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Midrange card for Diablo 3

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petesmc

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 11, 2002
Messages
291
Doing a refresh of my PC and looking for a midrange graphics card. Needs to be able to play d3 max settings on 1080p and maybe some bf3 in lower settings. Don't need to go absolute top of the range, but would hope to last me 3-4 years.

Any recommendations?
 
I currently have a 560ti 1GB that plays the D3 beta, maxed settings, 1080p without any issues whatsoever. Of course, this is just the beta and not a live multiplayer so the number of spells and effects are limited to only what I perform. I can't run BF3 @ max because of the vram limitation, but medium-high on 32 player maps works great.
 
Wait until after launch of the game to buy a card:

A) because the D3 beta build has performance issues, and theyre not updating that aspect of it but saving those optimizations for the launch build.

B) to see if nvidia puts anything on the market, and/or AMD reduces their 7xxx series prices.

If you insist on buying now, I'd get a 7850 with a nice aftermarket cooler. They're really low on temps and wattage, and they can do ludicrous overclocks when you eventually need more performance
 
Slightly offtopic but pertains to the question at hand:

If you were to get a Llano chip to run Diablo III (and Skyrim as the most demanding game) at 1280x1024 resolution, would it have to be the A8 it could you settle for an A6 (this is for a non-gamer wanting to play casually)
 
Wait until the game comes out, hopefully by then nvidia will have released the GTX 660/670 and put some downward pressure on mid range GPU prices.
 
petesmc said:
Doing a refresh of my PC and looking for a midrange graphics card. Needs to be able to play d3 max settings on 1080p and maybe some bf3 in lower settings. Don't need to go absolute top of the range, but would hope to last me 3-4 years.

Any recommendations?
Click to expand...

pretty much anything will play diablo 3 at max settings.

I would say spring for the 580 tbh. been going for 300 or less now and thats a steal and will last you a bit longer than some others. not to mention it will absolutely stomp diablo 3 i
 
Blizzard is known for having fairly lax requirements for their games. I wouldnt worry too much. I have a 5770 I got used off forums for $60 and I have no doubt that will be sufficient for D3.
 
Just bought a brand new rig just for the game and went with a 6970 and it runs the beta and every game I have tried 1080p with amazing results. Diablo looks as good as it can.
 
I have a backup machine with a GTX 280, which I got on ebay for $62, that runs Diablo 3 beta at max at 2560x1600...So you shouldn't be running out and buying a highend gpu just to play D3.

I havent seen pricing info on the upcoming midrange 600 cards, but I would guess the 660 would be close to 300, and the 670 close to 400 to be competitive with the other Radeons, which may or may not affect the pricing of the sub-$200 cards. The GTX 460 1gb is a great card for $125, so I cant see nVidia dropping the 560 down to that price range to take its place, and unless that happens the pricing on the Radeon 6850 and 6870 in the red camp should stay largely the same.

Here is a decent reference (sorry for Toms) http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/battlefield-3-graphics-performance,3063-3.html
 
A 7870 has pretty fantastic performance for the price. The latest drivers brought it on par with a gtx580.
It also has plenty of overclocking headroom should you need extra performance in the future. Most people reach 1.2ghz and above leaving fan and voltages at stock.
 
Thanks for the awesome suggestions.

Unfortunately my current hardware is struggling in te beta, so going to need to upgrade pre launch. Any idea when NVIDIA is supposed to release the new lower range cards?
 
petesmc said:
Thanks for the awesome suggestions.

Unfortunately my current hardware is struggling in te beta, so going to need to upgrade pre launch. Any idea when NVIDIA is supposed to release the new lower range cards?
Click to expand...

What is your current hardware? Can you tell please?

I need to compare with mine...
 
I was using the D3 Beta on my old card (5750) at medium settings, played high at 1080p fine, not unplayable but was a little glitchy (or seemed to have a slight screen jump) my new 6850 at High on 1080p is slightly better. every other game runs fine, so im almost positive its the beta...

My suggestion for price is a 550ti/6850 ($120-140 after MIR, some 550ti's are around $109). 7770 for around $160 or a 560ti/7850 at a slightly higher price point.

Ill post some comparisons between both of my cards next month after the game is released (full ver, not beta, between 5750 and 6850) i still believe the old 5700 series cards will run this game with minimal effort.

Current setup:
i3-2100 (3.1ghz)
8GB DDR3 1333 (2x4GB)
600w OCZ PSU
H61 ASRock Motherboard
SATA3 500GB HDD (OS, apps, games)
SATA3 90GB SSD (data heavy/load time specific games, BF3, WOW, Skyrim, D3(soon)
6850OC Gigabyte Video Card - 1GBDDR5, 820MHZ/4250mhz (OC from Factory)
23" ACER LED S232 Monitor
 
D3 should run well on most anything. Folks having difficulty running it on older hardware might want to check their audio options.

Apparently if the number of audio channels is set above or below what your sound supports it has a pretty big impact. Made my i7 desktop feel like a boat anchor. Once I turned it up to match my audio card it was smooth as butter.

Same result with my laptop, which is quite a bit older. 2.8ghz duo and a Nvidia 280GTXm I think.
 
Draxanoth said:
D3 should run well on most anything. Folks having difficulty running it on older hardware might want to check their audio options.

Apparently if the number of audio channels is set above or below what your sound supports it has a pretty big impact. Made my i7 desktop feel like a boat anchor. Once I turned it up to match my audio card it was smooth as butter.

Same result with my laptop, which is quite a bit older. 2.8ghz duo and a Nvidia 280GTXm I think.
Click to expand...

Never heard of that before. I guess you mean that was true in the beta? I dont think that is worth mentioning as it sounds like a huge and correctable bug. I seriously doubt that will happen in final.... That is not something that should happen. lol..
 
Retsam said:
Oh, on another note, here is the official D3 video card support page.... Should be a more clear cut idea of what to expect(rather than asking random people).

http://us.battle.net/support/en/article/video-card-support-for-diablo-iii
Click to expand...

Not really a complete list tbh, though it is nice to have an idea. It's not entirely accurate either, since there's no explanation as to high/low/medium (there actually isn't a medium, which I find odd).

I found it a lot more CPU intensive than GPU intensive. My 7970 was getting about 36% total usage the whole time, far from strenuous (max settings, 1920x1200). Cpu performance was much more important, and it looks like it's pretty good about threading. It didn't really trouble my 920 at all.

On my 8800M GTS (laptop) I was pretty close to full GPU usage, averaging around 75%-85% depending on how much is going on (afterburner shows it maxing out at 93% after 30 minute playthrough) with nearly constant 59FPS @ 1440x900 and max settings aside from shadows, which were set to medium. Weird thing is that when I turn on Vsync the game stutters every ~5-6 seconds, but with Vsync off (or set to adaptive) I get screen tears ever ~5-6 seconds, you definitely don't have to go over the monitor refresh rate to get screen tearing. CPU usage was pretty much pegged to the wall with a mobile core 2 duo 2.4ghz (t8300), sitting at around 80% on each core just standing around town and both spiking up ~95% during heavy battles.

Note that I get similar stuttering on my 920/7970 combo as well, though it's usually a lot less noticeable after a minute (goes away?). Might have to do with the fact that my laptop's card only has 512mb of video memory, though it maxed out at 342mb according to afterburner.

Personally, I'd say it's actually slightly less demanding than unreal tournament 3 to give someone an idea of what overall system performance to expect.
 
Its not a complete list but in respect to the thread it gives a pretty good idea though. When you see that even HD1000,2000,3000 are still capable of playing the game at "low performance", that should dictate that any decent mid range video card should play the game fairly well. Should answer the OPs question. I have a feeling that is just a general list they quickly put up. Obviously there are going to be some cards faster than others, so there should be a low, medium, high but.....

I also liked seeing my 5770 in the high performance category since that is what I have.
 
Retsam said:
Never heard of that before. I guess you mean that was true in the beta? I dont think that is worth mentioning as it sounds like a huge and correctable bug. I seriously doubt that will happen in final.... That is not something that should happen. lol..
Click to expand...
He's having performance issues in the beta, which may be taking a huge hit because of a configuration issue, but it's not worth mentioning? He should just run out and buy a $200 video card which may not help him instead?

They may not even view it as a bug since it's an audio configuration setting in the game. Blizzard might believe it's your job to configure it correctly. Even if it is a bug, it's been around for eight months. Unless they push the date back I wouldn't be surprised if it survives one more.
 
Someone posted benchmarks of the beta on youtube, i stick it in excel.

NF3fR
http://imgur.com/NF3fR

a 260 is beating the 460s. and the 5770 has a good showing. Try find those for around $60.
 
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I played beta on a GTX 280 maxed @19x12 no problems. Blizzard typically doesnt have demanding graphics they build good PC games instead for everyone to enjoy.

I actually have a GTX 260 is you want to buy one for $60 shipped you can pm me.
 
petesmc said:
GeForce 7600 GT
AMD X2 5200+
4gb Ram

I run beta at reduced resolution and I'm seeing jerkiness and tearing.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that card definitely needs an upgrade. But I wouldn't go out and drop 200+ on a new card. As many have mentioned, you can get buy with an older card for cheap if you're on a tight budget (or just don't want to overspend).

Check out this chart, and shoot for something on the GTX 260/Radeon 4870 level and above, and I bet you should be fine. It will be an enormous boost from where you are at.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html
 
petesmc said:
GeForce 7600 GT
AMD X2 5200+
4gb Ram

I run beta at reduced resolution and I'm seeing jerkiness and tearing.
Click to expand...

You may also want to overclock your cpu to 3.2 or something.
Or dont go anything above 6850/ 550ti/ 460 / 260 / 5770 etc... You won't get max out of anything higher due to your cpu.
 
Since update 16, er was it 17...? You can see your fps on screen. My 5870 never dropped below 100. Vert Sync on was a flawless 60fps constant. That said, I know that AMD already released a driver specifically geared to D3. Not sure if the same has been done w/ Nvidia. Some beta users have complained about crappy fps w/ good cards.
 
There are some used AMD 6950 1GB's selling on the FS/FT forum for $145. That's way better than a 6870 and it'll play all your games no problem.
 
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