FRONTPAGE Battlefield 3 GPU Performance and Eyefinity Experience

[Overclockers.com]

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Before starting here, take a little while to read Janus67's excellent review of Battlefield 3 if you haven't done so yet. This article is going to focus on performance. If you are considering making the leap to Battlefield 3, have a strong GPU and were curious about how your system would perform, you're in luck. We have the scoop on several of today's top cards.

... Return to article to continue reading.

 

[Lukee]

Nice article. I would have liked to have seen for the first GPU benchmarks the 6990+6970 Tri-fire since you have the tri-sli 580s in that comparison.

 

[Bardolph]

This is an awesome article, and it exactly matches my experience (aside from some weird issues with the latest patch) with a single HD 6970 (6950 unlocked + OC'd to same specs as you have your 6970 OC'd to). I REALLY now want to buy a 6990 to go with my current card to run eyefinity...just...wow...

 

[hokiealumnus]

Nice article. I would have liked to have seen for the first GPU benchmarks the 6990+6970 Tri-fire since you have the tri-sli 580s in that comparison.

Yea, that was completely my fault, I apologize. When the third monitor came in I got all excited, set up tri-fire and just ran them for the Eyefinity benchmark, totally forgetting to run it for 1080p. Currently I'm excessively busy but I'll try to do that sometime soon and report back.

That said, Crossfire scaling is excellent in this game. The 6970 to 6990 gained 89.8% at 1080p. Adding the 6970 to the 6990 in Eyefinity gained 45.3%, so the fact that it's connected via a bridge instead of Crossfire-on-a-stick doesn't seem to hurt anything.

Based on those two numbers, it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect a similar 45% gain on 1080p also, so with the 6990 getting 89.6 FPS at stock, you'd be somewhere around 130 FPS with a 45% gain. It wouldn't beat the Tri-SLI 580's, but would get close and cost a heck of a lot less (~$1,500 for three 580's vs. ~$1,030 for 6990+6970).

 

[MIAHALLEN]

You included the eyefinity results, but not the high res results I provided?!?

THanks for the write-up Jeremy

 

[hokiealumnus]

Sorry; they weren't in a comparable format, unless I missed something and your resolution was the same as the eyefinity setup? If so I'm really sorry!

 

[MIAHALLEN]

No....but it would have been an extra data point for readers....NBD really

 

[Owenator]

Great article!

I actually had two GTX570's in SLI up until two weeks ago when one died . It would have made a nice addition to your review. When it comes back in I'll see what I can do to get you those results to add.

I ran Nvidia Surround (5760x1080) up until that time as well. I can possibly get you some numbers for that too. The problem I ran into was microstutter in BF3. It just felt like it wasn't as smooth. I played BFBC2 extensively in Nvidia surround as well as a few other games. It is a blast! But it also was driving me to desire faster and faster video cards with more RAM and budgetarily that is kind of a dangerous place to be for me right now.

 

[Janus67]

Owen, if you kept getting microstutter try disabling HT on the 2600k. I didn't need to do so (but I know a lot of people with 9** series 1366 CPUs needed to do so to get rid of the microstutter problem.

 

[Owenator]

Owen, if you kept getting microstutter try disabling HT on the 2600k. I didn't need to do so (but I know a lot of people with 9** series 1366 CPUs needed to do so to get rid of the microstutter problem.

Good idea, thanks!

I have eight cores with HT on which is way more than I need. I just need to get my video card back from RMA and either RMA my mobo or buy a new one because when the card died so did the PCIe slot it was in.

 

[tangletail]

That reminds me, has Nvidia EVER updated their drivers yet?

 

[Janus67]

A couple times... 290.** are the newest i do believe

 

[hank123]

I run mine with my 5850 with the core clocked to 950, card wont clock much higher, med rez and get about 32 FPS. It would be nice to have 2 5850's for this game and it would run like butter

 

[ToRpEdA667]

Love it. I think i shuold start looking for new display system maybe for christmas Peace

 

[derek1387]

Very very happy you posted this. I just upgraded to dual 6970's and triple monitors, which will be here Monday!

 

[hokiealumnus]

Awesome, congrats! Be sure to share some pictures.

 

[Mister Brandon]

AWESOME write up dudes!

Also, for those of you who havnt seen this...

http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?high=&m=1323124&mpage=1#1323124

http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=1174372&mpage=1

 

[Codeman05]

nice article!
It convinced me to get a third display and a stand to finally do eyefinity.
Unfortunately, I went a little conservative on the screen size (didn't think the stand was as big as it was), so now I need to talk the wife into letting me swap them all out

 

[hokiealumnus]

Thanks....and good luck with that.