68 replies to this topic

[RedFury77]

Playing BF3 I can get pretty good results in most games, however not great in every scenario.
For instance, I can play a 32 man team deathmatch game and maintain FPS of 55-60 with a few dips down to 50 running Ultra settings, 1920x1080, no msaa or blur.
But in a 64 man large map game like Caspian border, Ultra runs between 40 and 50 with some pretty bad dips. High settings will bump it back up but not even all the way up to the 60 mark.

Here are some pics: (adaptive vsync is on)

Ultra settings: Strike at Karkand 64 players no msaa no blur 1920x1080


High settings: Op Firestorm 64 players High settings no msaa no blur 1920x1080


Ultra GPU usage is only at 45% CPU at 82%
High gets higher GPU usage at 52% CPU is pretty much the same at 84%

But, my CPU isn't maxing out either. Shouldn't it be hitting the top? What gives? Also, with just one gtx 560 the card will hit 98% all day long.
I also tried reducing my resolution to 1600x900 and I did not see any real difference in performance (fps) it just looks fuzzy.

If this is a cpu limitation, would a phenom x6 do the job?

[90sgamer]

At 1920x1080 it really doesn't matter if you have a high-end CPU or not. Most games would be completely GPU limited.

Heres a Guru3d article that looks at CPU scaling in BF3 on an HD 7970.
http://www.guru3d.co...rmance-review/9
As you can see, even an Athlon X4 is within a few frames per second of a Core i7 2600k@5Ghz

It does mention that in an intense online firefight your CPU would probably be more important, but if this benchmark is any indication of BF3's overall CPU efficiency, I can't think an PII x6 would make that much difference. I would go for it if you were doing video encoding, virtualization, or other workstation apps, but for just gaming, probably won't help you that much.

[Knight_72]

AMD CPU's are not very good for multiple cards, thats all I'll say. I remember hating my 5970+5870 with a 1090t at 4GHz because of how poorly it performed until I got an i7

[Waco]

AMD CPU's are not very good for multiple cards, thats all I'll say. I remember hating my 5970+5870 with a 1090t at 4GHz because of how poorly it performed until I got an i7

Funny, you're probably the only person to ever say that.

[Knight_72]

Funny, you're probably the only person to ever say that.

Oh, and you loved your FX8120 for quadfire

[Waco]

Oh, and you loved your FX8120 for quadfire

No, but my unlocked Phenom II was awesome.

[RedFury77]

@90sgamer: Thanks for the link, I ran the same part of the campaign and it used the CPU a lot less than online play. They don't specify how long they test to give a comparison, but my numbers were about the same.

@Nyt Ryda: actually I hadn't heard that before. Thanks, I won't blow money on a x6 then. I saw microcenter has the i5-2500k for $170 right now though I will try to hold out for a while longer.

[Waco]

It's not fanboiism to state the truth. AMD CPU's suck at handling multi GPU's...

They really don't, but whatever.

[Waco]

*Cough benchmarks and BUlldozer*

He doesn't have a BD CPU. My Phenom II handled Quadfire just fine.

[IVIYTH0S]

He doesn't have a BD CPU. My Phenom II handled Quadfire just fine.

And that was a triple core made quad right?? an X6 would take care of it without a sweat