Time for a new system

[cedric2011]

And I am tired of running on an "adequate" graphics card. 

Would like to run in ultra at a decent frame rate under most conditions .. are these specs good enough?

 

Microtel AM7078

• Intel Core i7 4790K Haswell Quad-Core 4.0GHz LGA 1150 Desktop Processor
• 16 GB 1600MHZ DDR3

 

• Nvidia Geforce 970 GTX 4GB GDDR5 Video
• Microsoft Windows 10 Full Version 64 Bit

 

Thanks for any and all feedback 

 

 

[Pamela Galli]

https://community.secondlife.com/t5/Second-Life-Viewer/20-fps-with-gtx-1080-and-i7-4960X/m-p/3040741#M27376

[DKTitan]

These specs are what I run minus the gtx 970. I traded up from a gtx 970 to a gtx 980ti  strickly for recording in sl. I still manage to hit low fps in certain places,

 I usually run my system with this base configuration. The reason why I dont set it to ultra and forget is because its not needed. And will probably Drag the system down more than nessecary.  

I run  72m draw distance most of the time because going much higher is just a huge hit to the system over all.

I lower my particle count to about 2048

My objects and sculpts lod is 4.0

Flexi prims 1.0

Tree's .500

Avatars detail 3.0

Sky detail 48 because raising it higher doesnt do anything for me.

Transparent water 

Bump mapping and shiny

basic shaders

Atmospheric shaders advance lighting model

Abient occulusion 

All turned on

Shadows set to Sun/moon + projectors

Avatars set to optimized (Firestorm setting)

One of the things to note about the Nvidia series cards is that they throttle based on load. Throttling happens because of the design of Nvidia cards.  Mine do not throttle because I have modified the card  itself. I descovered it while running the gtx 970. This does not happen in most other games because the game puts enough pressure on the card to keep it running at full speed.

Example of this is, when running without shadows. I see a gpu load(View using GPU) of  58%.

If I  turn on shadows Optimize( shadow resolution 2.16 I can push the system to about 98% load. This means that I am getting every drop of power from my card.

 

Now why did I run off on this long stupid tagent. Don't be upset if you find yourself still slowing down and having slow rez times while in sl. I think the 970 is a great card as long as you set your expectations correctly. I would also recommend looking at the AMD R9 380x or R9 390x. Both of this card offer more power for a cheaper price. Problem with is that Sl has seen a lot of issues with these cards.

A close friend of mine owns one and states that he hasnt had an issue with sl at all.

I hope I didnt ramble too much and I provided great information.

 

Btw my specs are  intel 4790k overclocked to 4.4 16 of ram  500gb solid state and gtx 980ti. Perviously owned a gtx 970.

 

Btw whats the cost of that system.

 

 Edit: Ya know I forgot the Rx480 is coming out soon, that's a beefy card for  cheaper than the Gtx 970.

 

 

 

[cedric2011]

Hi , and thanks for the reply.

" I still manage to hit low fps in certain places,"  <- that is fine and to be expected. Currently I can run at 'high' with advanced lighting model, just no shadows or ambient occlusions, and mininimal water reflections with 20-25 fps in most cases. I enjoy photography and that is where my frustration lies. When I crank everything to ultra . my frame rate drops to 2 or 3 , perhaps 5 if there is nothing there except me   . which can really make working with models or complex scenery pretty agonizing.

current system is 

AMD A10-6700

16.0GB Dual-Channel DDR3

768MB ATI AMD Radeon HD 8670D

 

The system I am asking about looks to run around 1200 USD , but I have not really shopped around, just begining my search  

[Ferd Frederix]

Your Radeon HD 8670D GPU  is very old and slow - only 815 passmarks.     The current state of the art is Nvidia 1070/1080, which is about 6 2x as fast as a GeForce Titan X.

src: http://www.roadtovr.com/nvidia-gtx-1080-benchmark-review-performance-head-to-head-against-the-980ti/

It's very new. It will not necessarily improve things over a Nvidia 970, as frame rate in laggy situatiobns is mostly controlled by the CPU's ability to move textures into and out of the limited 1 GB GPU memory that it supports.  Once you get too many textures in range, the CPU gets very involved, and FPS suffers.  But it will scream in every other game, as if you have a pair of Titan X's at over $1000. 

Your AMD CPU has a score of only 3693, roughly equivalent to an Intel I-3.  It is a Socket FM2, and can be replaced with another CPU chip.  I suggest a AMD Athlon X4 860K Quad Core Processor,  at 3.7 Ghz, for $74.99 from NewEgg.    It scores about a 5,585.    I would also upgrade my heatsink - for maybe another $30 to $40.  

That could save you a lot of moolah - the upgrade would be under $500 and would be a far better machine.

You can, of course buty a new machine, but another option is to purchase a new motherboard and RAM.   An Intel motherboard holding a I7-4790K at 4 Ghz would benchmark about twice that upgraded AMD Chip. at 11,189 passmarks. The CPu is about $330.00    But you would have $170 left to update the mobo and get RAM.

GPU:  http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Radeon+HD+8670D

CPU socket FM2: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/socketType.html#id26

 

 

[JayWaters]

I would love to see a single legit benchmark that shows the 1070 as being about 6x as fast as a GeForce Titan X

6x as fast??? On what game, what resolution and what settings? I have never seen a benchmark showing this insane claim.

Is the 1070 a good card? Yea seems so, but 6x as fast as a Titan X? Pass whatever you are smoking this way.

Concerning the CPU... 

I dont think multi core performance helps much on SL, but I am not certain but personally I think I would rather have a low end cheap ass modern skylake dual core pentium vs anything AMD has to offer, that isn't being a fangirl of Intel either..I just think going AMD today would be a mistake since there is no real upgrade path when using 6+ year old outdated chips that are near end of life concerning the socket set used.

If money is an issue. still get a z170 MB and stick a dual core for 70 bucks on it and upgrade to an i5 or  i7 skylake later.