Yes i know this is the video card section, i was going to post in CPU section but as there are 2 and most people looking to upgrade their systems for BF3 are asking here because naturally they are thinking their video card needs to be upgraded and this information should help out many that are experiencing less than 60 fps performance in game reguardless of settings, video card etc. so i figured i'd post it here
Test setup
Intel Core i5-2500k (sandy bridge)
8 GB DDR3 1600
2x 560 Ti's in SLI (im not testing video card performance here, just showing what none of the reviewers across the net are showing and that is your CPU's performance is key to good frame rates in multiplayer in this game)
in game settings are identical on both tests. 1920 x 1080 HIGH (i messed up on this, i meant to run low settings but had not realized until after i did this that the patch that happened a few days ago changed my video settings from low to auto so i will list my specific settings here, reguardless of this my CPU still became and is always the bottleneck on my system just not so much when its overclocked at 4.2ghz with all 4 cores)
texture quality - terrain HIGH
AA Defered OFF
AA POST HIGH
Motion BLUR ON (oh god how did i not notice this one for the last few days! must have been having too much fun hehe)
AF 16X
Ambient Occlusion HBAO
both FRAPs runs were timed benchmarks 5 min in length done on a FULL 64 player server on metro in conquest (you know how bad this meat grind fest is!!) i started the benchmark once i got to the famous choke point battles for B capture point and just played like i normally do from there and was in the middle of the grind both times rather than trying to get away/past the choke points.
first test i5-2500k with all 4 cores active, running an overclock of 4.2ghz
Frames
40855
Time (ms)
300000
Min
70
Max
201
Avg
136.183
second test i5-2500k with only 2 cores active and cpu downclocked to the minimum (3.4ghz no turbo mode)
Frames
19941
Time (ms)
300000
Min
32
Max
115
Avg
66.47
there you have it, half the frames were produced, my cpu use was maxed out during the 2nd test while during the first test my cpu use was very high but not 100% pegged. while the game was still very much playable it felt much slower than it did the first run, staying above 60 FPS all the time really is key to having the best multiplayer performance and your K/D Ratio will be better if you have higher frame rates not to mention the game is just more enjoyable
for those who are wondering why i have so much interest in this its because when i first got the game my system was a C2Q Q8200 overclocked to 2.8 ghz with 4gb of ram and 1 560 Ti, due to reviews on the net stating this game is not CPU depentant i bought another 560 Ti only to find out it was my CPU holding my GPU back even though it was a quad core. although i can no longer benchmark that CPU because i gave it to my brother i can tell you without a doubt that even my i5-2500k crippled down to basically what amounts to an i3 running at 3.4 ghz without HT the performance i experienced running that test above is still well above what my core 2 QUAD was giving me with the same 2 video cards in SLI.
Test setup
Intel Core i5-2500k (sandy bridge)
8 GB DDR3 1600
2x 560 Ti's in SLI (im not testing video card performance here, just showing what none of the reviewers across the net are showing and that is your CPU's performance is key to good frame rates in multiplayer in this game)
in game settings are identical on both tests. 1920 x 1080 HIGH (i messed up on this, i meant to run low settings but had not realized until after i did this that the patch that happened a few days ago changed my video settings from low to auto so i will list my specific settings here, reguardless of this my CPU still became and is always the bottleneck on my system just not so much when its overclocked at 4.2ghz with all 4 cores)
texture quality - terrain HIGH
AA Defered OFF
AA POST HIGH
Motion BLUR ON (oh god how did i not notice this one for the last few days! must have been having too much fun hehe)
AF 16X
Ambient Occlusion HBAO
both FRAPs runs were timed benchmarks 5 min in length done on a FULL 64 player server on metro in conquest (you know how bad this meat grind fest is!!) i started the benchmark once i got to the famous choke point battles for B capture point and just played like i normally do from there and was in the middle of the grind both times rather than trying to get away/past the choke points.
first test i5-2500k with all 4 cores active, running an overclock of 4.2ghz
Frames
40855
Time (ms)
300000
Min
70
Max
201
Avg
136.183
second test i5-2500k with only 2 cores active and cpu downclocked to the minimum (3.4ghz no turbo mode)
Frames
19941
Time (ms)
300000
Min
32
Max
115
Avg
66.47
there you have it, half the frames were produced, my cpu use was maxed out during the 2nd test while during the first test my cpu use was very high but not 100% pegged. while the game was still very much playable it felt much slower than it did the first run, staying above 60 FPS all the time really is key to having the best multiplayer performance and your K/D Ratio will be better if you have higher frame rates not to mention the game is just more enjoyable
for those who are wondering why i have so much interest in this its because when i first got the game my system was a C2Q Q8200 overclocked to 2.8 ghz with 4gb of ram and 1 560 Ti, due to reviews on the net stating this game is not CPU depentant i bought another 560 Ti only to find out it was my CPU holding my GPU back even though it was a quad core. although i can no longer benchmark that CPU because i gave it to my brother i can tell you without a doubt that even my i5-2500k crippled down to basically what amounts to an i3 running at 3.4 ghz without HT the performance i experienced running that test above is still well above what my core 2 QUAD was giving me with the same 2 video cards in SLI.
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