Best Card @ 1080p

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brinjin

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 2, 2002
Messages
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What are the current best options from both nvidia and amd for running at just 1080p with max details? im trying to help a friend choose a card without having him spend more than he needs to. and i know that these days the higher end cards are geared towards resolutions above 1080p.
 
Nothing other than SLI/CFX can do 1080p at 60fps fully maxed on newer games.

older ones, sure.

like above 290x/970/980 is as close as you get.
 
Mister E said:
290x or gtx 970.
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I would only suggest these if you're wanting to push more than 60 FPS. On a 60 Hz monitor the AMD R9 280 or NVIDIA GTX 760 are more economical choices, currently going for around $160-$220 US. Both of these cards will be able to play most games with high visual settings, including modest AA, at or around 60 FPS at 1080p. If your friend's budget is $300-$400, there is no reason not to go with a GTX 970 at 1080p. The power and heat of a 290X doesn't make sense at this resolution.
The Mac said:
Nothing other than SLI/CFX can do 1080p at 60fps fully maxed on newer games.

older ones, sure.

like above 290x/970/980 is as close as you get.
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If all you play currently is anything from Ubisoft... The PC gaming world doesn't revolve around them.
 
or bf4, or DAI, or COD, sleeping dogs, etc...

UBI games are just poorly optimized ports.

no single card can do 1080p at 60fps minimum with everything at its highest settings. Particularily DX11 games.

and games are only going to become more complex.

The bottom line is get the fastest single card you can afford.
 
The 980's about as good as you'll find for a 1-card solution...and even it isn't perfect. 1080p/60/vsync with newer games has been more challenging than initially thought.
 
Armenius said:
I would only suggest these if you're wanting to push more than 60 FPS. On a 60 Hz monitor the AMD R9 280 or NVIDIA GTX 760 are more economical choices, currently going for around $160-$220 US. Both of these cards will be able to play most games with high visual settings, including modest AA, at or around 60 FPS at 1080p. .
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not really.. actually there's no reason to buy any of those cards no matter what kind of budget is, as they are already obsolete. Im using right now a 280X in my personal machine but isn't powerful enough to think someone can have a card like this for a long time.. even my 780 have some serious problems with newer games to keep minimums above 55-60FPS..

if anyone will be trying to buy a card right now and are planing to keep the card for a moderate or long time the minimum choice should be a GTX 970 or R9 290X

The Mac said:
or bf4, or DAI, or COD, sleeping dogs, etc...

UBI games are just poorly optimized ports.

no single card can do 1080p at 60fps minimum with everything at its highest settings. Particularily DX11 games.

and games are only going to become more complex.

The bottom line is get the fastest single card you can afford.
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^This..
 
The Mac said:
or bf4, or DAI, or COD, etc...

UBI games are just poorly optimized ports.

no single card can do 1080p at 60fps minimum with everything at its highest settings. Particularily DX11 games.

and games are only going to become more complex.

The bottom line is get the fastest single card you can afford.
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If you absolutely need to run every game out there at the highest settings with AA then this would be true. But one can turn down things like AO, texture quality, and AA without negatively affecting your experience.

BF4?
http://www.hardocp.com/images/articles/1413158332ipRva8wL8T_5_2.jpg
1080p, Ultra settings, 4x MSAA
R9 280 (Mantle) - 52.6 FPS Avg.
GTX 760 (DX11) - 55.4 FPS Avg.

DA:I?
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_page..._graphics_performance_benchmark_review,7.html
1080p, Ultra settings, HBAO+, 2x MSAA (above review using 90 seconds of actual gameplay)
R9 285 (DX11, no 280 in this review) - 33 FPS Avg.
GTX 760 (DX11) - 31 FPS Avg.
*Note that HBAO+ and MSAA pose a huge performance hit in this game because of how much is being rendered on-screen at one time. This combination can cause up to a 15 FPS hit.*

CoD? :rolleyes:
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_page..._graphics_performance_benchmark_review,6.html
1080p, Highest in-game settings except HBAO and supersampling, SMAA T2x
No R9 280 equivalent...
GTX 760 - 72 FPS Avg.

As I said in my first post, the 760 and 280 are solid choices on a tighter budget. The best option as far as price to performance is the 970.
 
thanks for all the speedy info! im surprised to hear some of this though, i had thought the mid-range cards like the GTX 760's and 960's (and AMD equivelant) were all you needed for max detail, high fps, 1080p games. And that everything above the "60" level was catering to people looking for greater than 1080p resolutions. thanks again!
 
1080p at 60 fps with everything max seems like some kind of pipe dream. If all it takes is 1 or 2 settings turned down to high instead of ultra leet extreme which for most things except tessellation/AA there is very little difference between high and ultra, but the performance requirements jump drastically

Every card is obsolete the day it is launched there is always newer, better, faster, cooler around the corner, like say the Radeon R300 series in a month or 3 :)

I am using a Radeon 7870 with a measly Phenom 955, I play at 1050/1080p and for most games I play at high some settings ultra just fine get an average of 40fps high of 175fps (GWT :p) You do not need to run things balls out or you will generally have to have the best hardware chew all kinds of power, make you room stinking hot etc.

Anyways, I am a radeon guy through and through(Nv shoddy company in more ways then one IMHO) 280-285-280x-285x is the way I would go ample performance not that $ to get it, but even then I would still wait to see what level the very soon R300 will be brining, more then likely it will drop the R200 pricing that much lower as well. Just my few $.01 opinion.
 
What is the monitor's refresh rate? Is this 1440x1080 or 1920x1080?
 
brinjin said:
thanks for all the speedy info! im surprised to hear some of this though, i had thought the mid-range cards like the GTX 760's and 960's (and AMD equivelant) were all you needed for max detail, high fps, 1080p games. And that everything above the "60" level was catering to people looking for greater than 1080p resolutions. thanks again!
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Here is a way you can look at performance for cross platform games going forward.

The PS4 GPU is roughly equivalent to a r9 265 with more VRAM available (a bit complicated since it's 5GB of shared memory available for games).

If a PS4 game targets 1080p30fps (fairly common) than you would need something roughly 2x as powerful to get 1080p60fps to maintain parity in terms of game settings. This is roughly a r9 290 or GTX 970 as the closest available from either company. Any add on effects (eg. HBAO+, or other higher settings) and MSAA will increase this requirement.

If a PS4 game targets 900p30fps (as developers try to go for higher fidelity, eg. AC:U already does this) you will need roughly 1.44 more performance just to reach 1080p30fps. This is roughly a R9 280x or GTX 770 (and likely upcoming GTX 960), as closest comparison's on either side, just to maintain parity.

Also this has no factored in VRAM yet. You have to assume that the minimum target is at least over 2GB going forward and this is readily evident in practice already as 2GB cards clearly have had to drop VRAM heavy settings at 1080p. I would not be confident on 3GB being enough over the longer term either (already arguably some issues, not thoroughly tested though). While people can argue over the quality of the ports all they want this is the reality currently in terms of how developers have chosen to leverage available hardware resources.
 
Armenius said:
If you absolutely need to run every game out there at the highest settings with AA then this would be true. But one can turn down things like AO, texture quality, and AA without negatively affecting your experience.

BF4?
http://www.hardocp.com/images/articles/1413158332ipRva8wL8T_5_2.jpg
1080p, Ultra settings, 4x MSAA
R9 280 (Mantle) - 52.6 FPS Avg.
GTX 760 (DX11) - 55.4 FPS Avg.

DA:I?
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_page..._graphics_performance_benchmark_review,7.html
1080p, Ultra settings, HBAO+, 2x MSAA (above review using 90 seconds of actual gameplay)
R9 285 (DX11, no 280 in this review) - 33 FPS Avg.
GTX 760 (DX11) - 31 FPS Avg.
*Note that HBAO+ and MSAA pose a huge performance hit in this game because of how much is being rendered on-screen at one time. This combination can cause up to a 15 FPS hit.*

CoD? :rolleyes:
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_page..._graphics_performance_benchmark_review,6.html
1080p, Highest in-game settings except HBAO and supersampling, SMAA T2x
No R9 280 equivalent...
GTX 760 - 72 FPS Avg.

As I said in my first post, the 760 and 280 are solid choices on a tighter budget. The best option as far as price to performance is the 970.
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BF4, not 60fps minimum

DAI, not even close to 60fps minimum

COD: cant tell minimum, as it isnt specified, but i doubt its 60fps.

some form of AA is necessary at 1080p, 2XMSAA or equivalent bare minimum, 4XMSAA preferable.

OP specified MAX SETTINGS.
 
The Mac said:
some form of AA is necessary at 1080p, 2XMSAA or equivalent bare minimum, 4XMSAA preferable.
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BF4 can easily be played without AA.
Sure, the game gets prettier with AA but it's not a necessity.
 
GTX 980 can't even get 60fps avg with the latest games on maxed out settings. Best to wait next year to be honest.
 
Only 1080p? You could save some money and go with a $100 Saphire HD7950 Vapor-X
I used to get 75 FPS in BF4 on ultra settings. Once I jumped up to 1440p monitor I was only getting 25 to 35 FPS...
 
GTX970 or if you want to spend ~60% more for ~18% more performance the GTX980.

Use DSR for games you have extra horsepower. (downscale from a higher res)

I'm at 50 FPS minimum on FC4 with a 980 (downscaling from 2351x1470 and SMAA - looks beautiful no jaggies), every other game I play is locked at 60. A 1080P monitor is 11% less pixels, so I would expect you to be around 55 FPS min, or with a 970 around 48 FPS minimum. Note: This is ignoring what I consider the loading stutter every ~10 seconds while driving that everyone complains about. The stutter is more of an issue with the code IMO, I'm also running FC4 off my HDD

BF4 I run at Ultra, 4xMSAA, high post and 150% resolution scaling locked at 60.
 
seanclayton said:
GTX 980 can't even get 60fps avg with the latest games on maxed out settings. Best to wait next year to be honest.
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It will always be like that. Solution, don't use ultra settings that are designed to crush any available card.
 
PcZac said:
Once we get better APIs (DX12, Mantle, OpenGL 4.5), that will fix some of the performance bottlenecks PC games are getting.
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nope.. do not dream with that.. no matter how much performance (even if any for powerful machines) can offer a better API, the higher performance available the most things the dev's will implement in the games.. "hell yes, we have those extra resources let's see how we can implement it in games, more things to add, more features, etc..."
 
depends on your budget
there was a 290x on sale for 260ish
stock 970 at 330
970 oc at 360/370

I got a gigabyte 970 oc'd to just about a stock 980 and i run FC4 with SMAA on ultra at 1920x1200, you should be able to get solid 60fps on high/ultra for awhile on a 970 oc/980.
 
GTX980 but even that will struggle a bit with BF4 maxed out. You probably won't be able to use supersampling (resolution scale) but you'll be able to use multisampling aa. It is a product of the 980 not really being that much faster than the 780ti, really.
 
The Mac said:
BF4, not 60fps minimum

DAI, not even close to 60fps minimum

COD: cant tell minimum, as it isnt specified, but i doubt its 60fps.

some form of AA is necessary at 1080p, 2XMSAA or equivalent bare minimum, 4XMSAA preferable.

OP specified MAX SETTINGS.
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You can easily get over 100 fps avg maxed setting in both COD and BF4 on a single GTX 970 @ 1080p. Not sure what you are smoking. Do you even play these games? Now if you are talking about resolution scale/downsampling/supersampling then sure you wont get 100 fps, but then again you aren't playing at 1080p either.
 
again, you've missed the OPs question.

what have YOU been smoking?

MAX means best possible quality settings this includes AA at 1080p, as its noticeable so 2x-4xMSAA or equivilent bare minimum.

and 60fps means 60fps absolute minimum, not average.

Average means nothing, only minimum does.
 
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The Mac said:
again, you've missed the OPs question.

what have YOU been smoking?

MAX means best possible quality settings this includes AA at 1080p, as its noticeable so 2x-4xMSAA or equivilent bare minimum.

and 60fps means 60fps absolute minimum, not average.

Average means nothing, only minimum does.
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Minimum isn't important if the game only drops below that number a few times over a longer playing session. As long as it's 60FPS+ 99.99% of the time (~4 slow frames over 10 minutes), it doesn't negatively impact your experience enough to worry about.
 
i disagree, those kinds of drops manifast as stuttering and are VERY noticeable because of the actual framerate delta.

Obviously im not talking about the occasional single frame outlier here. Those wouldn't be considered in a minimum frame analysis.
 
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Get a GTX 970 since the price-performance-features ratio is unbeatable right now.
Enable Adaptive Vsync (and PhysX for supported games), and enjoy the awesomeness.
 
DejaWiz said:
Get a GTX 970 since the price-performance-features ratio is unbeatable right now.
Enable Adaptive Vsync (and PhysX for supported games), and enjoy the awesomeness.
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I second this recommendation. The GTX 970 is just an excellent value right now, looks to have some longevity, and requires a lot less power than a 290X (I don't really care about the energy bills, I just know that my 290 runs a lot warmer than my 970 - a 290X uses even more power). You may not get 60FPS minimum at Ultra-level settings for all games, but it definitely chews through everything I've thrown at it handily.
 
Perhaps something cheaper than the $350 970 that will service 1080 at "reasonable" settings? It sounds like a price conscious purchase. A $240 Radeon 280X card is about 69% the price and 71% the speed of a 970. Maybe some Christmas time rebates might pop up?
 
For what its worth, my humble little GTX 670 (albeit heftily overclocked) is running every game so far at max settings. Crysis 3 on Very High even works although I turn down shadows a tick IIRC and I play in the upper 40's and mid 50's with it. With everything (except AA) pegged out Im in the low 30's at worst.

Now my 670 is roughly between a 280X and 280 so you can figure that something like this Powercolor 290 PCS+ for $240 shipped would be a good place to start. That would be able to play any game on the market right now at max settings and give you plenty high frame rates.
 
MacLeod said:
Now my 670 is roughly between a 280X and 280 so you can figure that something like this Powercolor 290 PCS+ for $240 shipped would be a good place to start. That would be able to play any game on the market right now at max settings and give you plenty high frame rates.
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I too am happy with a mini 760 (95% perf of a 670), but I see $410 on that link for a 290.
 
That's weird. They were $240 last night. Looking at the page now all the prices are screwed up. 290's should never be over $300.

I still had the tab open on my phone where I was looking at them last night.

Screenshot_2014-12-03-13-05-29_zps3337ebe7.png~320x480


Wonder what happened that they're now all $300-400+?
 
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xorbe said:
Perhaps something cheaper than the $350 970 that will service 1080 at "reasonable" settings? It sounds like a price conscious purchase. A $240 Radeon 280X card is about 69% the price and 71% the speed of a 970. Maybe some Christmas time rebates might pop up?
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actually i would not buy anything below a gtx 970 to 1080P gaming.. as i said in every tread as possible the 280X its a solid card.. great for 2013 and older games.. but anything recent its very hard.. im one of those who like to keep things as higher as possible and still be with a high refresh rate above 55fps as much as a I can, and this card simply can't do that even at 1200/1700 which its a lot.. it would be pointless to buy a card like this and the next year being complete obsolete.. I only recommend this card(or 280) to anyone who have a very tight budget and its willing to turn down some settings.

MacLeod said:
That's weird. They were $240 last night. Looking at the page now all the prices are screwed up. 290's should never be over $300.

I still had the tab open on my phone where I was looking at them last night.



Wonder what happened that they're now all $300-400+?
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give so thanks to BF and CM, they have re-stocked with high prices now.. same apply to amazon and any other site out there i have visited.. :( no more 250$ R9 290, and no more 170$ R9 280
 
MacLeod said:
That's weird. They were $240 last night. Looking at the page now all the prices are screwed up. 290's should never be over $300.

I still had the tab open on my phone where I was looking at them last night.

- img snip-

Wonder what happened that they're now all $300-400+?
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Interesting.

According to this article dated 7 October 2014, AMD did indeed give the 290 a price cut down to $300.
 
Araxie said:
actually i would not buy anything below a gtx 970 to 1080P gaming.. as i said in every tread as possible the 280X its a solid card.. great for 2013 and older games.. but anything recent its very hard.. im one of those who like to keep things as higher as possible and still be with a high refresh rate above 55fps as much as a I can, and this card simply can't do that even at 1200/1700 which its a lot.. it would be pointless to buy a card like this and the next year being complete obsolete.. I only recommend this card(or 280) to anyone who have a very tight budget and its willing to turn down some settings.



give so thanks to BF and CM, they have re-stocked with high prices now.. same apply to amazon and any other site out there i have visited.. :( no more 250$ R9 290, and no more 170$ R9 280
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That sucks. I got my R9 290 well before Black Friday/Cyber Monday and it was only $255, plus I didn't have to dick around with rebates. The 970 was $313, again without needing to send in a rebate, and also well before BF/CM. The price yo-yo is a bitch.
 
Honestly your best bet price wise is going to be a 290x for around 260.
 
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