Graphics Cards...a useful reference

[Oldbugga]

Some might find this useful in chosing a graphics card.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/vid...irectx-11.html

[Xuvial]

The typos on the first page ("Azerot" and "rouge" lol?) kinda put me off, but overall a VERY interesting read! I'm so damn glad I upgraded from my 5770 to a 580, and I can personally vouch for the massive FPS increase after activating DX11...all the more evident on my 120hz
Good stuff Blizzard.

AMD really need to kick into gear and get some stuff optimized for WoW considering the sheer number of people that bought 6950's.

[taekvideo]

The spelling mistakes on the first page ("Azerot" and "rouge" lol?) kinda put me off, but overall a VERY interesting read! I'm so damn glad I upgraded from my 5770 to a 580, and I can personally vouch for the massive FPS increase after activating DX11...good stuff Blizzard.

AMD really need to kick into gear and get some stuff optimized for WoW considering the sheer number of people that bought 6950's.

I'm pretty happy with the 6950 I got.. atm my biggest bottleneck is the 60hz refresh rate on my monitor :P
I hope they get the drivers optimized better for dx11 though, especially when newer games come out with heavier graphics requirements.

[dicertification]

The typos on the first page ("Azerot" and "rouge" lol?) kinda put me off, but overall a VERY interesting read! I'm so damn glad I upgraded from my 5770 to a 580, and I can personally vouch for the massive FPS increase after activating DX11...all the more evident on my 120hz
Good stuff Blizzard.

AMD really need to kick into gear and get some stuff optimized for WoW considering the sheer number of people that bought 6950's.

What? Ati has no issues running WOW. You went from a low end ati card to a flagship nvidia card. I hope you saw improvement.

Edit:
Ahhh that half baked article shows ati cards slower than nvidia IN WOW. Old news. tomshardware showed us that long ago.

[Xuvial]

Ahhh that half baked article shows ati cards slower than nvidia IN WOW. Old news. tomshardware showed us that long ago.

Yeah, but people tried to prove that Tomshardware was biased towards nVidia cards and forced settings through drivers (or something like that, not sure).
This article shows an even bigger difference in performance, especially with DX11 on. I can't help but conclude that AMD cards are indeed slower than their nVidia equivalents when it comes to WoW, even in the fairest of tests. AMD cards have the raw power to push very high framerates but the optimizations for WoW are lacking.
WoW is a downright strange game when it comes to graphics cards....see the difference between GTX560 and GTX570? Way too huge.

[Auralian]

Bad choice in low to medium range Nvidia cards. 430 and 550 TI over a 460 1gb?

[Deleted]

Yeah, but people tried to prove that Tomshardware was biased towards nVidia cards and forced settings through drivers (or something like that, not sure).
This article shows an even bigger difference in performance, especially with DX11 on. I can't help but conclude that AMD cards are indeed slower than their nVidia equivalents when it comes to WoW, even in the fairest of tests. AMD cards have the raw power to push very high framerates but the optimizations for WoW are lacking.
WoW is a downright strange game when it comes to graphics cards....see the difference between GTX560 and GTX570? Way too huge.

Indeed, anyone basing their benchmarks for a GPU on WoW is insane. WoW is old and a patchwork of an engine, some cards run it better and few people really know why they do or what's going on.

As to saying nVidia>AMD in GPU, be more biased please.

[Wries]

.see the difference between GTX560 and GTX570? Way too huge.

82 FPS (560) vs 94 FPS(570) in 1920x1080 sounds perfectly plausable. I don't see any "huge" gap.

[Xuvial]

As to saying nVidia>AMD in GPU, be more biased please.

Mind pointing out where I said that, or are you just trying to flame-bait?
I'm the last person to be biased against anything in this forum. I've had my experiences with plenty of platforms, bounced between AMD and nVidia over the years and have seen ups and downs to both.

[gooseuk]

There is always ups and downs between the two companies. And both currentley have really good cards for any budget. The ones that stand out at the moment are the nvidia 560ti twin forza 2 as that can be overclocked pretty well. And the amd 6950 version 1s as they can be flashed to a 6970.

Its all about getting the best for your budget at the time. But both do great cards.

[Nightbliss]

Although the topic title and OP's introduction might be deceiving, I have to state that you should not use this guide if you're planning on buying a GPU to run everything and not only WoW.
Also, Nvidia GPU's run better on WoW as it was already stated and clearly old news. Intel CPU's are also favourable.

If you're buying a rig just for WoW than feel free to use this reference as a guide.

[DeltrusDisc]

Hmm.. maybe a 550 Ti wouldn't be so bad for me. =S

[Darkan]

how can a 6950 beat a 6970. And how are they getting these insanely low numbers on a run through of an empty zone and a flight path. Most cards on the list aren't pushing 60fps. I m not sure what to think about this "benchmark"

[Adappy]

They're using driver forced AA settings instead of the in game controls (I'm pretty sure)

[Oldbugga]

Besides the epeen value of the absolute numbers once you get above about 60fps, it doesn't matter which settings they use...look at the relativities. It is just a guide for those wanting to buy a new card and how it will go in Cata. That being said, I have yet to find a review site that has truly impartial approaches whether it be AMD/NVIDIA or AMD/INTEL comparisons....there always seems to be some slant.....it still provides a reasonable view of the marketplace at the moment though for those without a lot of experience in hardware. (I have an AMD card by the way). Make sure you look at the appropriate screen res that you will be likely using with your monitor.

Edit: There is still a lot to be said for the older "upper-end" cards that have DX11. I use an AMD 5850 (OC'd- it performas as good a most of the newer ones) and I won't be changing that anytime soon...well at least until the AMD 7xxx series appear later this year maybe.

Response to Nightbliss: My op suggested that some people might find it useful....this is prediminantly a WoW sight (isn't it?) and I haven't seen to may evaluations of graphics cards based on WoW anywhere else...especially with DX11. I hardly think it is deceiving at all. And I do agree...if you are looking at buying a card do your reseach properly before buying...the link was merely put up as a part of the info you might consider and not as the absolute for card performance....ie it is a useful reference.

[georgevonfranken]

It matters if you have a 120hz monitor

[Uggorthaholy]

So what I'm getting out of this is if you are looking to mostly play WoW, go nvidia over AMD.

[Oldbugga]

Not at all......you can probably get the performance you want with either brand...it then comes down to price. You need to consider what monitor you use (and GVF it really doesn't matter if you have a 120Hz monitor - do a bit of reading - refresh rate and fps???), what res you use, what quality settings etc. The world IS NOT A CHOICE BETWEEN BLACK AND WHITE based on one dimension only.

Sheesh: all I meant the link to do was give people some info, which to date has been hard to come by, about card performance in WoW to try and lessen the chance they will make an uninformed decision and be disappointed with their choice not performing as they expected. I personally don't care what card you chose.

[Xuvial]

Not at all......you can probably get the performance you want with either brand...it then comes down to price. The world IS NOT A CHOICE BETWEEN BLACK AND WHITE based on one dimension only. You need to consider what monitor you use (and GVK it really doesn't matter if you have a 120Hz monitor - do a bit of reading), what res you use, what quality settings etc.

< matters to me.
Haven't had the chance to run a 25man yet, but pushing 150 fps in 10mans on Ultra = smooooth (shadows on "Good"). Can comfortably fraps at 60fps @ fullscreen.

[Cilraaz]

Yeah, but people tried to prove that Tomshardware was biased towards nVidia cards and forced settings through drivers (or something like that, not sure).
This article shows an even bigger difference in performance, especially with DX11 on. I can't help but conclude that AMD cards are indeed slower than their nVidia equivalents when it comes to WoW, even in the fairest of tests.

From the article's "Testbed and Methods" section:

The ATI Catalyst and Nvidia GeForce graphics card drivers were configured in the following way:

ATI Catalyst:

• Anti-Aliasing: Use application settings/4x/Standard Filter
• Morphological filtering: Off
• Tessellation: Use application settings
• Texture Filtering Quality: High Quality
• Enable Surface Format Optimization: Off
• Wait for vertical refresh: Always Off
• Anti-Aliasing Mode: Adaptive Multi-sample AA
• Other settings: default

Note the bolded option. Default is "Multi-sample AA". In the past, if I modified this setting, I received a drop in WoW framerate. In addition, the "Texture Filter Quality", "Enable Surface Format Optimization", and "Tessellation" settings were altered from default. Hence, another useless WoW GPU benchmark because people can't seem to understand that they should just leave the damn driver settings alone.