Hardware

[Bealdwine]

We often discuss issues with running a fully modded Skyrim that are dependant or atleast heavily influenced by our hardware configuration (GPU & VRAM, CPU load, RAM, SSD &etc). I thought a place to discuss these might be handy.

** PLEASE DO NOT TURN THIS INTO A "VIEW MY AWESOME UBER KIT AND DESPAIR!" THREAD ** :P

 

Just as a starter - I am very limited in ways I can upgrade my PC atm until I can afford a full mobo-up rebuild. I have the option to either SLI my current card nVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 1Gb (just lost an ebay auction to try this :@ ) or there is a good offer on an nVIDIA GeForce GT 440 2Gb card I'm tempted to test and then SLI if it works out. We have talked a lot about VRAM influence on texture modding so has anyone experience of the latter card at all? The 520 is a dud and this is about my price limit if I plan a 2 card SLI eventually. (A GT 560Ti 2Gb would be nicer :) but is beyond my current budget).

[EisDrache]

I find my self pretty good at this what is your price point/max your willing to spend for a video card and i can throw you up a few options on what you can get for the money.

[z929669]

@Bealdwine

 

I would seriously consider waiting 3+ months and buying one of the now-more-expensive 2Gb cards... by then, the price should be drastically reduced, and this will give you the biggest bang for the buck. As long as you have at least 2Gb system RAM, you should be good to go with your CPU pared with a good 2Gb card. I think SLI would be overkill on your system. MAYBE a slight FPS gain, but that would be too expensive (with a better card combo) for the slight boost. Save your money for a new home-built system ;)

[Bealdwine]

I find my self pretty good at this what is your price point/max your willing to spend for a video card and i can throw you up a few options on what you can get for the money.

 

Thanks for the offer but I've done a pretty thorough research as far as price goes (very low atm) lol.

@Bealdwine

 

I would seriously consider waiting 3+ months and buying one of the now-more-expensive 2Gb cards... by then, the price should be drastically reduced, and this will give you the biggest bang for the buck. As long as you have at least 2Gb system RAM, you should be good to go with your CPU pared with a good 2Gb card. I think SLI would be overkill on your system. MAYBE a slight FPS gain, but that would be too expensive (with a better card combo) for the slight boost. Save your money for a new home-built system ;)

 

That's exactly the advice I would a) always offer to someone else & b) usually keep to myself... but in truth, barring some miracle, it is going to be a considerable time before the re-build can happen and I'm not getting any younger, lol.

 

I have 4Gb on my Win 7 x64 system and the mobo can't cope with a quad CPU, I don't see much benefit (and definately see some risks) in overclocking my kit, so increasing VRAM capacity and pushing the GPU (with SLi at the right price point) is probably the last gasp of performance my old rig will see.

To give you an idea if you're over the pond from me, prices in the UK are often the direct equivalent of US dollars - meaning suppliers take a $100 item and sell it for £100 here :P So PC kit is about a third again as expensive as in the states. I could get a 560Ti 2Gb card for about £210 but until I recover from my last divorce even that is too much, lol. The 440 I mentioned gives me the extra VRAM and could be SLi'd for about £110 for both cards.

 

Anyway thanks for the input guys B)

[EisDrache]

well if you look at this site

https://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=544&card2=642 and according to that the main points your current 8800 GT is actully quite a bit faster then the 440 2GB your looking at getting yes you will have more VRAM but the card its self is alot slower in terms of general performance your memory bandwidth will take a big hit and with that hit you won't even notice the increase of VRAM cuz of the big decrease of memory bandwidth me personally i would stick to your 8800 GT and get a 2nd one and try SLI your general game performance will be faster eather way with your current single 8800 GT or two then just a single 440 2gb even two of them won't be faster then two 8800 GTs

 

Yes you will be able to load more/bigger textures but at a cost of FPS so you can make skyrim look pretty but run slow or (my personal preference) look nice but also run nice too

 

So me personally i would just stick with your current 8800 and get a 2nd for SLI

[MontyMM]

I'm not sure I like the look of the 440s - had a quick look at some benchmarks and they appear to me to be one step up from an IGP. FPS in the teens for many games. Not really gaming cards.

 

If you go down the route of a second 8800 in SLI (as I mentioned somewhere, a similar setup works well for me) do make sure your PSU has the wattage for it, and that it has enough of the right power connectors. Mine is 550w, which I reckon is borderline for SLI.

[Farlo]

I'm not sure I like the look of the 440s - had a quick look at some benchmarks and they appear to me to be one step up from an IGP. FPS in the teens for many games. Not really gaming cards.

 

If you go down the route of a second 8800 in SLI (as I mentioned somewhere, a similar setup works well for me) do make sure your PSU has the wattage for it, and that it has enough of the right power connectors. Mine is 550w, which I reckon is borderline for SLI.

 

A friend of mine had the 440 and I agree, it's definitely not STEP material. I've heard a lot of people having issues with SLI and Skyrim, although if that's been fixed and you're on a budget then another 8800 might work fine, although aren't they generally low in VRAM?

[Asimov]

I am running 2 GeForce GTX 470 (Fermi) 1280MB, Quad Core system with 6 Gig of DDR3 ram. What would you guys expect as far as frame rates if I have followed step? I also tried tweaking my settings to follow what was shown by mardread. I get about 40 in the open world and 25-30 in cities.

[MontyMM]

If I were to buy a new card at an almost reasonable UK

price right now, it would be the ATI 6850 2gb.

It has the chops to run Skyrim at a decent framerate, and the memory to

handle upgraded textures. It could also

be crossfired when you upgrade, to give very respectable performance going

forward.

 

https://www.dabs.com/products/sapphire-technology-ati-radeon-6850-hd-775mhz-2gb-pci-express-hdmi-7V4Q.html?utm_source=google&utm_medium=product+search&utm_content=Q200

 

Personally, I’m holding out for as long as possible. Since every damn thing is developed for seven

year-old consoles anyway, my old machine is still just about good enough. I’m going to save up until the next gen

consoles start looming, along the Unreal 4 engine and its competitors. Then I’ll buy a nice beast when it’s really

essential.

 

EDIT: For some reason my posts keep getting these weird lines breaks, like I was writing free-verse poetry! Any idea why?

[stoppingby4now]

Maybe you're a poet and didn't know it?

 

Sorry, couldn't resist. Are the line breaks appearing in the editor at all, or only after you post?

[MontyMM]

Post post. :happy:

 

In the editor it all looks fine. It's happened a couple of times, then I've edited the post to remove the breaks, which seem to be carriage returns, and all is well. Weird.

[stoppingby4now]

What site theme and browser are you using?

[MontyMM]

I haven't touched the site theme, so I assume default. Running Firefox 11.0.

 

Firefox does have the Adblock Plus and NoScript plugins, but NoScript is set to allow all scripts on this domain.

[stoppingby4now]

I use Firefox with those addons as well. Very odd. I'd be curious to see if others are experiencing this. I haven't yet, but will keep an eye out.

[z929669]

well if you look at this site

https://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=544&card2=642 and according to that the main points your current 8800 GT is actully quite a bit faster then the 440 2GB your looking at getting yes you will have more VRAM but the card its self is alot slower in terms of general performance your memory bandwidth will take a big hit and with that hit you won't even notice the increase of VRAM cuz of the big decrease of memory bandwidth me personally i would stick to your 8800 GT and get a 2nd one and try SLI your general game performance will be faster eather way with your current single 8800 GT or two then just a single 440 2gb even two of them won't be faster then two 8800 GTs

 

Yes you will be able to load more/bigger textures but at a cost of FPS so you can make skyrim look pretty but run slow or (my personal preference) look nice but also run nice too

 

So me personally i would just stick with your current 8800 and get a 2nd for SLI

 

This is sound advice +1

[z929669]

 

EDIT: For some reason my posts keep getting these weird lines breaks, like I was writing free-verse poetry! Any idea why?

 

 

Because you are a hopeless romantic?