GPU Buying Guide - (Read first post)

Larry Ortiz5 said:Dead Rising 3 is hitting 30 fps simply because the game is hard-capped at 30 frames.

Where are you getting that from? Did you forget to turn off Vsync?
Over here, the average is 70 fps.

Check out this

Apparently, NVIDIA depth of field and huge view distances are messing with this title. You might want to look up a tweak guide or something.

By the way, what a ridiculous game—you just leap three feet into the air and bash brainless zombies over the head with a lead pipe.🤣

Updates have been trickling in for months now 😬

I’m not updating anything because there’s really no point; there won't be any more improvements for the 7xx series, and this version is stable enough.

Timothy Kim60 said:BTW, this game is just weird. You’re jumping three feet in the air just to bash some morons over the head with a metal pipe. 🤣

Mentioning Dead Rising...😉

Anyway, I'm playing Dying Light right now and honestly, it's great. Really fun. At first, you're just swinging pipes or hammers, but eventually, you get better gear and mods... but let's not get sidetracked by the gameplay itself.
Bottom line: it's a blast, at least for me.

I have everything on High except textures, which are on Medium. View distance is set to half. I'm not complaining though; it runs smoothly... maybe averaging around 40 fps. 😁
But man, it eats VRAM. Afterburner shows about 2800-2900. So, it wouldn't surprise me if cranking textures to High pushed VRAM usage well past 3 gigs at 1080p.

Yeah, Dead Rising 3 is basically hard-locked at 30 fps right out of the box. You can technically unlock it, but honestly, I already finished the game and uninstalled it—so I'm not really messing around with 😁
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Regarding Dying Light, I love how much freedom you have to move around, but it really gets under my skin how all the characters feel like total puppets. It feels like I'm just running errands for them constantly... wouldn't it be nice if at least one person actually teamed up with me to help out?

EDIT: Just spent a little time watching some stuff on YouTube, and looking at this guy, he isn't having any issues with VRAM at all—it actually ate up more than 3.5GB 🤷
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And neither is this guy...

I honestly wish all the GTX 970 owners would take the hint regarding that infamous 3.5GB issue and just drop their used prices down to something reasonable, say $750, so I could finally justify picking one up for myself. 🙂

Obviously, we won't be seeing a slideshow here; this card is an absolute beast. Like I mentioned earlier:

Timothy Kim60 said:That doesn't mean performance isn't still stellar... I'm just pointing out that modern games CAN cross that 3.5 GB threshold at 1080p without even touching DSR technology.

The real question is whether utilizing that extra 0.5 GB actually impacts performance (considering those modules run at about 1/7th the speed), and if it does—by how much.

It’s a bit murky when exactly a GPU "allows" itself to exceed that 3.5 GB (3584 MB) mark. For instance, looking at that clip from the 8th regarding Dying Light upscaling to 4K, the game never crosses 3.5 GB. Yet, in the video I linked featuring the GTX 980, usage hits 4 GB even at 1080p. You can see it here.

Furthermore, this other video from the 8th is equally confusing: in Assassin's Creed Unity, usage reaches 4 GB with a GTX 970 at 1080p, whereas here it never goes above 3.5 GB. Meanwhile, here (Assassin's Creed Unity 1.1.0) exceeds it at 1080p, but then later, from the same user in even more demanding scenes using DSR at 1440p here it stays under 3.5 GB (Assassin's Creed Unity v1.2.0). Obviously, since the game lacks an in-game benchmark, these aren't 100% representative, but the variance in VRAM consumption is glaring. Either the 1.2 patch fixed something (which really highlights how unoptimized the initial release was), or it comes down to NVIDIA drivers (though there was talk about how you can't simply "block" that 0.5 GB via drivers).

It remains unclear whether it's better for performance to utilize that meager 0.5 GB or to avoid crossing the 3.5 GB threshold entirely. In the first scenario, you're dealing with 1/7th the speed; in the second, if you stay under 3.5 GB, you have potential overhead that could be leveraged for better performance 🤷

Regardless, there's no debating that this card is a monster. This is mostly a "what if" kind of technicality.

Larry Ortiz5 said:EDIT: Just watched some YouTube clips. This guy isn't having any VRAM issues, and it used over 3.5GB 🤷

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Really? 😁

Notice how he recorded everything inside that building after bumping things up to HD+? Even on the rooftop showing the city view, he's getting 40 FPS and it looks fine.

Wait until he steps out of that building and we'll see what 4K actually does. Anyone who's played this knows the sudden hit your hardware takes once you step from indoors into the open world—the FPS just gets cut in half instantly.

I've tried lowering my settings after heading outside, and I still struggle with FPS in certain spots. Meanwhile, inside that starting building, I'm sitting at a steady 60 FPS even on max settings.

The rooftop, the tutorial—everything stays smooth until you walk out. Then suddenly, bam, it tanks...

http://www.game-debate.com/news/?new...0And%20Grenada

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Alright, listen up. I need some serious advice here. I’m gearing up to finally dive into GTA V, and frankly, my current setup isn't cutting it. I'm looking to pick up a new graphics card, so let me know what you guys suggest. I have a specific budget in mind, but I'll keep it under a certain limit. What should I be looking at? $667I just want to squeeze every single cent of value out of that money. Every last bit.
My current setup is...

The AMD FX-8320 3.5 Black Edition. Just looking at the name alone gets my blood pumping. It’s a powerhouse, or at least it was meant to be, before everyone started obsessing over everything else. People talk about these chips like they're relics, but honestly? They have character. You can't just slap a modern processor in a rig and expect that same raw, unrefined energy. It's about the grit. It's about that specific era of hardware. Simple as that.
Asus M5A97 Pro. That’s the one.
So, I’ve been staring at this AMD Radeon hd 7770 GHz edition again. Honestly? It’s enough to make me want to throw my monitor out the window. I was looking through some old specs earlier—you know how it goes, getting lost in the rabbit hole of hardware that should have stayed buried in a landfill years ago. It just gets me fired up. We talk about modern power like it's some kind of miracle, but sometimes you have to look back at these relics and realize just how much we've been through. It’s frustrating. It really is. Every time I think I understand the trajectory of GPU evolution, something like this pops up and reminds me of how much wasted potential there was in those older architectures. Just... ugh. My blood pressure can't take it.
Kingston hyper 2 x 4
So, I’ve been messing around with the Samsung SSD 840 evo 120 again. Honestly? It’s a bit of a mixed bag if you ask me. One minute everything feels snappy, then the next, I feel like I'm fighting the hardware just to get a simple task done. It’s frustrating. You expect a certain level of reliability when you're working with these components, but sometimes it feels like you're just gambling with your data. Just my two cents, though. Anyone else feeling this, or am I just losing my mind?
The power supply? It's a Zalman ZM450-GS.

For your GTX 960, it’s fine, though an R9 280 x might be a better call—but you'll probably need to swap out your power supply too, I guess.

That’s exactly what I was wondering too—if I actually pull the trigger on an R9 280 x, what kind of power supply am I going to need to keep things from blowing up?

EVGA SuperNOVA 650 W vs. Corsair RM550x

The Last of Us just dropped version 1.4.0—if you’ve got the game installed, you might want to grab that update ASAP. It makes a massive difference in how smoothly everything runs.

Greetings to everyone, I am seeking some perspective regarding whether it is worth dropping $433 on an EVGA FTW3 GTX760 OC 2048MB GDDR5 256 bit, model GVN760O2GD-00-G, featuring a Base/Boost clock speed of 1085 / 1150 MHz, Memory Clock at 6008 MHz, and equipped with DVI-I, DVI-D, DisplayPort, and HDMI outputs.
The card is only about six months old... thanks in advance.

I’d personally try to knock at least 100$50 off the price.

I've already dropped my offer by $100, but he’s still holding firm at $1,400... so I'm curious, does that actually sound like a reasonable price point to you all?

It’s not exactly a steal, I guess, considering you can pick up a brand new GTX 960 for barely $567, and this thing is actually more powerful while pulling way less power.

I’ll likely try dropping it down to $33 then. Since I’m running a windforac 3 x, there should be enough thermal headroom to push the overclocking further; I suspect I can hit a 1200 MHz core clock and 1700 MHz on the memory. That said, I don't have the extra $167 required to just go out and pick up a GTX 960
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I’m looking for an honest opinion—is this card actually worth picking up? — the seller mentioned they’re open to negotiating the price $33.
Thanks!

It might be worth it, just watch out for scams. I'd try to get paid upfront, otherwise you might end up with a literal brick instead of a GPU.