Assistance in Choosing a Graphics Card?

Xeroxed · September 2015

So for the longest time I haven't done PvP in ESO, and I've been subscribed from the beginning. But when I finally tried it out both after the Tamriel Unlimited as well as Imperial City releases, I found it... utterly unplayable. Like 5-10 FPS unplayable even on lowest settings. So I figured my video card was due for an upgrade as that's probably where the bottleneck is. :P However here are my stats for your perusing:

Windows 10 (I noticed a noticeable performance bump when I upgraded from Win 7, finally MS stops disappointing me nearly as much

)
AMD A8-5500 Trinity Quad-Core 3.2GHz
SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 4670, 512MB 128-Bit GDDR3 (yes, from before ATI was bought by AMD - you can laugh now at how old this is :P)
8 GB DDR3 1600 RAM (2 X 4GB sticks, dual channel)
High Speed Broadband using Ethernet, So That Hopefully isn't the Problem.

So am I correct about the main issue? If so any ideas on relatively cheap video cards that would get me reasonable frame rates in PvP would be appreciated.

For me reasonable would be a consistent 25-45 FPS given that's what I tend to average in PvE and it doesn't bother me horribly. As far as cheapness, I'm aiming to spend between $100-150 USD on the card. I'd undoubtedly have to get a new mobo too since my current one is PCIe 2 or 2.1 or something I believe, hence why I'm aiming low on the card - but if I need to aim higher in terms of budget you can chip in your thoughts. Just wanted to keep it cheap on account of being very poor and needing to save up, but I'd rather save a bit longer if it meant getting better returns in terms of how long the card would last me before needing another upgrade. XD

Elder_III · September 2015

Your CPU (APU) is your bottleneck in PvP. Well, frankly your CPU (APU) and GPU (video card) are both weak for ESO. Still, any PvP larger battles are CPU bound, even on the best newest i7 CPUs, it's just the nature of the game engine. I'm afraid you will need a complete upgrade of your hardware to get a satisfactory PvP experience.

Xeroxed · September 2015

Elder_III wrote: »

Your CPU (APU) is your bottleneck in PvP. Well, frankly your CPU (APU) and GPU (video card) are both weak for ESO. Still, any PvP larger battles are CPU bound, even on the best newest i7 CPUs, it's just the nature of the game engine. I'm afraid you will need a complete upgrade of your hardware to get a satisfactory PvP experience.

...Wait so performance is poor even on the newest CPUs in huge mega melees is basically what you're saying? Jeebus, who builds their game around that? Seems to me if that's the case the instance caps in Cyrodiil should be lower. : /

But regardless, what stats should I be looking for on the CPUs as well? I doubt it's purely the amount of cores and advertised speed per core.

Elder_III · September 2015

Yes I have an i7 3770K Overclocked to 4.2 ghz on water cooling with a R9 295x2 8GB and I still drop down in the low 30s in 100+ person fights. If I pushed the OC higher I might get ~3 more fps..... so it's a bottleneck for everyone across the board. Still 30 fps is considered playable by many.

You would want to aim for an i5 4600 series or the new i5 6600k as the minimum for modern CPU intensive games. If you can afford an extra $100 or so get an i7. Sadly, AMD doesn't have anything remotely competitive at the high end, so I can't really recommend them if you're starting from scratch. If you're on a strict budget the AMD FX 8320e is a good value and MicroCenter offers really good bundle deals (if you live near one).

*I should mention that I do run 100% max settings on my desktop, so lowering some settings will help in those biggest fights.

FriedEggSandwich · September 2015

Eso seems to cap out at 100fps, at least that's all the /fps counter seems to show. Having said that the /latency counter only goes upto 999. Might be worth considering this before you splash out on a 980ti or something. Also worth considering is that no matter what system you run you will still drop to 20fps in peak time cyrodiil madness. I have an i7 980x oc'd at 4.2GHz and a gtx titan and I still get 20fps when the particle effects fly.

RinaldoGandolphi · September 2015

OP

Your CPU is fine, ESO actually runs better on AMD hardware now anyways IMO. It runs much better on AMD now then it did last year and i personally think its a waste to upgrade your CPU for the requirements your looking for.. If you want to you could spend 30 bucks and buy a Coolermaster Hyper 212 Evo and overclock your CPU to 4-4.2 ghz if you wanted to, thats up to you...just don't do it on a stock fan and heatsink.

R 9 280 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202099&cm_re=r9_280-_-14-202-099-_-Product

R 9 285 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202127&cm_re=r9_285-_-14-202-127-_-Product

I would go for the R9 280, it has 3 gigs of Video Ram, a 384-bit bus which means it will perform better at higher resolutions(above 1080p).

The R9 285 replaced the R9 280, but it don't have as wide of a memory bus and has less Vram, won't perform as well at higher resolutions(above 1080p) but it does have the new AMD True Audio which the R9 280 don't have, you would have to decide if you need that feature or not, it also supports AMD freeSync whihc the 280 doesn't.

For 1080p resolutions those 2 cards are the best bang for your dollar, simply put they are the best cards to get at that price..

The R9 280 is better for resolutions above 1080p, if you never plan to game above 1080p for the rest of your systems life, just get the R9 285, its a great card..it will play ESO on high settings or greater giving you very good frame rates.

You won't need to upgrade your motherboard either, The only cards that can satguruate a PCI 2.0/2.1 x16 slot is the GTX Titan and the upcoming AMD replacement to 295x2...no other card can fully saturate the bandwidth of a PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot.

PS: I have ran 2 R9 280X(HD 7970) in Crossfire in multiple;e games and benchmarks and been able to max the GPU at 99% and maintain max frame rate with no stuttering or loss of performance. PCI Express 3.0 x8 is equal to PCI Express 2.0 x16 and most SLI/Crossfire boards with PCI Express 3.0 are running x8 on each slot in SLI or Crossfire and no bottleneck or issues.

Anyone who tells you that PCI 2.0 is a bottleneck you cna refer them to this

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Impact-of-PCI-E-Speed-on-Gaming-Performance-518/

where puget systems did significant tests with a GTZ Titan on PCI 2.0 x16 and Pci 3.0 x16 and found pretty much no impact and the results were identical between the 2 with a top of the line high end GPU.

In short, buy the R9 280 or the R9 285 and simply plug it into your existing motherboard and rock and roll, doubltful you have any issues.

Xeroxed · September 2015

Thanks Rinaldo - that's exactly the kind of insight I was looking for. Haven't had the time or finances to really understand the intricacies of the hardware, so I had no idea most cards never even max out PCIe 2 bandwidth. :P

Not as big a fan of overclocking because I live in a desert, in a room with no AC and a only marginally working swamp cooler, so overheating is more likely. I have so many huge case fans as a precaution it's not even funny. XD But certainly good to know as well.

I was kinda dubious that the CPU would affect the frame rate that much given graphics tasks are a GPU thing - glad to know I'm not crazy.

RinaldoGandolphi · September 2015

Glad i could help.

Yes, your CPU should be fine, its certainly not going to bottle neck either of the cards i suggested.

in ESO the CPU is the bottleneck, however changing from what you have to an Intel isn't going to make enough of a difference to be worth the money.

Yes Intel is 30% faster, but when that 30% = 3 FPS and your already at 35 or 40, its just pointless to spend that kind of money.

This game has been very well optimized for AMD hardware since console launch(Both Consoles running AMD Hardware). When this game came out last year, my cousin got better frame rates then me with the same card because he had Intel, Now my FX 8350 pretty much keeps pace with is i5-4670k. Its within 1-2 FPS give or take. There has been significant improvements made for AMD hardware.

You already have an AMD CPU with Piledriver cores...its essentially an FX 43xx series, the R9 280 or R9 285 is a match made in heaven for that CPU, at 1080p you won't be dissapointed.

LaughingJack · September 2015

Xeroxed wrote: »

. . . SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 4670, 512MB 128-Bit GDDR3 (yes, from before ATI was bought by AMD - you can laugh now at how old this is :P)
. . .

lol not friends. i still running pretty much the samecard and im getting 40-90fps medium settings. works fine for me. But, of course, i have not yet entered IC - so, who knows how it will go - i shall find out.

LaughingJack · September 2015

fix the double-post-coz-i-edited-my-last-post thing please

TomLukman · September 2015

For what it's worth - I'd recommend switching to intel CPU and nVidia cards.

I used AMD/ATI before getting my current PC and just switching to Intel and nVidia solved most of my stability headaches. I run ESO on GTX 460 and it works fine. Since the old 4xx series are not even in the market anymore, any nVidia GTX card you can afford should work well with this game.

LaughingJack · September 2015

LaughingJack wrote: »

Xeroxed wrote: »

. . . SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 4670, 512MB 128-Bit GDDR3 (yes, from before ATI was bought by AMD - you can laugh now at how old this is :P)
. . .

lol, i still running pretty much the samecard and im getting 40-90fps medium settings. works fine for me. But, of course, i have not yet entered IC - so, who knows how it will go - i shall find out.

EDIT: have gone into IC and it's still fine