GPU Buying Guide - (Read first post)

Larry Ortiz5 said:Just checking YouTube right now... looks like the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 is averaging around 40 FPS on Ultra settings at 1080p. It’s weird though—the game is only pulling about 1.8 to 1.9 GB of VRAM... 🙏

Seriously, looking at the link Timothy Kim60 shared, that file never even hit 2.7GB—not even when running in 4K. That’s actually pretty impressive. Even the RAM usage was sitting right around 2GB. Though, since those guys were complaining about FPS drops and stuttering, it probably could have performed a bit better. It also seems kind of weird that the people on YouTube managed to run it at Ultra 1080p on an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970, especially since the folks using an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 were barely getting by... 🤷 It’s honestly pretty weird. I'm really hoping that future drivers and patches will manage to fix at least some of this. I'm crossing my fingers... so, so much. 🍿 It’s been a long time since I’ve played a game quite like this... damn, just my luck.

Timothy Kim60 said:Here’s another benchmark, including the CPU data (assuming it’s accurate): Check out this performance breakdown for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. It’s a deep dive into how different GPUs handle the game at various settings. Definitely worth a look if you're trying to figure out what kind of hardware you need to run it smoothly.

It’s actually pretty fascinating that following Shadow of Mordor, we're getting yet another open-world title that isn't a total CPU killer. An AMD FX-4300 should be more than enough to handle it... $200 It looks premium, but that Intel Core i3-2120 is definitely going to bottleneck things—not that it matters much since performance is almost entirely dependent on your GPU anyway...

What an absolute joke... what were they thinking, putting that under the recommended specs for an i7? 🤣 Some people probably just bought them specifically to please her... 🙏

here The Intel Core i3-2120 isn't bottlenecking the Radeon R9 280 at all, but man, that CPU is absolutely murdering his graphics card...

Honestly, everyone was blindsided by that minimum Intel Core i5-2500K recommendation. Turns out the game absolutely hammers your GPU, while the CPU isn't even that much of a factor. 🤣 I honestly think this is easily the most graphically intense game I've ever played. That is, if we aren't counting Unity or those other completely unoptimized, buggy half-baked products from Ubisoft...

For those who aren't aware, all of The Witcher games have been notoriously demanding upon release, not to mention being quite buggy. It’s honestly smarter to just wait a few months to a year for the Enhanced Edition; at least that studio is reliable when it comes to pumping out patches for their titles long after launch.

Looking at these benchmarks, based on the 5850/6850/250X cards, it seems like only the 260X or an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 can truly be considered the absolute bare minimum to run this game on low settings. In a way, that's actually pretty fair, considering those GPUs fall even below the official minimum requirements.

In my opinion, trying to run titles like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt or Grand Theft Auto V on an inferior GPU just isn't worth the trouble. I’m definitely planning to hold off until the AMD Radeon R9 3xx series drops, or perhaps even wait for Pascal.
By then, we'll likely see the release of the Enhanced Edition as well.

Grand Theft Auto V is still pretty manageable; you can actually get it running on a lot of older, lower-end rigs without needing some massive beast of a PC, unlike something like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

Paul Miller64 said:In my opinion, playing massive titles like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt or Grand Theft Auto V on inferior GPUs just isn't worth the hassle. I’m definitely holding out for the R9 3xx series or perhaps waiting for Pascal.
By then, the Enhanced Edition should be out too.

What do you mean it's not worth it? Just take a look at this graph showing performance even below the minimum requirements—and honestly, the guy was being a bit too generous with his settings, so the FPS is actually higher than what most would see:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bewy...0pJFO53QbDgiHb

Grand Theft Auto V should run even smoother on that setup, and don't even get me started on how much better things would be with beefier cards like an AMD Radeon R9 280 or an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960.

It’s interesting how much performance fluctuates depending on your rig. Some people are hitting their limit with an AMD FX-8300 & NVIDIA GTX 970, while others aren't even seeing smooth gameplay at max settings on an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980. It feels pretty unoptimized; they definitely have some work left to do there. That said, you can technically run it on mid-range setups. I mean MID-RANGE, not budget builds. A GTX 750 or maybe a minimum of a 260X paired with an Intel Core i3-series like the one in this video should handle it just fine enough.

Some people probably didn't apply the day one patch immediately (not sure how much that impacts things), plus many users simply have no clue how to tune their settings. For instance, HairWorks supposedly absolutely tanks performance, then they turn on AA along with every single post-processing effect and enable VSync. Looking at YouTube, you see people running mainstream cards on much higher settings; here is another example: link. Or perhaps we're looking at a discrepancy between the original executable and a cracked version
.
+ The NVIDIA GeForce 7 series is performing way below expectations—it’s weaker than even lower-tier GPUs (whether you're looking at older AMD cards or newer NVIDIA ones)
.
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages..._review,5.html (760, 780, 780Ti, Titan)

Timothy Kim60 said:Maybe some people didn't install the day one patch right away (not sure how much that matters), plus people have zero clue how to adjust their settings—that Hairworks thing supposedly tanks performance drastically, then they turn on AA along with every single post-processing effect + enable vsync. Looking at YouTube, I see people with mainstream cards running higher settings, here's another example: link. Or maybe it's just an issue with the original versus a cracked executable

+ the NVIDIA GeForce 7 series performs way below expectations—it's weaker than even lower-tier GPUs (whether you're looking at AMD or newer NVIDIA stuff)

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages..._review,5.html (760, 780, 780Ti, titan)

Look, all versions are updated regardless of where you get them, so I doubt that's the problem. Hairworks and grass foliage range—or whatever it's called—are two things that can literally tank your frame rate by 10 FPS EACH. Hairworks looks cool, you can really see a difference on certain monsters, but honestly, it's not worth it. If I'm going to sacrifice anything for FPS, that's what I'll hit first. I mean, seriously, losing 10 FPS just so hair looks more realistic and lush? No thanks. Same goes for the grass foliage distance, which dictates how far out the grass renders; I've read detailed performance tweak guides where people drop settings from Ultra to High and gain 5-10 FPS without noticing any visual difference at all. You can actually run this game pretty well on mid-range rigs if you know how to tweak things smartly instead of cranking everything to Ultra and wondering why the optimization feels so bad. These features were clearly designed for NVIDIA Titan X or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 users, period 🙂 If only they had optimized it better for low-end builds, or if there were more things to dial back—like making it run on DirectX 10.1 or something similar like Grand Theft Auto V—way more people could play this smoothly. For real: GTA V is a great example; it's a high-end next-gen title, yet it isn't nearly as hardware-punishing as this beast... 🕺

Apparently, you can squeeze an extra 20+ FPS out of those high-end GPUs if you play it right.

with an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980

How much of a hit did enabling hair physics/Nvidia physx have? 10fps? 20fps?
---

Even more than that. Honestly, it’s all about what’s actually happening on your screen. I saw someone else running it where the drop was only about 10 FPS, but they didn't even have a horse in the frame. When I tested it with my horse AND a griffon head trophy—which is basically a massive clump of hair—it looked stunning, but the performance was just brutal. It felt like a choppy 25 FPS.

If you're rocking a beefier AMD GPU and want to use Hairworks, check this out:

Here's a trick for getting a smooth 20 FPS with Ultra settings and Hairworks enabled. In your Catalyst drivers, add the Witcher exe and set the tessellation override to 8 or max 16 for a 20 FPS boost. Basically, Ubisoft worked with NVIDIA to intentionally overdo the tessellation at 64x because NVIDIA handles it better, but even that won't save them from the absolute chaos of the engine's optimization. There's really no perceptible difference.

http://wccftech.com/witcher-3-run-ha...g-performance/

Regarding the NVIDIA GeForce 7 series, there is this

Man, props to NVIDIA, but their dirty tactics are hard to ignore. They'll troll AMD, and they'll even troll their own older hardware just to make sure the new stuff looks superior and moves units. To borrow a phrase from that one article, you definitely can't "accuse them of being altruistic."

Adam Moore3 said:Seriously? I'd rather not have 10 FPS just so my character's hair looks slightly more realistic. No thanks.

It feels like every time I play something, I'm thinking, "Man, the hair and fur look so bad... maybe they could just sacrifice 10 FPS so it actually looks decent."

Then it’s just not your game 😬
Besides, they’ll eventually drop a DX12 patch along with other updates and new GPU drivers, which should smooth things out. It's the same pattern we saw with the other Witcher titles—they always look significantly better once you compare the launch version to the enhanced edition.

Yeah, I’m still holding out hope 😬 I was just over at a buddy's place today checking out the PC I built for him, and surprisingly, he's pulling a steady 40 FPS at 1080p on medium settings with an Intel Core i3-4130, a 260X, and 4 GB of RAM. I honestly didn't expect it to run this well, especially since it was drastically worse on the Intel Core i5-2500K with the 6850, even though there isn't a massive gap between those two setups. 🤔

The 260X definitely outperforms the 6850, plus the CPU is slightly better overall (though you won't notice much difference in The Witcher 3)
There's also a new game patch out http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/05/...ty-patch-on-pc

Timothy Kim60 said:Well, the 260X is definitely stronger than the 6850, plus the CPU is slightly better too (though it doesn't matter all that much in The Witcher 3)
There was also a game patch released http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/05/...ty-patch-on-pc

True, but I didn't expect it to be this much. I mean, the 6850 can't even hit 30 FPS on 1080p at lowest settings—it averages around 26, while the 260X hits 35-40 on 1080p at medium. It's a massive gap; I really wasn't expecting that. I actually have a 260X in my home PC too, just with a G3220 instead of an Athlon. I'm hoping that won't cause issues 🙏 Looking closer now, there really is a noticeable difference between the 6850 and the 260X, I just didn't think it would be quite this big. CLICK

Looking at Company of Heroes 2, you can clearly see how much performance varies depending on the specific title. It’s actually quite striking that the GTX 960 clocks in about 30-35% higher than the GTX 760—check out this benchmark link for more details.
Hopefully, some driver updates for the 7xx series will help bridge that gap a bit.

As it stands, the game runs just fine on a dual-core setup.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is an open-world title and surprisingly enough, it does not require a high-end CPU to shine. In order to find out whether the game scales well on multiple CPU cores, we simulated a dual-core and a quad-core CPU. And to our surprise, even our simulated dual-core system was able to push constant 60fps on almost Ultra settings.

+ over scroll down

Timothy Kim60 said:Looking at Company of Heroes 2, you can tell the performance gap really depends on the specific title. Who would've guessed the GTX 960 is actually about 30-35% faster than the GTX 760? Check out this benchmark link.
They'll probably squeeze a bit more out of the 7xx series once the drivers catch up.

Anyway, the game runs fine on dual core

+ here scroll down

Finally some good news—at least I'll be able to run this decently on my PC. 🎉 Just finished to install the new patch, but honestly, I don't see much difference, at least not for me. 🤷 Keep hopin' 🙂

What kind of GPU can I grab for under $1,500?$667Can I squeeze in a bit more—maybe if there's a solid reason, like needing more RAM? Right now I'm rocking a 4870, and honestly, it's not like this new one is much longer, but I don't really want to butcher my case to make it fit. I've got a 600W power supply, if that helps at all.
What's the baseline here—a GTX 760, some kind of GTX 900 series, or an R9 270-290? I've heard some of those R9 cards have overheating issues—any specific ones I should steer clear of, or any particular models worth hunting down?

Andrew Murphy5 said:What kind of graphics card can I pick up for under $1,500?$667Could I maybe bump things up a bit if there’s a solid reason to—like needing more RAM? Right now, I'm running an HD 4870, and honestly, any card longer than that isn't going to fit unless I absolutely butcher my case. Just as a heads-up, I've got a 600W power supply, if that helps with the math at all.
Are we looking at a minimum of a GTX 760, the GTX 900 series, or maybe an R9 270 through 290? I've heard some chatter that certain R9 cards tend to run pretty hot—is that true? If so, which specific models should I steer clear of, and which ones are actually worth hunting down?

What else is in your build?

Which specific power supply are we talking about? Saying "600W" doesn't actually tell me anything useful.

A lot of R9 280(X) cards struggle with VRM cooling, so you'll end up having to undervolt them. Just a heads-up: try to steer clear of any models where the voltage is locked.

Personally, I’d hunt for a GTX 960 Gainward Phantom or just hold out for a rebranded R9 370 x, which is basically supposed to be an R9 280 or R9 290. My money is on it being a 280, though.

I’ve used a Gainward card before, and honestly, everyone says great things about them. Plus, my brother has an XFX card that absolutely shreds. He's been running it for four years now and it's still going strong.