Video Card specs

[Whiski]

So I have been racking my brain lately, reading till I go cross eyed and still find different answers to my questions leading me to believe there is no proper answer.

On graphics cards, what specs to you look for and which ones do you find most important? Memory bus, core, shader or memory clock, cores, shader processes..... so many specs to consider but which ones effect the game (CLoD in particular).

Whiskey

[bw_wolverine]

Unless you're buying a card for CloD ONLY and no other games at all, then maybe you could get that specific.

Otherwise, I'd just go on a site like www.anandtech.com and read their card reviews/roundups. They get pretty in depth on the cards and run a boatload of tests to show you the card performance in a large variety of games/situations. And not just games too. That's where I go to make my graphics card decisions.

[Tacoma74]

I love this site for looking at the hardware specs on video cards.

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php\

But the drivers are what really make or break any card. IMO.

[Whiski]

Something else I have wondered as well...with different resolutions effecting the cards performance.

My monitor is a 32" LG, with a native res of 1366x768...currently running the same res in game as well. If I increase my res, will that effectively increase performance or quality or both, same for decreasing the res?

I read the websites reviews on the GTX570 as that is what I have ordered (wife flipped when I told her the price of a 580 ). The 570 seems like a good card, certainly can play this game smoothly at high settings. Will ahve to wait and test it out i guess.


Whiskey

[ATAG_Dutch]

Got my EVGA GTX570 superclocked a few weeks ago. Runs the game fine @ 1920x1080 with everything on max but epi off, except over London where buildings/forest detail needs to be dropped, but I don't think you'll be unhappy.

My last card was a Sapphire ATI 5770 and wouldn't run the game above medium settings well at all.

I know what your missus means about the price of 580, I couldn't justify the additional cost myself at the time.

So, happy new card!

[Troll2k]

For Clod it seems that the more video ram the better.The GT 580 is the only one with 3 GB.(I believe).

Look here for ATI and Nvidia comparisions.

ATI: http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/131

Nvidia: http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/132

[CaptainDoggles]

The ultimate hardware resource for any serious gamer should be www.tomshardware.com

I agree with a previous poster in that the size of textures in this game warrant as much GPU memory as you can get.

[BigC208]

I got a gtx 570 myself last week. Was thinking about the 3gb gtx580 but that's twice as expensive as the vanilla 570. When the next gen cards come out next year I might splurge and go SLI with two $500 cards. Be a real bummer to spend $1200 now on two 580 3gb's and have a single 7970 or 680 fly circles around it in 5 or 6 months. Paid $319 for the 570.

So far I'm happy with the 570. With a i2500k at 4.3ghz it's running at around 95% max memory in Il2 CoD. Everything at high. 40Fps over London and pretty much 50-60fps everywhere else, no stutters. Coming from a e6600 duo and 8800gts and I'm really enjoying the game now. No more ctd's. What really surprised me are the 570's temperatures. I have it running side by side with an 8800gts. At idle the 8800gts is at 55c and the 570 sits around 33c(open case). Even under load the 570 has not gone over 60c.

On the Intel, Nvidia side I think a combo of i2500k and 570/560ti, sli will give you the most bang for the buck. You can spend $100 more on a i2600k or $200 more on a regular gtx580 and see very little improvement. If the new gpu hardware was not just around the corner I probably would've gotten the gtx580 3gb anyway.

[Codex]

Originally Posted by BigC208

... Be a real bummer to spend $1200 now on two 580 3gb's and have a single 7970 or 680 fly circles around it in 5 or 6 months.

This wont happen. A single, new generation card has never out classed two cards of its predecessor in SLI / Crossfire.

If you were to get two 580's now you most likely wouldn't need to upgrade for another 2 or 3 generations. Even today, two 480's in SLI are very close to two 580's in SLI.

Unless of course you're worried about the 5% difference in frame rates.

I used to be an early adopter of new graphics cards ever since the 9800GTX, but no longer. The money I spent on upgrading year after year was not worth the 5% - 10% gain in frame rates. Just my opinion mind you

[CaptainDoggles]

Get a solid DX11 card now, and wait to upgrade until DX12 or maybe 13 comes out.

With tessellation shaders on the modern cards it'll be a while before anything comes out that's leaps and bounds ahead.