Upgrading

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mtrotter12

Junior Member
Dec 28, 2012
17
0
0
Hello Everyone,

So recently I've been playing Battlefield 3 and Far Cry 3 on my computer. It is around 3 years old and I've been getting some lag when I play on big servers or there's a lot going on. I'm kind of an amateur with this stuff but I have included my specs below. Do you think it's a new video card possibly? Reformat my whole drive? Any help would be great.

Thanks!

CAS: NZXT Khaos Black Full Tower Case w/ Side Panel Mesh
CPU: Intel(R) CoreT i7-975 Extreme Edition 3.33 GHz 8M L3 Cache LGA1366
CASUPGRADE: 12in (Blue Color) Cold Cathode Neon Light
FAN: Asetek LCLC 120 Liquid Cooling System 120MM Radiator & Fan (Extreme Cooling Performance + Extreme Silent at 20dBA)
FA_HDD: Vigor iSURF II Hard Disk Drive Cooling System
FLASHMEDIA: INTERNAL 12in1 Flash Media Reader/Writer
HDD: Single Hard Drive (256 GB Kingston 2.5 inch SATA Gaming MLC Solid State Disk (Nearly Instant Data Access Technology)
MOTHERBOARD: Asus P6T Deluxe V2 Intel X58 Chipset SLI/CrossFireX Mainboard SAS Triple-Channel DDR3/1600 SATA w/ eSATA
MEMORY: 12GB (2GBx6) DDR3/1600MHz Triple Channel Memory Module (Corsair Dominator
MULTIVIEW: Xtreme Performance in SLI/CrossFireX Gaming Mode Supports Single Monitor
MONITOR: 24' LCD - Asus VH242H Wide Screen TFT Active Matrix LCD Display (Black) - Fall Special
OS: Microsoft(R) Windows(R) 7 Ultimate (64-bit Edition)
POWERSUPPLY: Corsair Power Supplies (1,000 Watts HX1000W Power Supply - Quad SLI Ready)
SOUND: Creative Labs SB X-FI Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series PCI Express Sound Card
SPEAKERS: None
TEMP: NZXT Sentry LX Aluminum High Performance Fan Control, Clock, & Temperature Display
USB: Built-in USB 2.0 Ports
UPS1: OPTI-UPS ES1500C 1400VA/980W Uninterrupt Power Supply
VIDEO: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 1.7GB 16X PCIe Video Card
 
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Vdubchaos

Lifer
Nov 11, 2009
10,408
10
0
This is probably a combination of Server lag and your video card choking things up.

Have you been monitoring your GPU usage? Try MSI Afterburner and take a look while you play.

Chances are you are probably due for a GPU upgrade (assuming you feel these 2 games are worth playing....I don't).

I think rest of your rig looks fine.

To be honest with you I don't see 1 reason to really upgrade based on the quality of games they are putting out. THey are forcing hardware upgrades on games that don't even take Graphics/gameplay to another level.
 
F

Fallengod

Diamond Member
Jul 2, 2001
5,908
19
81
Yeah, the answer here could be many things. You could have high latency(ping), or you could be playing at to high of a resolution with to high of quality settings or a combination of all three.

Lower resolution and quality settings if your ping is fine. That should help. Or of course, buy a new video card..... Big online FPS games is what will stress a video card to the max.
 
chimaxi83

chimaxi83

Diamond Member
May 18, 2003
5,457
63
101
If you want to play the newest games at decent settings, I'd go for a video card upgrade. You can throw a new one in and not really have to touch the rest of your system. A GTX 670 works great if you're not into overclocking, but if you are, a 7950 would probably be better (and comes with free games).

I don't really see how an opinion on game quality really matters, or answers OP's question. They're obviously worth playing to him, because he's playing them.
 
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mtrotter12

Junior Member
Dec 28, 2012
17
0
0
Awesome thanks for all of your replies. I also had issues with Skyrim (not sure if this lives up to your standards of "worth playing") and really didn't want to turn down any settings. Would there be resale value on my old video card? Also is there anywhere you can redirect me to read more about overclocking?
 
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mtrotter12

Junior Member
Dec 28, 2012
17
0
0
Also how about a 7970? The only reason I say this, after a little research, is that the GTX 670 is around $400, 7950 around $300, and the 7970 is around $400 as well but seems to be a huge upgrade. Do you think that this will bottleneck in other places on my PC?
 
Eureka

Eureka

Diamond Member
Sep 6, 2005
3,822
1
81
Once again, use MSI Afterburner or a similar program to check your GPU usage while you're playing. If you're not using 100% of your GPU, it doesn't matter how nice of a card you buy, you're not using it.

With BF3, it could also be CPU lag. 64 players can bring down your CPU. Use a CPU monitoring program (realtemp, coretemp, etc) to see how your cores are being utilized.

I don't think an overclocked i7-975 will bottleneck a 7950, so you could go that route. I would not pay $400 for a 670 or a 7970. $300 for a 670, or $350 for a 7970, sure.

Reformatting the drive could help with other problems, but if you're just playing a game and everything is loaded, I wouldn't think of that first.

BTW, there are a lot of Skryim players here, and they can find ways to make that game bring your computer to its knees (3.2GB VRAM utilization, anyone?).
 
Termie

Termie

Diamond Member
Aug 17, 2005
7,949
48
91
www.techbuyersguru.com
The OP's video card doesn't have nearly enough VRAM (896MB/GPU) for any of those games. That's going to be the main culprit, so yes, it's time to upgrade the GPU. The GTX295 is basically two GTX275s slapped together. It's about as fast an an HD5870, which can play BF3 adequately at 1080p high, and Far Cry 3 at 1080p medium, but due to the lack of VRAM, it's just not going to work as well.

A stock HD7950 is about 80% faster, an OC'd HD7950 is about 100% faster, and a stock GTX670 is about 90% faster. Either card has plenty of VRAM for those games, although the HD7950 is a bit more future-proof with 3GB of VRAM, and also costs less.

The OP does not need a new CPU for those cards or those games. The mimimums in BF3 multiplayer will be held back a bit, but the GPU upgrade will be such a huge jump that the slight bottlenecking will be of trivial concern.
 
Eureka

Eureka

Diamond Member
Sep 6, 2005
3,822
1
81
Ah yes, the 900MB VRAM limit. That's something that MSI AB will tell you for sure, but yes, especially with Skyrim, it's low. If you really enjoy Skyrim, the 7950 with 3GB is a better choice than a 670 with 2GB, because you can add on a ton of mods. However, if you don't want to mod, I do believe Skyrim runs smoother on Nvidia hardware in general. Either one is a fine choice at the same price, but if you have to pay significantly more for the 670, then go with the 7950.
 
daveybrat

daveybrat

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Jan 31, 2000
5,795
1,008
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Termie said:
The OP's video card doesn't have nearly enough VRAM (896MB/GPU) for any of those games. That's going to be the main culprit, so yes, it's time to upgrade the GPU. The GTX295 is basically two GTX275s slapped together. It's about as fast an an HD5870, which can play BF3 adequately at 1080p high, and Far Cry 3 at 1080p medium, but due to the lack of VRAM, it's just not going to work as well.

A stock HD7950 is about 80% faster, an OC'd HD7950 is about 100% faster, and a stock GTX670 is about 90% faster. Either card has plenty of VRAM for those games, although the HD7950 is a bit more future-proof with 3GB of VRAM, and also costs less.

The OP does not need a new CPU for those cards or those games. The mimimums in BF3 multiplayer will be held back a bit, but the GPU upgrade will be such a huge jump that the slight bottlenecking will be of trivial concern.
Click to expand...

^^ Right on the money!

Your cpu and ram are fine. But you really are limited by the ram on that older video card. Any of today's modern generation of video cards should give you a much better experience overall.

Try looking into an Nvidia GTX 660Ti, GTX 670, AMD HD 7950, or HD 7970 as worthwhile upgrades. :)
 
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mtrotter12

Junior Member
Dec 28, 2012
17
0
0
My 7950 just arrived in the mail today and I'm an hour and a half away from going home to install it. Thanks for the help everyone!
 
chimaxi83

chimaxi83

Diamond Member
May 18, 2003
5,457
63
101
Nice, that was fast :thumbup: make sure you completely remove Nvidia drivers and make a clean install of AMD drivers.
 
DooKey

DooKey

Golden Member
Nov 9, 2005
1,811
458
136
chimaxi83 said:
Nice, that was fast :thumbup: make sure you completely remove Nvidia drivers and make a clean install of AMD drivers.
Click to expand...

^
This! You're going to be very happy with your purchase. Check back in once you install it and let us know how things are working out for you.
 
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mtrotter12

Junior Member
Dec 28, 2012
17
0
0
DooKey said:
^
This! You're going to be very happy with your purchase. Check back in once you install it and let us know how things are working out for you.
Click to expand...

Just installed it last night but didn't do a clean install....is there an easy way to go back and do this? Also on my old card there was a sensor on it for my fans that was just taped on there. This tape doesn't stick anymore, is this just regular scotch tape?
 
Termie

Termie

Diamond Member
Aug 17, 2005
7,949
48
91
www.techbuyersguru.com
mtrotter12 said:
Just installed it last night but didn't do a clean install....is there an easy way to go back and do this? Also on my old card there was a sensor on it for my fans that was just taped on there. This tape doesn't stick anymore, is this just regular scotch tape?
Click to expand...

Well, how does the card perform? Run 3dMark and Unigine Heaven/Valley to get some benchmarks of its performance. Then you'll know whether your installation was successful. You don't necessarily need to do a clean install, but you should uninstall your Nvidia drivers.

It sounds like you had a GPU fan monitor connected to your NZXT external display. I'm not sure exactly what that sensor on your GPU was doing, but if you want to try to use that functionality, scotch tape should probably be fine. What's odd about this is that the display can't control a GPU fan, so I'm not sure what the purpose of this is.
 
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mtrotter12

Junior Member
Dec 28, 2012
17
0
0
Termie said:
Well, how does the card perform? Run 3dMark and Unigine Heaven/Valley to get some benchmarks of its performance. Then you'll know whether your installation was successful. You don't necessarily need to do a clean install, but you should uninstall your Nvidia drivers.

It sounds like you had a GPU fan monitor connected to your NZXT external display. I'm not sure exactly what that sensor on your GPU was doing, but if you want to try to use that functionality, scotch tape should probably be fine. What's odd about this is that the display can't control a GPU fan, so I'm not sure what the purpose of this is.
Click to expand...

I will do exactly that when I get out of work unfortunately that's in 6 hours.

I was wondering the same thing about the GPU fan but then figured that the 3 internal fans in the tower itself, installed by the video card, might pick up speed once it senses that to be hot.
 
DooKey

DooKey

Golden Member
Nov 9, 2005
1,811
458
136
mtrotter12 said:
Just installed it last night but didn't do a clean install....is there an easy way to go back and do this? Also on my old card there was a sensor on it for my fans that was just taped on there. This tape doesn't stick anymore, is this just regular scotch tape?
Click to expand...

Did you go to the control panel and uninstall the Nvidia drivers? If so, that's normally just fine.

The old tape is probably a heavy duty tape better able to resist high temps. But as long as you aren't taping the sensor to a high temp component like the heatsink or back plate you can probably get away with scotch tape temporarily.
 
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mtrotter12

Junior Member
Dec 28, 2012
17
0
0
So I ran "the valley" benchmark and this is what i got:
FPS: 51.7
Score: 2162
Min FPS: 18.5
Max FPS: 95.1

Settings:
Render: direct3D11
Mode: 1920X1080 fullscreen
Quality: Ultra
 
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mtrotter12

Junior Member
Dec 28, 2012
17
0
0
DooKey said:
Did you go to the control panel and uninstall the Nvidia drivers? If so, that's normally just fine.

The old tape is probably a heavy duty tape better able to resist high temps. But as long as you aren't taping the sensor to a high temp component like the heatsink or back plate you can probably get away with scotch tape temporarily.
Click to expand...

I actually just did uninstall those and it somehow uninstalled my Direct11. So after that I basically went back and put all of my AMD installs on there and it's good to go
 
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mtrotter12

Junior Member
Dec 28, 2012
17
0
0
Termie said:
What model do you have? Do you know what clocks it was running at during the bench? It should have said on the right hand side. I'm pretty sure you're in the right range, but a bit more info would help.

Also, the 13.2 beta 6 drivers improve performance by an even 10%, for what it's worth.

Link: http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/AMDCatalyst132BetaDriver.aspx
Click to expand...

Model of video card?: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I'm not sure what you mean by clocks. I didn't see anything on the right hand side besides the timing, FPS min, max, avg and total frames. I just downloaded the new beta one and I had
FPS: 35
Score: 1463
Min: 17
Max: 68.5
 
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