Borderlands 2 GPU/CPU benchmarks [TechSpot/HardOCP/Others]

[AtenRa]

Thanks for the additional data. Looks perfectly playable on your 8150. I wonder if it would still be playable on a 6xxx or 4xxx?

I've not played borderlands 2, what was the player count and were the gameplay patterns similar?

Ill run the same settings with 4 and 6 threads later on and ill post them here.

 

[Termie]

...

Why would you compared an overclocked 5850 to a stock 7850 though? If you were willing to overclock the 5850, why wouldn't you overclock the 7850?
Also, you can easily find a good HD7870 for $215 now (see coupon on the front page for $170 price range.

I am not sure why you keep noticing only the situations where a stock 7850 loses to the 5870 but ignore the situations where an overclocked 7850 would be much faster than a 5870 (Batman AC, Crysis 2, Civilization V, Anno 2070, Arma II, Dirt Showdown). I think if you mostly play games that run faster on NV cards, you should be looking at GTX660 then or at the very least be looking for a sale on a 7870 if you don't want to overclock the 7850 by 25-30%. Generally speaking HD7850 is not a great upgrade from a 5850 in the first place. I would say HD7950 @ 1100mhz is a good upgrade.

Because I had one (two, actually), and I miss it. Call it seller's remorse, if you will.

Yes, an OC'd 7850 will trounce an OC'd 5850, but keeping the 5850 instead of my 460 would have been essentially free to me, or at most $30-40 given the delta in resale value at the time...ironically, the specific reason I sold it was because of the Batman:AC benchmarks (a game I have since finished on my 460, with a little help from ditching my e8400).

I also think if you waited this long to upgrade your HTPC, might as well wait 3-4 more months and see if you can pick up an HD8850 instead of an HD7870. Either way it's somewhat expected that this game would run slightly faster on NV cards since BL1 performed better on NV cards as well.

Ding, ding, ding, winner...if I can hold out, and if 660 prices do not drop a lot, as in at least down to where the 7850 is now ($185), I am waiting to see what the 8850 offers early next year.

$200 for an 8850 will be a recipe for an upgrade. Anyway, right now BL2 isn't a reason to upgrade - I'm slumming it on my PS3.

 

[OCGuy]

Sad that DX9 benches still exist.

 

[RussianSensation]

Termie, how are the graphics in BL2 on PS3 vs. the PC? You sit far away from the TV, so BL2 can't look that bad on the PS3. ?

Sad that DX9 benches still exist.

Witcher 2 is a DX9 game and has excellent graphics. What's more sad is because the average consumer thinks that a $300 PS3 Ultra-Slim and $400 Xbox 360 250GB Kinect are great values, MS and Sony have been able to milk the current outdated console generation which keeps stagnating next generation game engines such as CryEngine 3.4, UE4 and so on. DX9 games will be history only when PS4 and the next Xbox finally launch with DX11 capable GPUs.

 

[Termie]

Termie, how are the graphics in BL2 on PS3 vs. the PC? You sit far away from the TV, so BL2 can't look that bad on the PS3. ?

At about 6 feet away from my 46" screen, I have to admit it's not pretty. It's quite blocky. For a while I just watched the intro selection screen, where the camera pans around a waterfall, and while the water effects were certainly better than BL1 on PS3, the graphical fidelity is signficantly below screenshots I've seen on the PC. Even simple stuff like buildings and weapon models are quite blocky.

That being said, this game's art style really limits its potential as a graphical showcase. Most objects have a black outline around them, in a cartoon style, which only enhances the sensation of aliasing and inappropriate depth. So I'm not sure the PC version would fix everything I'm seeing. The only real drawback is the FOV, which is really annoying - I wish it were much, much wider. I'm panning up and down just to walk a straight line sometimes.

All that being said, the game is flat out fun, and well-written. For better or for worse, it's the kind of game that shows you don't need a ton of horsepower to have a good time. Yes, everyone shelling out hundreds of dollars today for an xbox/ps3 is getting ripped off on their hardware, but in my opinion they can still have a lot of fun.

 

[wand3r3r]

I've only got in about an hour or less playing with my friend with whom we played through BL1, we are both pretty satisfied with the start of the game. The physx affects are kind of gimmicky, but it's a nice addition and is fun (still) to just check out the different affects. The gtx 690 is definitely overkill but I'd only go to a 670 at the lowest myself. I'm still waiting to get some elemental weapons and see some major affects but the little ones are still fun to watch. It's definitely not in the same class as e.g. BF3 for quality, but it's a completely different genre/style.

The BL1 instinct to explore and treasure hunt is definitely there. I wish this game were done in DX11 with a powerful engine, that would be an amazing spectacle.

I'm planning to drop my 7950 back in after playing for awhile with nvidia to see what a difference physx makes, and whether the supposed physx with AMD cards is really the same.

 

[toyota]

FXAA.
You can force SGSSAA through NV Inspector, makes the game look more smooth and less blurry.

you were complaining about the performance hit of though werent you? why not just uses the SMAA injector? it looks better than FXAA and has really no performance hit that I can tell. heck I am averaging about 60 fps on max settings and high physx at 1080 with my wimpy system.

 

[RussianSensation]

you were complaining about the performance hit of though werent you? why not just uses the SMAA injector? it looks better than FXAA and has really no performance hit that I can tell. heck I am averaging about 60 fps on max settings and high physx at 1080 with my wimpy system.

Ya, I can't imagine BL2 being much more demanding than 1. It's the exact same game engine.

 

[toyota]

Ya, I can't imagine BL2 being much more demanding than 1. It's the exact same game engine.

well technically its way more demanding than the first game just like Arkham City was was more demanding than the Arkham Asylum. and Borderlands 2 performance can vary widely especially with physx on high. also it seems the minimums are about the same no matter what system you have though which seems odd.

 

[RussianSensation]

Can you drop your CPU to stock clocks and see if the performance drops significantly since that would support the view that this game is still CPU limited even with slower GPUs?

 

[Makaveli]

I picked up the game on the 18th and loving every min of it. Performance is good on my rig at 1200p maxed. I do notice the odd drops in fps when a tons of stuff is on screen but nothing game changing.

I've been considering adding a second gpu to my rig to enable PhysX for awhile now.

So what I need to know is what model geforce would be a good match up for what I have?

budget $150-$200

I intended on running this mod and can pickup Batman AC for additional testing.

 

[frozentundra123456]

So by your logic Option A is better?

CPU A $100 10fps (.1fps/$)
CPU B $320 30fps (.094fps/$)

I would rather choose the playable one...I know that's a little exaggerated but I would certainly not reserve judgement for anyone that takes the FX-4170 as the best option based on this review.

Too bad they didnt test the i3-2120, which is price competitive vs the FX4100, or even a SB pentium. Would have made an interesting comparison.

 

[toyota]

Can you drop your CPU to stock clocks and see if the performance drops significantly since that would support the view that this game is still CPU limited even with slower GPUs?

well I would but I am pretty paranoid about messing with my clockspeed since my pc is working perfectly. I know cpu usage has gone well over 50% at times so I might test with 2 cores though just to see if that matters.

EDIT: only seeing about 10% difference at most in average using two cores and the minimums did not change any. of course two of my cores at 4.4 is still pretty darn fast so this game does appear to like raw cpu speed. that's why Bulldozer looks crap in this game compared to newer cpus from Intel.

 

[wand3r3r]

BL2 is insanely demanding. My 6 core/12 thread x58 and gtx 690 (both about at stock) were brought to their knees quite often when there were four people in the midst of chaotic battle. I don't know if it's that buggy or that demanding but it hit 20 fps quite a few times when it was at the worst. There are particles flying everywhere. All of this only at 1920x1200.

I'll have to ramp up the ol' cpu from 3.3 to 4ish and see if that makes a big difference, then drop physx and see what that does.

At first it was buttery smooth with 2 players (120-200 fps+) but with tons of enemies and an overload of physx crap flying it just bogged down.

It's actually the processor, the gpu is only going from 30-80%.

 

[blackened23]

BL2 is insanely demanding. My 6 core x58 and gtx 690 (both about at stock) were brought to their knees quite often when there were four people in the midst of chaotic battle. I don't know if it's that buggy or that demanding but it hit 20 fps quite a few times when it was at the worst. There are particles flying everywhere. All of this only at 1920x1200.

I'll have to ramp up the ol' cpu from 3.3 to 4ish and see if that makes a big difference, then drop physx and see what that does.

At first it was buttery smooth with 2 players (120-200 fps+) but with tons of enemies and an overload of physx crap flying it just bogged down.

Physx causes a noticeable performance drop, at least on the high setting. I have noticed this as well.

I keep physx on low for 2 reasons. First, the physx effects are overused similar to how it was overused in Mafia 2. Second, there is a fairly large performance hit for physx high at times. The reason I bring this up, you should lower your physx settings to maintain game fluidity. Physx high is more distracting than it should be anyway - the game is in no way demanding, physx high just takes up too much in terms of resources at times.

 

[Makaveli]

BL2 is insanely demanding. My 6 core/12 thread x58 and gtx 690 (both about at stock) were brought to their knees quite often when there were four people in the midst of chaotic battle. I don't know if it's that buggy or that demanding but it hit 20 fps quite a few times when it was at the worst. There are particles flying everywhere. All of this only at 1920x1200.

I'll have to ramp up the ol' cpu from 3.3 to 4ish and see if that makes a big difference, then drop physx and see what that does.

At first it was buttery smooth with 2 players (120-200 fps+) but with tons of enemies and an overload of physx crap flying it just bogged down.

It's actually the processor, the gpu is only going from 30-80%.

Which gulftown chip are you on?

I'm been playing at 4Ghz and performance has been good I have Physx on Low.

Gonna do some fraps runs shortly.

I've been messing with unlimited fps or having it capped at 60 then with vsync on and off. To me it seems when you have it capped at 60 but with Vsync off its alitte bit smoother. That setting to have it smooth between 22-62 fps gives somewhat jerky behaviour i find.

 

[Grooveriding]

I haven't paid attention to CPU usage, but GPU usage is not that great. Nvidia has driver issues with Borderlands 2, but apparently they are trying to fix it.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=42326717&postcount=708


When I initially played BL2 I thought for once there was a gpu physx title that didn't cripple cards for the feature. That was until I started to see some of the other enemies in the game. Particularly those spiders with the crystals on their legs.. lol.. performance really chuggs when you start blowing those to pieces.

The cloth everywhere is fine, as well as the debris when you shoot into the ground/snow etc. What kills performance is that physx is used for enemies and gun effects. So when there is a lot going on and bits are flying off enemies and particles from your gun effects, you start to get crap performance.

Maybe this will improve when nvidia fixes their driver issues.

 

[toyota]

every time I have tested its been near 100% gpu usage.

 

[blackened23]

every time I have tested its been near 100% gpu usage.

He's likely referring to SLI gpu usage with physx enabled, which isn't uncommon for physx enabled games

 

[toyota]

He's likely referring to SLI gpu usage with physx enabled, which isn't uncommon for physx enabled games

oh I see. I still cant figure out why I am getting such good performance now. even during heavy fighting with explosions and cloth flapping around I am still getting over 50 fps most of the time. its seems like physx should be taking a bigger toll than that as I know when i first stared the game it would drop into low 30s during many fights. even going back to those same areas its not happening now. the only thing different is that I disabled the black outline and FXAA and i am using SMAA injector. the game looks and apparently runs way better too since I did that.

 

[RussianSensation]

So what I need to know is what model geforce would be a good match up for what I have?
budget $150-$200
I intended on running this mod and can pickup Batman AC for additional testing.

Doesn't it make more sense to sell the 6950 and pick up a GTX670 in this case? $150 from the sale of the 6950 + $200 = almost a GTX670. This way you still get PhysX in BL2/Batman AC and faster performance elsewhere too.

 

[Concillian]

Skyrim was also very CPU dependent at launch, but later they patched the game to actually run well on PC and pretty much any and all CPU bottlenecks melted away.

You really think this is a true CPU issue? Or just another questionably done port job? I know which I think it is.

 

[RussianSensation]

BL2 is both CPU and GPU limited. Which component is the most limiting in your system depends on what CPU/GPU you have and what resolution you game at.

1) If you swap a GTX690 in place of a 680, on a Core i7 3930X @ 4.8ghz you'll get a huge increase in framerates

2) However, compared to a Core i7 3930 @ 4.8ghz, an i7 3930 @ 3.2ghz + GTX690 will give you 50 fps less. (161 vs. 108 is 49% more and 4.8ghz i7 is 50% higher clocked than a 3.2ghz one).

That's proof that the game is CPU limited, but wait....

3) The game is also GPU limited at the same time since even with 4.8ghz, i7 690 is still faster than a 680. Therefore, it cannot only be CPU limited.

And of course if you raise the resolution more, you become more GPU limited (but still CPU limited to an extent since a stock i7 3930 is capped at 108 fps avg / 55 fps min when paired with a 690).

 

[boxleitnerb]

Yes it varies. With my 580 SLI (PhysX low) and FXAA the GPU load (2600K@4GHz) can go as low as 45%. Other times it will spike to 99%. Completely depends on the scene.

 

[SPBHM]

Can you drop your CPU to stock clocks and see if the performance drops significantly since that would support the view that this game is still CPU limited even with slower GPUs?

it is demanding, I have a slow GPU, and most of the time I'm in 99% of use and around 50fps, BUT in some locations GPU usage go down and framerate to...
still, I'm always over 35FPS it seems, which for me is OK, but if you are looking for smooth constant 60fps all the time, I think something like an overclocked 2500K is needed.