Well guys, I saved my pennies, got some birthday money, and invested in a new card (XFX 2GB version). I wanted to get something current generation with DX11 support and determine based on that upgrade whether or not to invest in a new cpu/mb/ram upgrade later this year or postpone to next. Also, I wanted to see for myself if the SSD hype was worth it, and upon stumbling into a sale at CompUSA, I picked one up. What are the results?
First, the SSD. I had to first go into my bios and change the default controller to AHCI, since it won't work in IDE mode. I had actually done that during my last system rebuild on my single 7200 HDD. There really wasn't a noticeable performance difference on the HDD when switching the controller interface, which supports all the benchmarking I had read prior. I popped the SSD in my computer, which has SATA2 3GB/s connections, and started installing Windows 7. The first thing I noticed was the speed of the OS install. It took 7 minutes as opposed to my normal 20+ minutes on my HDD.
As we all know, once you install Windows, the first thing to do is put the Anti-Virus on. I am installing all programs to my HDD to conserve space and leave only the OS and other things that can't be helped to be installed on the SSD. Then Windows starts the Windows Update process, involving lots of reboots. All I can say is that rebooting is no longer an issue. It takes longer for my MB to post (8gb memory check, load AHCI controller, etc) then it does for the Windows to bring me to the logon screen, logon, and be able to do stuff. That was a huge noticeable difference.
The WEI (Windows Experience Index) jumped to a 7.3, not that it means much. Again, my programs are all on my "slow" (lol) 7200 RPM HDD. What I can tell you is that everything truly is noticeably snappier. Everything loads faster despite being on that other HDD, and no, it's not just because its a clean install. I did a clean install with partitioned c/d drives prior to getting the SSD for a few weeks to "practice" getting used to the smaller c: drive. Program launch and responsiveness is a bit snappier, probably due to the fact that each drive is dedicated to a function (OS commands versus fetch) more so than the SSD versus HDD. If everything were on an SSD, I can't imagine the difference in total performance.
Lastly, since we're all gamers, I would say that the SSD does not really impact FPS Sorry, but so much of games now get loaded into RAM and Video Card buffers, it's really more about those components and the speed of the available cores more so than the retrieval of the game data. I'm sure if you loaded games that accessed the disk drive during play a lot, like an MMO, then you would notice a little difference.
All in all, I'm very pleased with the SSD, and I can't wait to get one for my wife's new laptop. More on that in a future post.
Now, for the new card. As you know, I was running a Nvidia GTS 250 1GB. I do everything at 1920x1080 on my LCD panel. My CPU is a Q8200 C2Q overclocked to 2.8ghz from 2.33 stock, and I run with 8gb of RAM. On a quick side note, when I upgraded my RAM to 8GB from 4GB, there was a very noticeable difference, because of how Windows 7 will cache programs in RAM. Anyway, back on track now...
The games I'm currently playing are AC: Brotherhood, Starcraft 2, and other DirectX 9 stuff, like Borderlands, Civ 4, etc. I'm not going to go into details on every FPS at every resolution, etc. Go read Tom's Hardware, Anandtech, TechPowerup, or PC Perspective for that stuff. Here's what I'll tell you about what I have focused on.
I went with the XFX 6950 over the similarly priced GTX 560 ti, though I've always been a Nvidia guy. so why the switch? Simple...Price/Performance. Again, if you're interested, go check out those websites I've listed. I'm fully aware of the potential BIOS flash of my card to a 6970, but I won't go down that road until I need to or I want to extend some life in the card in it's later years. For now, this card can handle anything thrown at it, which is awesome because I get to play with settings I've never got to before. Namely, AA settings. With the GTS 250, I was never really able to turn those things on because frame rates would drop too low.
Before I dive into the difference, let me first say is that my GTS 250, with a small overclock, was no slouch, even at my resolution (hence why I got the GB card back then). I pushed this card to the limits, and was never really disappointed. It wasn't until I started playing AC: Brotherhood that I really started to see a difference. I experimented with maxing out the graphic settings, with 2x AA Out of the city, I could pull 30-40 FPS, which was playable, but when I was in the city running around, I would often dip into the 20's, and the stuttering was annoying. I turned the settings down a bit, and it helped a tiny bit, but the loss of visual fidelity drove me nuts. As you know, I place importance on that in my gaming.
Since getting the card, the first thing I did was run the older 3DMark Vantage to compare against my GTS 250. Benchmark wise, it was just over a 100% increase in score on my card. I don't like to upgrade unless I can get that kind of increase in performance, so very happy. Then I launched CCC (the video card application), and turned on the tuner settings so I could manually set the fan. For gaming I read that I should set it at 40% because the sensor doesn't really crank it up correctly and that is a good noise/cooling setting. Now, I guess my old card was bad in this area, because despite having an extremely cool case, and my putting new thermal paste (AC5) on the chip to lower temps, I would game at about 75-80 degrees Celsius with the fan at 90-100%. I tend to have my headphones on, so it never really bothered me, but it definitely sounded like a video card...or so I thought. This new card is so quiet. I don't know why some reviewers think it's loud. Even at 40% I can't hear it over my case fans, which aren't loud either. Anyway, the card idles desktop with the fan at 35% now, and I game with it at 45%. The temps hang around 37 for desktop / 57 for gaming. What a difference!
I launched AC: Brotherhood, maxed the settings, and was blown out. This game looks amazing. Seriously, it is one of the best looking games I've ever seen. That said, I was a bit disheartened when I ran around the city with my new settings, and hovered in the 30-40 FPS? Huh? That's not much different than what I got on my GTS 250? It was only about a 5-10 FPS increase from the same maxed out settings (4xAA in game) apples to apples comparison, same locations, same running path, etc. I wasn't very happy with that. So I then started checking my CPU load vs my GPU load. I didn't do that with my GTS 250, so I can't compare, but my cpu was running all four cores at around 80-90%, while the GPU never really got over 50%. Is it a bottleneck? Sure, a bit, but since it wasn't 100% maxed, it's hard to call it a bottleneck. I think the 2.8 speed is just a bit slow, with no L3 cache and limited L2 cache contributing. But still, I wasn't bottlenecked by the pure definition of the word, so what else? I started messing with Morphological AA, SSAA, etc., from within CCC and messing with game settings. Though there were big differences in visual quality, there wasn't a lot of difference in FPS.
After much research online, it looks like this game was probably built with Nvidia specs and optimized thusly, and AMD hasn't updated drivers for this game yet. Even those with the higher performing 6970 are having the same FPS issues in this game. It's a new PC game, so I'm OK with that. It's kind of expected with AMD cards. Nvidia gets updates for their cards pushed more quickly than AMD.
As a quick test, I launched into SC 2. It detected my card and maxed out the settings. I jumped into a single player mission, and couldn't believe the difference. The game looked good before, but it looks FANTASTIC now. Huge difference, and the FPS was hovering in the 70-90 range.
I did some more research this morning into all the different AA, and setup a few different profiles based on those. For now, in AC: Brotherhood, I have gone with in game no AA, and CCC Morphological AA. At first I wasn't sure I liked MPAA as it's being designated, but after a lot of experimentation, I actually prefer it. Do some homework like I did on these technologies, because they are a huge deal and a differentiator from current Nvidia cards, similar to how Nvidia own's PhysX. If you play those few games that have it, then go for Nvidia, but AMD is doing some amazing things with AA and visual fidelity.
Anyhow, as I play more games, I'll try to pose more about these things, but thought I would share some knowledge with y'all :)
Update: I have changed the aa settings for AC to in game 2x, post process enabled, enhance mode in CCC, using SSAA. The card has the power to run this, and MLAA kind of blurs the text. I am thinking MLAA will be best on games that don't have robust AA built into the game, like Mass Effect or Dragon Age.
ReplyDeleteCool post, I'm really tempted to upgrade my rig due to the upcoming releases later in the year. I read a lot on the 6950 too and the Bios format to 6970. Definitely best bang for buck gfx card out there.
ReplyDeleteSSD has me interested too, but did you only use it for the OS or did you install a game on it too? I would imagine the performance of a game would increase dramatically if it too was installed on the SSD?
I only installed the SSD as my OS drive. I try really hard to make sure nothing gets installed on it because it is so small, but so far have managed to keep about 15 GB free. After a lot of review, I can confirm that the only game you would see a difference from an SSD to a HDD during play would be one that has to frequently access it, which is really only the MMO's. Most other games load heavily into RAM, which is even faster than the SSD due to the bus system and order of operations. But for using it as the OS, I can confirm that it is a fantastic upgrade that will breathe life into your aging systems like no other upgrade can. I'm very happy with my new GPU, but a bit disappointed in the lack of titles using its power. I was planning on upgrading the rest of the components this fall before Skyrim, but I have just learned it is going to be DX9 as well, so what's the point?
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