1. #1

    GTX 680 Sli help

    Recently I built a brand new computer the specs are i7-3770k 3.5Ghz (I have not OC'd yet), 16gigs of DDR3 ram, 2 GTX 680's , and 1000w power supply.

    I found when playing WoW I turn around to face a part of the screen that has a large amount of particle effects and the frames go from 133 to 30-40, I figure that something must be wrong for a game like WoW to make 2 680's drop 100 frames. I benchmarked the cards just a few minutes ago using Unigine Heaven and the average frame rate was 94.5, I also updated the drivers yesterday and the only other game that makes my frames go down is Guild Wars 2 I have no idea why those games cause problems when Skyrim, BF3, and other games that have better graphics and physics don't.

    If anyone could shed some light on what might be going on I would appreciate it.

  2. #2
    They're MMO's which require more CPU power than GPU power, where'as Skyrim and BF3 are more GPU dependent.
    Computer: Intel I7-3770k @ 4.5GHz | 16GB 1600MHz DDR3 RAM | AMD 7970 GHz @ 1200/1600 | ASUS Z77-V PRO Mobo|

  3. #3
    so 3.5 isn't enough? should I just OC?

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by zuthus View Post
    so 3.5 isn't enough? should I just OC?
    You will never hey an O.C. high enough to make you feel like your GTX 680's are working properly. Infact that rig in wow terms was a waste of money it wont produce any better in a real raid setting than a pc w/ a 660 ti. You have a BF3/Metro rig do it up.

  5. #5
    Everyone always seems to think Metro is more intensive than it really is. It's really just a glitch in the 3D settings that makes it generate twice the amount of frames in 2D mode. If you disable that, it ends up being not even close to on par with something like BF3.

    But yeah OP, if that rig's primary intention was WoW, then you spent a lot of money you didn't need to. Basically anything after something along the lines of a 3570k and a 570 or 660ti isn't going to get you much more in the way of performance. It's an old game, running on an old, inefficient engine. Overclocking would help a bit, but you're still going to be bottlenecked by the software, and then the CPU, in the end.
    Last edited by Berserker Cronus; 2012-11-04 at 05:49 AM.

  6. #6
    WoW, including dev time, is a game that's over a decade old. SLI wasn't terribly popular when WoW released, and it was never built with something like dual vid cards in mind, plus its an MMO, which will always be CPU dependent over GPU, so in essence if you built that thing for WoW, you've wasted a considerable amount of money. however, if you like BF3, Metro, etc you've got a super dope rig, lol

  7. #7
    Even if you're into BF3 and other intensive titles, that's still overkill with the i7 unless you use it for something other than gaming. Hell, it's still overkill with the 2 680s unless you're running on multiple monitors or at an insane resolution.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Milkshake86 View Post
    You will never hey an O.C. high enough to make you feel like your GTX 680's are working properly. Infact that rig in wow terms was a waste of money it wont produce any better in a real raid setting than a pc w/ a 660 ti. You have a BF3/Metro rig do it up.
    So I should just not play WoW because my computer is not good enough for it?

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by zuthus View Post
    So I should just not play WoW because my computer is not good enough for it?
    No cpu at this point is, its really unfortunate but even w/ another $1000 sunk into ur rig u wont get what we feel is correct for the hardware.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Milkshake86 View Post
    No cpu at this point is, its really unfortunate but even w/ another $1000 sunk into ur rig u wont get what we feel is correct for the hardware.
    Well you must get good results right? 4.8 stable should be like a red hot knife through a stick of butter.

  11. #11
    The software is the limit. Even with a heavily OCd CPU, your performance will still plummet in heavy situations.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by zuthus View Post
    Well you must get good results right? 4.8 stable should be like a red hot knife through a stick of butter.
    @ 4.8 Ghz I still see 38~ as lowest in 25m's everything @ max except shadows. I could "play" with shadows but Idk i dont even prefer it.

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Milkshake86 View Post
    @ 4.8 Ghz I still see 38~ as lowest in 25m's everything @ max except shadows. I could "play" with shadows but Idk i dont even prefer it.
    I run with shadows on "low" because I find them distracting while raiding.

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Butler Log View Post
    I run with shadows on "low" because I find them distracting while raiding.
    I run them @ low because they look like crap, they are not the shadows from say BF3 or Crysis ya know they are big blocky squares of junk. In my view they take more away from the game than they add to it. On low they are actually more realistic to me.

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by Synthaxx View Post
    Essentially, there's very little you can do to improve FPS in heavy areas once you reach a midrange system.
    The little you can do is overclock the CPU and make it work better with the said things (hopefully). You could maybe bump that minimum fps of 30-40 to stay above 40 if you used something like 4.5-4.8GHz overclock. Doesn't sound like a lot probably but it just might be the difference between noticeable fps drop and something you can't notice. And turn the shadows down a notch from ultra to high.

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