Most PC gamers waste their money on video cards

[Nhirlathothep]

Hey folks,

I'm speaking to the vast majority here, "the 1080p gamers" that buy into hype and this idea of 'future proofing'. 'Future proofing' in a PC means spending more money, for a little more performance, but the rate of return is absolutely terrible.

--Example--
Right now you can easily find a R9 270X for $150. If you're gaming at 1080p, there simple is no game out today or in the near future, that would bring a R9 270X to its knees. If you don't believe that then you're kidding yourself.

Over the next year or two, games will comes out that might force you to turn settings down from Ultra to High, but seriously most of you will be okay and won't be able to distinguish the difference.

--Or--
Right now you can easily find a GTX 970 for $330. This card is much faster than the R9 270X but at more than twice the price. There's no question that this card is more 'future proof' than the formerly mentioned. However, their isn't much value in the extra money you're spending from a performance perspective.

--Observation--
Presently, between a R9 270X and a GTX 970, you will not see any noticeable difference in your PC games at 1080p with the graphics turned up. How much time do you think will pass before the difference becomes so noticeable that R9 270X owner feels a need to upgrade? 1.5 years? 2 years? 2.5 years?

Here's the ironic thing about that $180 difference between the two cards. Two years from now, you better believe that $180 can buy you a faster card, with more up-to-date features compared to the GTX 970 of today. And two years from now when you get that new card, you'll be set again for the next round of video games, while the GTX 970 owner will be stuck turning settings lower than you.



--Disclaimer--
I want to make it clear that I'm not trying to offend anyone. I fully understand that some people need high end cards for resolutions well above 1080p and others simply like to spend their money on whatever they wish because they can.


R9 270X and GTX 970 were just examples. Don't read into it as an Nvidia vs AMD thing. I'm not trying to argue about specific features, or driver quality. If that's what influenced you're decision I have no beef with you. This is merely a post to newbie PC gamers to help them save a few bucks.

u re so poorly misinformed, i dunno where to start to explain

 

[Nhirlathothep]

i ll say it straight: also the best video card on the market with single gpu (nvidia Titan Black-gtx 980 overclocked) cant handle 1080p 120hz with 120 min fps.

well, u can understand that all u said is wrong

if u have low expectations, the door to console world is always open

 

[sandorski]

The case could be made that $200ish Video Cards are sufficient for a great gaming experience. However, not if one intends to run games on Ultra settings.

 

[Eric1987]

I stopped reading after the 270x statement. First paragraph and you're already wrong. Like charles says. TURRIBLE!

 

[Eric1987]

You start your post with a falsehood:

"Right now you can easily find a R9 270X for $150. If you're gaming at 1080p, there simple is no game out today or in the near future, that would bring a R9 270X to its knees. If you don't believe that then you're kidding yourself."

There's plenty of games today that will crush a 980 at 1080p if you run on Ultra.

If you want to game on High, or especially Medium, then sure, you can get away with much less powerful hardware. Or you could go further and game on Low, then Intel's iGPU can do the job, sometimes.

That's false, too. Unless the 980 is THAT MUCH SLOWER than the 290x.

 

[dangerman1337]

Total War: Rome 2/Attila? Crysis 3? Dragon Age Inqusition? Battlefield 4/Hardline? The Witcher 3 coming out? Assassin's Creed Unity?

Though to be fair a 980 and OC'd Quad core can run prettymuch anything at the highest settings minus MSAA. Even a 970 or 290x can run Crysis 3 60FPS+ with the settings cranked up without MSAA which those benchmarks do which is stupidly poor practice.

 

[sam_816]

Sooooooo, you mean to say that evga 980 sc with acx2.0 for my 720p plasma tv is waste of money?!?

Go away !

 

[TemjinGold]

OP: You should stop playing Farmville and try some real games.

 

[Erenhardt]

Sooooooo, you mean to say that evga 980 sc with acx2.0 for my 720p plasma tv is waste of money?!?

Go away !

No more than the pair of new rears for JHH's ferrari burned somewhere on the intersection to show off

 

[steve wilson]

I think what the OP is fundamentally saying is that price/performance, is on an upward-sloping curve.

Where people choose to purchase along that curve, though, is a personal decision, driven by both desire for game settings, as well as budget.

These decisions can be helped, by looking at appropriate benchmarks, to help select what level of card that they feel that they need, for whatever frame rate and quality settings that they want.

I don't think simply selecting the lowest point on the price/performance curve, for playing at 1080P, at whatever lowered settings that the OP can stand, is really helpful for the general forum population though.

On the other hand, if the OP is basically saying not to buy more GPU than you need, in the near / immediate future, then that I basically agree with.

I recently upgraded from a 7790 1GB card, to a 7950 3GB card. I could have saved my money for 2-3 months, and picked up an R9 290/X, but I felt that was overkill for my gaming needs, especially only at 1080P. But I am glad I picked up the 7950, and not an R9 270 that I originally had my sights on. "Some" future-proofing is alright, I think. Plus, I am able to utilize this particular card's good DP calcs for distributed computing, in the immediate timeframe. So in some sense, it's not really even future-proofing. Only with respect to gaming, because I don't play modern games when they first come out, generally. (Ok, so I paid $50-60 for Skyrim.)

Edit: VRAM requirements of newer games really do factor into this too, not just raw card performance and price. That's one area where future-proofing makes sense, if you don't want to have to upgrade video cards every year. Getting a card with more VRAM can help you be able to play the newest games, even if you have to lower settings a little bit because your card's core is older.

Edit: To make this more concrete, consider these three cards:
HIS iPower IceQ X² Boost H270QM2G2M Radeon R9 270 2GB 256-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card $149.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814161449

HIS IceQ OC H280QC3G2M Radeon R9 280 3GB 384-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card $169.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814161456

SAPPHIRE 100364-4GL Radeon R9 270X 4GB 256-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 Video Card (Dual-X Edition) $189.99 ($20 MIR)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814202049

Those are listed in increasing order of price, and coincidentally (or perhaps not) in order of VRAM size.

VRAM is a "cliff" situation. If you don't have enough, your game won't play. And current console specs play a lot into this as well, as many (most?) PC games are console ports these days (especially with the two biggest consoles sporting x86/x64 APUs), and they have a good amount of VRAM, much bigger (8GB total in the case of PS4) than most video cards have previously come with. That means that most of the newest games that have released since those consoles were released, have bigger VRAM requirements than previously.

This means that getting a card with more VRAM, regardless of core processing power, more or less, ensures greater longevity for that card, without needing to replace it outright.

Edit: I would love to hear RS's take on this.

Spot on, completely agree.

 

[sam_816]

No more than the pair of new rears for JHH's ferrari burned somewhere on the intersection to show off

I play at 1440p under dsr settings. Everything on ultra. Beheading uruks in mordor is so much pleasure...

 

[master_shake_]

i play at 1080p with sli 980's.

its ultra wide screen 1080p so still 1080p

 

[lehtv]

If you're gaming at 1080p, there simple is no game out today or in the near future, that would bring a R9 270X to its knees. If you don't believe that then you're kidding yourself.

Say again? I'm kidding myself?

I'm running GTX 970 which is nearly twice as fast as R9 270X. And it still can't run an almost four years old Witcher 2 smoothly (i.e. locked to 60 fps) with maxed settings on 1080p, not to mention running it above 60 fps on a 144hz monitor. And you're talking about future proofing...

Presently, between a R9 270X and a GTX 970, you will not see any noticeable difference in your PC games at 1080p with the graphics turned up.

I repeat, this isn't the case even with a four years old game.

I don't even

 

[Eric1987]

Say again? I'm kidding myself?

I'm running GTX 970 which is nearly twice as fast as R9 270X. And it still can't run an almost four years old Witcher 2 smoothly (i.e. locked to 60 fps) with maxed settings on 1080p, not to mention running it above 60 fps on a 144hz monitor. And you're talking about future proofing...



I repeat, this isn't the case even with a four years old game.

I don't even

How does yours run so badly? My 290x at 1080p doesn't even blink twice. Hell I ran it at 4k with only AA not on and got a solid 40 FPS. Single card at the time, too.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

--Observation--
Presently, between a R9 270X and a GTX 970, you will not see any noticeable difference in your PC games at 1080p with the graphics turned up.

That's a really bad observation.

A 270X is only up to 40% faster than a ps4 in theory, which is already having a hard time with 30 fps 1080p, and ps4 games "settings" are often quite modest compared to the pc "max" settings.

Where I live the 270X costs 170,- and the 290 about 280,-. It's 110 more, but it's twice the gpu, the 290 is better value. And you can take advantage of it in damn near every game. It's really silly to recommend a 270X.

Maybe there's a case to be made for the R9 280, which is only 190,-

 

[tential]

This thread would work on IGN or Neogaf. Probably even Reddit.

Not on a hardware dedicated forum like anandtech though.

 

[Insomniator]

You think 'most' gamers are buying $300 970's? No, the mid range (and lower) you are speaking of is by far the most popular. So right there, most gamers are buying the cards you are suggesting, rahter then 'wasting' performance. Seriously, the average PC gamer DREAMS of having a high end $300-500 card.

Personally, I could probably get by with anything (GTX 780 mainly playing SC2 and Dota 2 lol), but even for me I was glad to have this card when playing Crysis 3 at 1900x1200/high-ultra. If I were someone who consistently played the newest FPS's, especially online, I would definitely want something more powerful then a 270x right now.

You are also on Anandtech, a forum filled with enthusiasts that upgrade components sometimes more as a hobby then to actually play games with. Real world PC gaming is different, people trying to get by on 5770's still in machines that a friend built for them 5 years ago.

 

[Eric1987]

I don't know any gamer who is on a 5770 though. Lowest quality card we got in my house is a 560 ti 448.

 

[lehtv]

How does yours run so badly? My 290x at 1080p doesn't even blink twice.

FPS does not stay anywhere near locked to 60 with everything maxed out, ubersampling enabled, AA disabled.

Hell I ran it at 4k with only AA not on and got a solid 40 FPS. Single card at the time, too.

Solid 40 FPS? Ugh, I can't stand such low framerates. For me, it has to be locked to 60 fps (or over 60 on 144hz), otherwise I turn settings down.

 

[Deders]

I can bring a single 780 to its knees, and this is on lowly 1080p 60Hz.

Which games? I have yet to find one that I can't play at full detail with playable framerates (with the exception of the 6GB textures in Mordor)

 

[arandomguy]

How does yours run so badly? My 290x at 1080p doesn't even blink twice. Hell I ran it at 4k with only AA not on and got a solid 40 FPS. Single card at the time, too.

He's most likely referring to having uber sampling on.

But this is an issue related to what the OP talks about, how critical is actually achieving those settings in terms of enjoying the game?

What would be interesting is a blind test is done with a sample of gamers (perhaps with different backgrounds) and seeing what the actual threshold is before individuals can actually reliably determine which is providing a better experience.

Compare a GTX 980 and GTX 960 for instance using GFE recommended settings at 1080p across a sample of games (or a r9 290x vs r9 270x). How many people can actually reliably tell the difference by playing them one after another? Not in terms of side by side and comparing details or combing through static screenshot comparisons but actually playing regularly? No seeing the settings menu or using any sort of fps counters either, just impression purely from regular playing and not specifically looking for differences.

It would be interesting to do this type of test with each of the following conditions -
1) Trying to keep performance (frame rate, frame times, min fps) constant
2) Trying to keep graphics settings constant
3) Adjusting both aspects

However I'm not sure how much interest a hardware site would have in actually investigating this due to the complexity of doing so and it conflicts with their own interests as well, since they do need to interest readers in reading about new hardware.

Sure there are likely some outlier individuals with extreme sensitivity and may notice even minute changes (say the difference between a 290x and 290) but I have a feeling that even the majority of self proclaimed "enthusiasts" will not. It's basically like the whole "golden ear" audiophile situation, most people really are not as special as they think they are.

Granted at the moment there is somewhat transitional period currently with VRAM requirements which does make the current gap between high end and mid range cards more noticeable.

 

[Paul98]

I guess it depends on your definition of playable, for me a 270x is no where near that, I want mid 50+ min's.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

980 Tri-SLI or GTFO.

AdamK47 said "You GTFO out!" :biggrin:

 

[skipsneeky2]

AdamK47 said "You GTFO out!" :biggrin:

Nice and shiny Digging that EVGA sli bridge,custom i wonder?It really looks at home with those cards.

 

[lehtv]

Nice and shiny Digging that EVGA sli bridge,custom i wonder?It really looks at home with those cards.

http://www.evga.com/articles/00766/