6970 or 570?

James3shin

Diamond Member
Apr 5, 2004
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Which card would you recommend for battlefield 3? My monitor is 1920x1200, i5-2500k cpu and 850W PSU. I also have $190 in credit at amazon and would like stay around $350 for the card.
 

Arzachel

Senior member
Apr 7, 2011
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MSAA in BF3 works better with Nvidia cards, but if you use only FXAA then both are fine. If you're fine with overclocking/unlocking then GTX 560ti 448core or an unlocked HD 6950 are better bang for the buck. If you're willing to wait though, then the HD 7870 will launch sometime in February and the 660/760 in April or later.
 

Arkadrel

Diamond Member
Oct 19, 2010
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Yeah.. if you go with Ultra and use MSAA, then Nvidia has better performance/$.
If you use FXAA (instead of say MSAA) then its AMD, that offers most perf/$.


Exsample without MSAA:
1920_High.png



without MSAA a much cheaper 6970 is neck to neck with a 580.
 
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VulgarDisplay

Diamond Member
Apr 3, 2009
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Like I mentioned in the BF3 thread in PC Gaming. MSAA's visual impact does not justify it's performance hit in game engines that use deferred rendering. It does not apply anti aliasing to every object on the screen while fxaa/mlaa do.
 

VulgarDisplay

Diamond Member
Apr 3, 2009
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Yeah.. if you go with Ultra and use MSAA, then Nvidia has better performance/$.
If you use FXAA (instead of say MSAA) then its AMD, that offers most perf/$.


Exsample without MSAA:
1920_High.png



without MSAA a much cheaper 6970 is neck to neck with a 580.

That graph is using high quality settings by the way and not ultra. I was wondering why the gtx580/570 and hd6970 were all so close together.
 

Crap Daddy

Senior member
May 6, 2011
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Like I mentioned in the BF3 thread in PC Gaming. MSAA's visual impact does not justify it's performance hit in game engines that use deferred rendering. It does not apply anti aliasing to every object on the screen while fxaa/mlaa do.

Whatever, with 4MSAA it looks waaay better than only with postAA. But anyway we should tell OP that if he wants to run the game at 60FPS then 4MSAA will not even come into question for any of the 2 cards.
 

VulgarDisplay

Diamond Member
Apr 3, 2009
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Whatever, with 4MSAA it looks waaay better than only with postAA. But anyway we should tell OP that if he wants to run the game at 60FPS then 4MSAA will not even come into question for any of the 2 cards.

I can't remember exactly how MSAA works in DICE games, but I'm almost positive it only works on the weapon model in front of the player. If you was -20fps for that then by all means...

Any other visual improvement you're seeing is a placebo.

EDIT: Ok through the power of google I now know that MSAA only works on solid geometry in BF3. So any foliage, fences, other sprites receive no anti aliasing from MSAA. FXAA works on the whole scene.

MSAA http://www.hardocp.com/image.html?image=MTMyMDIwMzk5MHdnZ0RxV0diM2xfN18xX2wucG5n
FXAA http://www.hardocp.com/image.html?image=MTMyMDIwMzk5MHdnZ0RxV0diM2xfN18yX2wucG5n

fxaa vs. msaa http://www.hardocp.com/image.html?image=MTMyMDIwMzk5MHdnZ0RxV0diM2xfN18zX2wucG5n

FXAA sure looks better to me.
 
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Crap Daddy

Senior member
May 6, 2011
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I can't remember exactly how MSAA works in DICE games, but I'm almost positive it only works on the weapon model in front of the player. If you was -20fps for that then by all means...

Any other visual improvement you're seeing is a placebo.

Do you have the game? Have you played with/without MSAA? I can tell you that all the wires, electricity poles, wire fences and such suffer from atrocious jaggies without MSAA. Even worse if you play on High.
 

VulgarDisplay

Diamond Member
Apr 3, 2009
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Do you have the game? Have you played with/without MSAA? I can tell you that all the wires, electricity poles, wire fences and such suffer from atrocious jaggies without MSAA. Even worse if you play on High.

Look at the links I posted. It's afact that MSAA does nothing to wires/fences in this game because they are sprites.
 

Will Robinson

Golden Member
Dec 19, 2009
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Nice rigs you have in your sig...it's just amazing how well those i2500s overclock.:p
Remember all those gloom and doom articles about "The End of Overclocking as we know it" that were around just after SB's specs were first announced?o_O LOL
The Sandy Bridge processors rock.:cool:
 

dmoney1980

Platinum Member
Jan 17, 2008
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I have a GTX 480, which is a little slower than a 6950/70. I ran FRAPS this weekend while playing BF3 on a 64 player server- AVG FPS 48, LOW 29. This is on Ultra with FXAA at 2048x1152 on a i5 2400k @ 4.1 ghz. Get whatever is cheaper, I think either card will fit the bill.
 

James3shin

Diamond Member
Apr 5, 2004
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BUMP with question:

I have a 10% coupon that would bring the price of a 2gb 6950 down to $190 after rebate. Is this card enough for Battlefield 3? I wouldn't have to play on ultra, high detail is fine with me.
 

DarkKnightDude

Senior member
Mar 10, 2011
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It'll be perfectly fine (provided you aren't playing at an enormous resolution).

I have a 6950 myself and I play at 1920x1200 at all high settings perfectly fine. Ultra doesn't look any different at all to me.
 

James3shin

Diamond Member
Apr 5, 2004
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Thanks! I'm going to mull it over a bit. Local taxes bring the 6950 to $200 which is still a great price from what I can gather.