GPU advice/question

[Faylon]

Hello everyone,

 

I bough Skyrim Legendary edition last summer but I have not played it at all. I really want to use one of the Skyrim Revisited guides.

 

However, I currently have a GTX 570 1280MB card and I would like to update it.

 

At the moment I was thinking about the GTX 770 4GB (which seems to be slightly better than Neovalen's card). Is there anyone here with a similar card that can confirm whether the fps would be stable if I were to use Neovalen's guides? Or does anyone advice a better card?

 

I have been thinking of getting the GTX 780 3GB but it's quite expensive and maybe a little bit overkill. What do you guys think?

 

P.s: I really want to be able to play with a stable fps of minimally 30 (average 40+), using heavy enb mods and 1k/2k textures.

[Moragg]

@faylon - what CPU do you have, and what resolution do you play at?

[Faylon]

Oh sorry yeah. I didn't list those because I assumed these were already good enough but here they are anyway.

 

CPU: i7-2600k @ 3.40 GHz

RAM: 8 GB

Resolution: 1920*1080

[Moragg]

At 1080p a 770 will work just fine, but if you want really heavy ENB effects (etc) then a 780 would be better if you want to maintain 60 fps (far from necessary for Skyrim).

 

As a guide, I play 1440p with a 7970, and get at least 30fps outside with Realvision ENB A FULL version with a bit of quality tweaking. 1440p has 1.8x as many pixels as 1080, so you should manage at least 45fps on an equally heavy mod setup with a 770.

[james4832]

I would recommend getting only the 2gb version if you are playing at 1080p, as I'm pretty sure that Skyrim is the ONLY game that can use more than that, with extreme mod setups, but with such setups, the game would be unplayable on the 770. My brother runs with what you want on a 2gb 760, at 30-40FPS, so a 770 will be even better than that. As you said, a 780 is overkill, unless you are playing at resolutions higher than 1080p.

[Neovalen]

I suggest minimum 3GB card for everything. New games use more.

 

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[james4832]

^I stand corrected. The trouble with the DECENT cards that have more VRAM, is that they are so expensive on the NVidia side. I hope their new 860, and 870's have 3GB minimum.

[Aiyen]

Yeah 3Gb min if you plan on using it over the next few years as well. Any more then that is most likely not going to matter for gaming purposes.... other then you get bragging rights that your card have a higher value then someone else.

The next generation consoles are mainly geared at better lighting effects, and hence the better GPU will be the optimal choice.

 

Also VRAM is a funny fish to discuss....

I have plenty of times compared VRAM usage values with people who have cards with 3Gb+...

They report they use MUCH more VRAM then I have in total on their games.... yet we both run the game with the same amount of textures in the same region, and the same resolution.

Even when stress testing and just adding more and more until the games fail... then it tends to happen at around the same amount of textures anyways.

Conclusion.... VRAM is nice to have... but as long as you have above the minimum requirement then the only thing you get from having more is bragging rights.

[Moragg]

For high-res Skyrim 3GB is useful because it means there's a lot less texture-swapping. The smoothness on my setup improved dramatically when I upgraded from 2GB to 3GB VRAM, it lets me turn around without the whole thing stuttering like crazy.

[Faylon]

Ah thanks for the advice. I am aiming for future games as well of course. The two closest ones are Watch Dogs and the newest Thief.

 

As for VRAM, I wasn't worried too much since I was aiming for at least 3GB anyway. Both 770 and 780 apply here since they have (the MSI version of 770), 4GB and 3GB respectively. Plus they both come with the nice deal of getting Assassin's Creed 4, Splinter Cell Blacklist and Batman: Arkham Origins for free.

 

However, the 780 has about 800 more cores than the 770 one, making it a lot faster. I don't know much about GPUs though but now we've only discussed the VRAM of the cards. So what exactly does the amount of cores (or GPU speed) do to Skyrim? Isn't it the cores and speed of the card that ENBs rely on?

 

Sidenote: Every time I see a GPU discussion on Skyrim stuff, everybody only seems to be mentioning the VRAM. Nobody ever talks about the processing power/speed of the card. Wouldn't it make more sense to have a really strong processing power? Isn't that what the fps is mostly dependent on?

[Moragg]

VRAM is talked about mainly because Skyrim can use so much. I've pushed 2.9GB in places, so it does help a lot. I wouldn't consider getting less than 3GB on a

 

The 780 is quite a lot faster than the 770, but I'm not sure if the extra bandwith on it's memory helps. I would get an R9 290 (custom), 780 (custom/ref) and if neither of those are available a 280X/7970. The AMD card prices really depend on where you live, I know it's gone crazy in the states since the mining craze.

[Aiyen]

More cores are only useful if you are going to add a lot of extra effects on top like ENB etc. Skyrim itself does not require much in terms of raw power to peak out at 60 FPS.

 

As Moragg says then more VRAM is mainly debated since the largest overhaul part of skyrim is the textures... and higher quality textures require more VRAM. However even 2Gb would get you really far, 3Gb and above and you could be sure that VRAM is no longer the limiting factor on your setup at all. The exception is if you are running at super high resolutions, then more is required... but then more cores are also required since effects start to become really costly.

 

For future games then 780 would be the best bet.... or the AMD equivalent, both are nice cards.

[Faylon]

Okay so it has been a while that I started thinking about this and I think I made my final decision.

 

I'm going to get the MSI GTX780 which I can get for €437,-

I think this is pretty decent as I am getting Assassin's Creed 4 for free (they got rid of the other 2 games sadly) and maybe even sell my older one.

 

I do not only want to boost Skyrim, I'm certainly aiming for some future games as well. And as for Skyrim, I really, really want to play with some really nice ENBs and maybe other mods that come with nice visual effects (as long as it remains realistic, so no over the top fantasy stuff). So yeah, probably going to be heavy on the extra effects.

 

I'm just wondering though, if I'd get the GTX780, what textures size would I generally look for? I used to pick 1k textures all the time but I assume that I can get much better with the 780. Have any of you tested this?

[torminater]

How much VRAM?

Which resolution?

Multiple monitors?

 

It also depends on how many mods you include that add new stuff to the world.

 

 

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[Faylon]

How much VRAM?

Which resolution?

Multiple monitors?

 

It also depends on how many mods you include that add new stuff to the world.

 

It's somewhere on the first page as well but here it is again:

 

CPU: i7-2600k @ 3.40 GHz

RAM: 8 GB

Resolution: 1080p

GPU: MSI GTX780 3GB Gaming (Soon to be!)

One monitor.

 

Thus far I'm talking about Neovalen's current SR:LE guide.