tech, but with the sheer number of people playing the game, you'd think someone would test it. But it seems people think you can max it with a 6800GT, and that's simply not the case once you get into the higher resolutions and settings in a raid environment.

No one tests WoW because it is simply too hard to get a test that is static. The typical lull in framerates that I see in WoW are attributed to the massive amounts of differing data used in Shattrath (tons of different models and skins combined with a massive amount of NPCs and players). Also spell effects, from what I recall on my 8800 GTX, tend to be really bad on my framerate. It was bad enough that I could literally turn away from a brazier and gain 10 FPS even with more people on my screen. It was pretty bad in Hellfire with how the zone has the random fire spurts out of the ground. I remember sometimes when they spit up, my framerate would drop to below 10 (note, this is with two clients open, so it wouldn't be so drastic with only one and that one being full screen, not windowed-maximized).

WoW is pretty taxing on many fronts though... the sheer amount of memory used... the amount of data needing to be transferred off the source (HDD) when switching areas and such.

Actually, you can type /timetest before taking any flight path and it will disable players and NPCs and give a nice performance summary when you land. I know what you mean about the rest of it though. I've built the rest of my machine with that in mind and I can maintain 50-60 FPS even standing in Shattrath with heavy traffic. I'd just like to enable more AA without a performance hit, and really would like to prepare for the shadow system used in WotLK. Both of which will require a faster video card that my 8800.

After reading all of this, I'm really starting to change my mind and lean toward the 280GTX now. It's cheaper and doesn't have any of the problems associated with the dual card/GPU setup.

I'm in the wotlk beta, and have a 4870x2, with the new shadows enabled on their highest level, it costs me about 5-7fps depending on the area I'm in. In most areas I'm maxed at 60fps, riding through the woods in places like the fjord/dragonblight, I average around 45 or so. This is at 1920x1200. If all you do is play WoW, I wouldn't bother with multi-gpu as scaling in wow with multi-gpu is terrible. Get a 280 or wait for the 1GB memory version of the 4870.

If you like to play with high levels of AA, as in 8XAA, it's worth remembering that you get 8XAA on an ATI card with no performance hit compared to 4XAA. I don't know if the method used to bench wow in this thread was using the ATI cards free AA or not, looking at the results, looks to me like it wasn't.

 

[Compddd]

Why do people keep saying free 8xAA? My FPS drops by atleast 10 or more going from 4xAA to 8xAA on my 4870.

 

[sourthings]

Originally posted by: Compddd
Why do people keep saying free 8xAA? My FPS drops by atleast 10 or more going from 4xAA to 8xAA on my 4870.

You have to use edge-detect filtering and set your AA level to 4 in your game.

 

[MarcVenice]

Otherwise you're running 16x AA, which I don't think is free

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: sourthings

I'm in the wotlk beta, and have a 4870x2, with the new shadows enabled on their highest level, it costs me about 5-7fps depending on the area I'm in. In most areas I'm maxed at 60fps, riding through the woods in places like the fjord/dragonblight, I average around 45 or so. This is at 1920x1200. If all you do is play WoW, I wouldn't bother with multi-gpu as scaling in wow with multi-gpu is terrible. Get a 280 or wait for the 1GB memory version of the 4870.

If you like to play with high levels of AA, as in 8XAA, it's worth remembering that you get 8XAA on an ATI card with no performance hit compared to 4XAA. I don't know if the method used to bench wow in this thread was using the ATI cards free AA or not, looking at the results, looks to me like it wasn't.

Selecting edge detect or box makes no difference in WoW. You have to select 'application' in the CCC or AA doesn't work at all. I tied every combination of box and edge detect in the CCC with 'application' checked, and there was no difference whatsoever...

NVIDIA gives you the option to enhance in game settings, so you can tinker a little more with what AA mode you choose to run. With both cards, however, you have to set AA levels in game with WoW or AA won't work at all.

In my experiences, there is no "free AA" in WoW. If you find it, please let me know how you did it. I'd love to be able to run WoW with high levels of AA on my 4870 X2. Your numbers are interesting though, are you using Adaptive AA as well?

As an aside, I'm quite sure that ATI has a driver profile for WoW... If you disable Catalyst AI with ADAA enabled the alpha textures become transparent, which was an issue I believe they fixed in Cat 8.4.

 

[Tempered81]

Originally posted by: Compddd
Why do people keep saying free 8xAA? My FPS drops by atleast 10 or more going from 4xAA to 8xAA on my 4870.

Originally posted by: sourthings
You have to use edge-detect filtering and set your AA level to 4 in your game.

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
Otherwise you're running 16x AA, which I don't think is free

YUP!

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: jaredpace

Originally posted by: Compddd
Why do people keep saying free 8xAA? My FPS drops by atleast 10 or more going from 4xAA to 8xAA on my 4870.

Originally posted by: sourthings
You have to use edge-detect filtering and set your AA level to 4 in your game.

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
Otherwise you're running 16x AA, which I don't think is free

YUP!

No, if you set in game AA to 4x in WoW, you're running 4xAA regardless of what you set in CCC. You have to to select 'application' in the CCC, and choosing box or edge detect makes no difference.

 

[udneekgnim]

Originally posted by: sourthings

Originally posted by: NitroTurtle

Originally posted by: Aikouka

Originally posted by: NitroTurtle
Thanks again for your review. It's been impossible for me to get any performance data on either card for WoW, as it's never used in any benchmarks. I realize it's not the newest tech, but with the sheer number of people playing the game, you'd think someone would test it. But it seems people think you can max it with a 6800GT, and that's simply not the case once you get into the higher resolutions and settings in a raid environment.

No one tests WoW because it is simply too hard to get a test that is static. The typical lull in framerates that I see in WoW are attributed to the massive amounts of differing data used in Shattrath (tons of different models and skins combined with a massive amount of NPCs and players). Also spell effects, from what I recall on my 8800 GTX, tend to be really bad on my framerate. It was bad enough that I could literally turn away from a brazier and gain 10 FPS even with more people on my screen. It was pretty bad in Hellfire with how the zone has the random fire spurts out of the ground. I remember sometimes when they spit up, my framerate would drop to below 10 (note, this is with two clients open, so it wouldn't be so drastic with only one and that one being full screen, not windowed-maximized).

WoW is pretty taxing on many fronts though... the sheer amount of memory used... the amount of data needing to be transferred off the source (HDD) when switching areas and such.

Actually, you can type /timetest before taking any flight path and it will disable players and NPCs and give a nice performance summary when you land. I know what you mean about the rest of it though. I've built the rest of my machine with that in mind and I can maintain 50-60 FPS even standing in Shattrath with heavy traffic. I'd just like to enable more AA without a performance hit, and really would like to prepare for the shadow system used in WotLK. Both of which will require a faster video card that my 8800.

After reading all of this, I'm really starting to change my mind and lean toward the 280GTX now. It's cheaper and doesn't have any of the problems associated with the dual card/GPU setup.

I'm in the wotlk beta, and have a 4870x2, with the new shadows enabled on their highest level, it costs me about 5-7fps depending on the area I'm in. In most areas I'm maxed at 60fps, riding through the woods in places like the fjord/dragonblight, I average around 45 or so. This is at 1920x1200. If all you do is play WoW, I wouldn't bother with multi-gpu as scaling in wow with multi-gpu is terrible. Get a 280 or wait for the 1GB memory version of the 4870.

If you like to play with high levels of AA, as in 8XAA, it's worth remembering that you get 8XAA on an ATI card with no performance hit compared to 4XAA. I don't know if the method used to bench wow in this thread was using the ATI cards free AA or not, looking at the results, looks to me like it wasn't.

are you running dynamic shadows at "/console extShadowQuality 6"

pretty sure there's going to be a bigger hit than just 5-7 FPS switching from a setting of 0 (no dynamic shadows) to 6 (highest level of dynamic shadows in WotLK)

 

[sourthings]

Originally posted by: nitromullet

Originally posted by: jaredpace

Originally posted by: Compddd
Why do people keep saying free 8xAA? My FPS drops by atleast 10 or more going from 4xAA to 8xAA on my 4870.

Originally posted by: sourthings
You have to use edge-detect filtering and set your AA level to 4 in your game.

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
Otherwise you're running 16x AA, which I don't think is free

YUP!

No, if you set in game AA to 4x in WoW, you're running 4xAA regardless of what you set in CCC. You have to to select 'application' in the CCC, and choosing box or edge detect makes no difference.

This is a common problem with CCC, if you have an AA level set in game and then force an AA level through CCC, you usually end up with no AA in the game whatsoever. You can try to set your filtering to edge detect and 4x through the CCC and set your AA choice in wow to 1xAA. For free 8XAA with CCC you set filtering to edge detect in CCC and disable a set AA setting.

This is with adaptive disabled for my rough estimates of frames I'm getting. WotLK seems more intensive than TBC was. Not sure if others notice this but comparing my frames in original wow to TBC, TBC they definitely are lower, and now they're looking lower still in Wrath.

Would be nice if multi-gpu scaling worked for wow as from the frames I see now, it looks that it would be close to maxing wow in most areas at high res with proper multi-gpu scaling.

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: sourthings

Originally posted by: nitromullet
No, if you set in game AA to 4x in WoW, you're running 4xAA regardless of what you set in CCC. You have to to select 'application' in the CCC, and choosing box or edge detect makes no difference.

This is a common problem with CCC, if you have an AA level set in game and then force an AA level through CCC, you usually end up with no AA in the game whatsoever. You can try to set your filtering to edge detect and 4x through the CCC and set your AA choice in wow to 1xAA. For free 8XAA with CCC you set filtering to edge detect in CCC and disable a set AA setting.

This is with adaptive disabled for my rough estimates of frames I'm getting. WotLK seems more intensive than TBC was. Not sure if others notice this but comparing my frames in original wow to TBC, TBC they definitely are lower, and now they're looking lower still in Wrath.

Would be nice if multi-gpu scaling worked for wow as from the frames I see now, it looks that it would be close to maxing wow in most areas at high res with proper multi-gpu scaling.

I'll definitely give that a shot...

You really should be running with ADAA in every game that you can for the price you paid for your card. WoW also looks way better IMO with 4xADAA than it does with just straight 8xAA. It looks really good with 8xADAA, but it's not smooth enough to play. If I can get the edge detect mode to work, maybe that will change.

 

[Compddd]

I bought a EVGA GTX 280 today to play around with. What's the best AA setting to use on 280 nitromullet? The nvidia control panel confuses the hell out of me.

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: Compddd
I bought a EVGA GTX 280 today to play around with. What's the best AA setting to use on 280 nitromullet? The nvidia control panel confuses the hell out of me.

It's going to vary from game to game. I would suggest installing nHancer, as it provides a little explanation for most settings. http://nhancer.com/ Plus, the interface is just easier to use IMO.

 

[NitroTurtle]

Originally posted by: udneekgnim

Originally posted by: sourthings
I'm in the wotlk beta, and have a 4870x2, with the new shadows enabled on their highest level, it costs me about 5-7fps depending on the area I'm in. In most areas I'm maxed at 60fps, riding through the woods in places like the fjord/dragonblight, I average around 45 or so. This is at 1920x1200. If all you do is play WoW, I wouldn't bother with multi-gpu as scaling in wow with multi-gpu is terrible. Get a 280 or wait for the 1GB memory version of the 4870.

If you like to play with high levels of AA, as in 8XAA, it's worth remembering that you get 8XAA on an ATI card with no performance hit compared to 4XAA. I don't know if the method used to bench wow in this thread was using the ATI cards free AA or not, looking at the results, looks to me like it wasn't.

are you running dynamic shadows at "/console extShadowQuality 6"

pretty sure there's going to be a bigger hit than just 5-7 FPS switching from a setting of 0 (no dynamic shadows) to 6 (highest level of dynamic shadows in WotLK)

I believe Blizzard has said that 5 and 6 are only for internal testing. I'm going to assume he's talking about 4, and if so that's a dramatic difference from my current setup. Right now, if I run with shadows at 4, I drop to freeze-frame mode. It says I'm at 5fps, but there's no way that's correct as it pauses for at least a second between frames. However, it has only been like this since the last patch 8820, so if you haven't tested lately maybe that's the reason.

Regardless, I really appreciate the input guys. Since I'm really just looking for the best card for WoW, it helps to get as much information as possible from people actually playing the game.

 

[Compddd]

What is your guys opinions on removing stock coolers and redoing the thermal stuff with AS5? How much will it help?

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: NitroTurtle
I believe Blizzard has said that 5 and 6 are only for internal testing. I'm going to assume he's talking about 4, and if so that's a dramatic difference from my current setup. Right now, if I run with shadows at 4, I drop to freeze-frame mode. It says I'm at 5fps, but there's no way that's correct as it pauses for at least a second between frames. However, it has only been like this since the last patch 8820, so if you haven't tested lately maybe that's the reason.

Regardless, I really appreciate the input guys. Since I'm really just looking for the best card for WoW, it helps to get as much information as possible from people actually playing the game.

Whoa! 1 spf with shaodws in WoW on an 8800GTS...? That isn't good news at all. You are running WoW in a maximized window, correct? I wonder if that has something to do with it...

Originally posted by: Compddd
What is your guys opinions on removing stock coolers and redoing the thermal stuff with AS5? How much will it help?

It might help a bit, but it really shouldn't be necessary. IMO, if the stock cooling doesn't work out of the box in an adequate case, the card is defective. This includes having to adjust the fan speed manually.

 

[sourthings]

Originally posted by: udneekgnim

Originally posted by: sourthings

Originally posted by: NitroTurtle

Originally posted by: Aikouka

Originally posted by: NitroTurtle
Thanks again for your review. It's been impossible for me to get any performance data on either card for WoW, as it's never used in any benchmarks. I realize it's not the newest tech, but with the sheer number of people playing the game, you'd think someone would test it. But it seems people think you can max it with a 6800GT, and that's simply not the case once you get into the higher resolutions and settings in a raid environment.

No one tests WoW because it is simply too hard to get a test that is static. The typical lull in framerates that I see in WoW are attributed to the massive amounts of differing data used in Shattrath (tons of different models and skins combined with a massive amount of NPCs and players). Also spell effects, from what I recall on my 8800 GTX, tend to be really bad on my framerate. It was bad enough that I could literally turn away from a brazier and gain 10 FPS even with more people on my screen. It was pretty bad in Hellfire with how the zone has the random fire spurts out of the ground. I remember sometimes when they spit up, my framerate would drop to below 10 (note, this is with two clients open, so it wouldn't be so drastic with only one and that one being full screen, not windowed-maximized).

WoW is pretty taxing on many fronts though... the sheer amount of memory used... the amount of data needing to be transferred off the source (HDD) when switching areas and such.

Actually, you can type /timetest before taking any flight path and it will disable players and NPCs and give a nice performance summary when you land. I know what you mean about the rest of it though. I've built the rest of my machine with that in mind and I can maintain 50-60 FPS even standing in Shattrath with heavy traffic. I'd just like to enable more AA without a performance hit, and really would like to prepare for the shadow system used in WotLK. Both of which will require a faster video card that my 8800.

After reading all of this, I'm really starting to change my mind and lean toward the 280GTX now. It's cheaper and doesn't have any of the problems associated with the dual card/GPU setup.

I'm in the wotlk beta, and have a 4870x2, with the new shadows enabled on their highest level, it costs me about 5-7fps depending on the area I'm in. In most areas I'm maxed at 60fps, riding through the woods in places like the fjord/dragonblight, I average around 45 or so. This is at 1920x1200. If all you do is play WoW, I wouldn't bother with multi-gpu as scaling in wow with multi-gpu is terrible. Get a 280 or wait for the 1GB memory version of the 4870.

If you like to play with high levels of AA, as in 8XAA, it's worth remembering that you get 8XAA on an ATI card with no performance hit compared to 4XAA. I don't know if the method used to bench wow in this thread was using the ATI cards free AA or not, looking at the results, looks to me like it wasn't.

are you running dynamic shadows at "/console extShadowQuality 6"

pretty sure there's going to be a bigger hit than just 5-7 FPS switching from a setting of 0 (no dynamic shadows) to 6 (highest level of dynamic shadows in WotLK)

Currently levels 5 and 6 give massive texture errors and inability to see hardly anything on screen terrain wise. I am using 4. The only difference between them I've noticed, moving from 1 through 4, is the length of the shadow as it extends from the character. The shadows are still fairly simplistic and not that polished. Also you need to turn off shadows in your video options, or else the old style 'blob' shadows will still be there.

It's a nice change all in all, but still very simple graphics. I'm still always impressed though, by how they manage to make things look cool and impressive graphically on such a dated and low-tech engine.

 

[sourthings]

Originally posted by: nitromullet

Originally posted by: sourthings

Originally posted by: nitromullet
No, if you set in game AA to 4x in WoW, you're running 4xAA regardless of what you set in CCC. You have to to select 'application' in the CCC, and choosing box or edge detect makes no difference.

This is a common problem with CCC, if you have an AA level set in game and then force an AA level through CCC, you usually end up with no AA in the game whatsoever. You can try to set your filtering to edge detect and 4x through the CCC and set your AA choice in wow to 1xAA. For free 8XAA with CCC you set filtering to edge detect in CCC and disable a set AA setting.

This is with adaptive disabled for my rough estimates of frames I'm getting. WotLK seems more intensive than TBC was. Not sure if others notice this but comparing my frames in original wow to TBC, TBC they definitely are lower, and now they're looking lower still in Wrath.

Would be nice if multi-gpu scaling worked for wow as from the frames I see now, it looks that it would be close to maxing wow in most areas at high res with proper multi-gpu scaling.

I'll definitely give that a shot...

You really should be running with ADAA in every game that you can for the price you paid for your card. WoW also looks way better IMO with 4xADAA than it does with just straight 8xAA. It looks really good with 8xADAA, but it's not smooth enough to play. If I can get the edge detect mode to work, maybe that will change.

Yeah the card was pricey :/ I use adaptive when I can, it really makes the foliage look nice in wow I find, but it's a noticeable frame rate hit, so I generally avoid it. I should try comparing some frame rate settings with it on.

 

[NitroTurtle]

Originally posted by: nitromullet

Originally posted by: NitroTurtle
I believe Blizzard has said that 5 and 6 are only for internal testing. I'm going to assume he's talking about 4, and if so that's a dramatic difference from my current setup. Right now, if I run with shadows at 4, I drop to freeze-frame mode. It says I'm at 5fps, but there's no way that's correct as it pauses for at least a second between frames. However, it has only been like this since the last patch 8820, so if you haven't tested lately maybe that's the reason.

Regardless, I really appreciate the input guys. Since I'm really just looking for the best card for WoW, it helps to get as much information as possible from people actually playing the game.

Whoa! 1 spf with shaodws in WoW on an 8800GTS...? That isn't good news at all. You are running WoW in a maximized window, correct? I wonder if that has something to do with it...

I'm not sure what was causing it, but I just tried again right now and it's sitting at 30fps at Conquest Hold in Grizzly Hills with shadows at 4. So scratch that, I must have had something else going on.

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: sourthings

Originally posted by: nitromullet

Originally posted by: sourthings

Originally posted by: nitromullet
No, if you set in game AA to 4x in WoW, you're running 4xAA regardless of what you set in CCC. You have to to select 'application' in the CCC, and choosing box or edge detect makes no difference.

This is a common problem with CCC, if you have an AA level set in game and then force an AA level through CCC, you usually end up with no AA in the game whatsoever. You can try to set your filtering to edge detect and 4x through the CCC and set your AA choice in wow to 1xAA. For free 8XAA with CCC you set filtering to edge detect in CCC and disable a set AA setting.

This is with adaptive disabled for my rough estimates of frames I'm getting. WotLK seems more intensive than TBC was. Not sure if others notice this but comparing my frames in original wow to TBC, TBC they definitely are lower, and now they're looking lower still in Wrath.

Would be nice if multi-gpu scaling worked for wow as from the frames I see now, it looks that it would be close to maxing wow in most areas at high res with proper multi-gpu scaling.

I'll definitely give that a shot...

You really should be running with ADAA in every game that you can for the price you paid for your card. WoW also looks way better IMO with 4xADAA than it does with just straight 8xAA. It looks really good with 8xADAA, but it's not smooth enough to play. If I can get the edge detect mode to work, maybe that will change.

Yeah the card was pricey :/ I use adaptive when I can, it really makes the foliage look nice in wow I find, but it's a noticeable frame rate hit, so I generally avoid it. I should try comparing some frame rate settings with it on.

No go on the edge detect. I was pretty sure I tried that, but I was willing to give it a shot. The only way to get AA applied properly in WoW is to check 'use application settings' in the CCC, and the performance and image quaility is the same no matter what else I select in the CCC, except ADAA of course.

Well, now you're getting down what my graphs comparing the GTX 280 and 4870 X2 in WoW are all about... You see, with the GTX 280 8x transparency AA is possible. In the hardest hit area I know of, Terokkar Forest, the GTX is still playable. That's what makes my benchmarks relevant, and why someone who plays WoW might care.

 

[Compddd]

Did you know it takes forever to clean all the damn goop off a GT200 core? lol