Real world graphics card performance

I recently upgraded my PC to the i7 setup shown in my sig. I'm using a GTX 650 (1GB) to drive three 1920x1080 monitors, primarily for my work, but I've started dabbling in games again after a long time away.

My plan is to upgrade my graphics card. After reading many graphics card reviews, I figured I was looking at starting with a GTX 9x0, or an R9 2xx/3xx , and eventually two in SLI/Crossfire, for the 5760x1080 gaming setup, and that even with that much horsepower, I might not be able to play at the high settings or get good frame rates.

I decided to set up and test Nvidia Surround using the GTX 650, to make it worked, and see if I could live with jumping back and forth between the gaming setup and my three screen desktop. I've been playing with the two modern game titles I own: Left4Dead2 and Dirt Rally. Mostly with medium/high settings at 5760x1080. They are perfectly playable with the GTX 650. Enjoyably so. Good detail. Smooth animation.

How is that cards that are two, three, four times as powerful as the card I am using, are not considered adequate for even some single screen setups? The reviews make it sound like $200 to $300 graphics cards have signficant limitations. Are enthusiasts not satisified unless their settings are absolutely maxed out on ultra? Does it make that much of a difference in the gameplay? Are the newest game titles so piggish on resources that they simply need more graphics horsepower?

Not trying to say people shouldn't spend what they like on their hobby/work/whatever. I'm just trying to understand what real world experiences are like, because I'm not sure the reviewers give the right impression with the "unplayable at this resolution with card XYZ..."

I run the same resolution on a single 980 and want more at times.
What's your budget?

it's with the monitor res above 1080 that the monster cards come into play and the e-peen thing plays into it also.
I play gta5 with a single 970 at 1440p and have to turn 3 settings back one notch, so I have a second 970 on the way in so I CAN turn it all up to the max, what sucks is that my eyes will never see it.
what I have found counts to me is no frame rate drops and not having shadows and things just "pop" onto the screen as long as the frame rate is above 45-50 I'm good.
I see you're in georgia, me also.
I hope you're enjoying vol tunnel stomping as much as I am this year!!!!!!!!

I think the difference is what people consider to be acceptable frame rates and desired settings to turn on. If you find 30fps-ish acceptable with medium settings than that is fine. Many people don't want to dip down from 60+ fps at high/ultra settings and buy the cards to do so.

Can you run FRAPS to see what your average framerate is/etc in the games you are playing? I believe Dirt Rally will be the one worth benchmarking as L4D2 is several years old and based on the very very scalable source engine which isn't super taxing.

I have R9 290 Crossfire and play at 1440p. Dx11 games run OK and most of the time it's CPU that cuts performance down. Dx 12 runs very well on AMD hardware(Ashes of the Singularity) and I expect to run it on ultra once AMD/Nvidia will "allow" them to release multi GPU support.
Most games I play are AAA games pushing graphics hardware pretty hard and I highly doubt that I could push 5760x1080 on these games.
I would advise getting 390x 8GB or go for 980ti possibly SLI/CF if you feel the need later. There are a lot of information about Nvidia cards lacking true asynchronous computing which will play a big role in demanding dx12 games. How well will Nvidia do with driver level implementation of this feature remains to be seen.
Personally I would go for AMD card, just because I don't like to update hardware very often and AMD has slightly better foothold on DX12 support with all GCN cards.

Another worthy piece of information is that Dx12 will remove SLI/Crossfire support and put developers in charge of multi GPU support. What this means is that properly done games will support any graphic hardware and get performance boost(including integrated GPUs)
So in theory future games will allow Nvidia,AMD and Intel cards/IGPU's working together.

Janus, your comments were spot on. In Left For Dead 2 on a mix of medium and mostly high settings, I was getting 45 to 60 fps. Pretty amazing efficiency.

On Dirt Rally, on high, I was getting 12 to 15 fps on high, and 20 to 25 fps on medium. Seemed perfectly entertaining to me. Maybe I just don't know any better. The idea that "under 30 frames per second is unplayable" (oft repeated in video card reviews) seems nonsensical to me. Then again, the original Atari console was the rage when I was a teenager, so my expectations may be lower.

ATMINSIDE said:

I run the same resolution on a single 980 and want more at times.
What's your budget?

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Don't really have a hard limit. I tend to be frugal, and because my first priority for this machine is work rather than gaming, it doesn't make sense to load this machine up with $750 worth of graphics horsepower that I'll use 2% of the time. I'll probably end up in the $150 to $250 range. I think you saw in my "what did you get" post that I bought the Sapphire R9 285 ITX. Got it because it was a deal from Newegg, but it was DOA.

I do want to go with AMD. I love Nvidia's edge in power efficiency, but the Surround interface apparently isn't as capable as Eyefinity, and that's a critical issue for me. Surround rearranges my open apps, and sometimes suddenly moves my taskbar. I may wait for the first discount on the R9 380X. It's reasonably power efficient.

OK, a couple of LOL @ self moments this evening.

First of all, my "DOA" R9 285 wasn't DOA after all. I installed it in another PC and it worked. Hmm. I then went back and methodically stepped thru installation in my workstation, and voila!, it booted. I don't know if I failed to seat it properly (although I did it multiple times), or perhaps I didn't have the PCI-E connector firmly inserted. Whatever the case, it worked.

Then I went back and retested Dirt Rally and Left for Dead 2. I was getting 45 to 55 fps in Dirt Rally on high settings, and the game was definitely more playable. It's one of those cases where "you don't know what your missing until you've experienced it." Left for Dead 2 pegged at a constant 60 fps on very high settings.

I got an education today. I can see why people pursue max performance out of a graphics card(s). Thanks for bearing with me.

a lot more than that plays into our gaming pleasure, I can't stand to hear the rig while I game, another friend of mine like to hear the rig scream in pain, you spent the money, make it YOUR pleasure.

Glad you got it going and are happy!

caddi daddi said:

a lot more than that plays into our gaming pleasure, I can't stand to hear the rig while I game, another friend of mine like to hear the rig scream in pain, you spent the money, make it YOUR pleasure.

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Spot on.

I'm fussy about my PC's quietness, yet I have an aquarium in my office that makes all kinds of pumping/gurgling/bubbling noises, and it doesn't bother me in the least.

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ATMINSIDE said:

Glad you got it going and are happy!

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Thank you.

rbstern said:

Janus, your comments were spot on. In Left For Dead 2 on a mix of medium and mostly high settings, I was getting 45 to 60 fps. Pretty amazing efficiency.

On Dirt Rally, on high, I was getting 12 to 15 fps on high, and 20 to 25 fps on medium. Seemed perfectly entertaining to me. Maybe I just don't know any better. The idea that "under 30 frames per second is unplayable" (oft repeated in video card reviews) seems nonsensical to me. Then again, the original Atari console was the rage when I was a teenager, so my expectations may be lower.

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My GTX 570 only has a problem in one game, the shanghai map at the bridge in BF4 with ultra setting where I can see the frames because they have dropped 12 to 19 FPS. 30-60 fps is fine for me I come from need for speed SE game back when it was 1-10 fps, I also had Atari tank and pong. Incandescent light bulbs cycle at 60Hz and I find that fine.