BF3 Graphics Card Recommendation

[wrecks135]

I built a system with advice from this forum last month. I didn't put in a graphics card and I just got BF3 for Christmas from my wife. So...I guess it is already time to upgrade. I know this might be better posted in the hardware section now - but since I'm adding to a new build I thought you could advise me here. The bottom line question is what is the best bang for my buck card to adequately play BF3? I'm not concerned about playing at ultra settings - I just want it to look nice and play smoothly. My system is:

i5-2500K
650 W PSU
Asus P8Z68 mobo
8GB Ram
1TB HDD

It looks like AMD is cheaper than NVIDIA and I have no loyalty to either brand.

[glc]

What is your budget?

[wrecks135]

Good question. I'd like to keep it at around $150 or less but - if that is essentially a wasted $150 because it won't really do what I want then I want to know that also. If I need to spend more to get reasonable performance and greater longevity then I can think about stretching my budget up to the better card.

[David M]

$150 will do it for running the game but as you already noted it won't run on ultra settings at 60 FPS.

Best Graphics Cards For The Money: December 2011 : Best Graphics Cards For The Money, December Update

[glc]

The minimum required card is a 8800GT or 3870, the minimum recommended card is a GTX 560 or 6950. Better bump your budget up to $200.

Newegg.com - ASUS ENGTX560 DCII OC/2DI/1GD5 GeForce GTX 560 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

[mjkovis]

Originally Posted by glc The minimum required card is a 8800GT or 3870, the minimum recommended card is a GTX 560 or 6950. Better bump your budget up to $200. Newegg.com - ASUS ENGTX560 DCII OC/2DI/1GD5 GeForce GTX 560 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

I would second this recommendation. Excellent, excellent card. It will play BF3 flawlessly and still has plenty of power to run other games in the future.

[wrecks135]

Thanks for the recommendation, sounds like I can't do what I want for $150 or less. That card actually comes to $179 after a mail in rebate which is not far over budget. Just so I know the trade off, what more would I get if I stepped up to the 560 ti which comes to $220 after the rebate. Is the extra cost worth it?

EVGA SuperClocked 01G-P3-1563-AR GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

Newegg.com - EVGA SuperClocked 01G-P3-1563-AR GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

[glc]

Of course it would be *better* - the stronger the card you get, the better the gaming performance.

That is a good deal on that Ti - it's factory overclocked and has a lifetime warranty if you register it. If you can justify $220, go for it.

[mjkovis]

Originally Posted by wrecks135 Is the extra cost worth it?

Price per performance between any 560 series cards (even factory overclocked), the vanilla GTX 560 is the best bang for your buck. The extra $40-50 is not worth a few FPS in most games that your eyes will not notice. I actually just did research on this and I will post a link if I can find it to a very helpful review that was recent.

Although, glc is correct, for that EVGA, it would almost be worth the little performance increase for the lifetime warranty.

[wrecks135]

What about this card?

EVGA GeForce GTX 550 Ti
Newegg.com - EVGA 02G-P3-1559-KR GeForce GTX 550 Ti (Fermi) 2GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

It is cheaper, has 2GB memory instead of 1GB, and according to the specs listed on Newegg it has the same core clock speed and shader clock speed as the Superclocked 560 Ti. Why isn't it just as good - what am I missing?

[mjkovis]

The 560 series has about twice as many "processor cores" which is going to help in your cards performance during games. I would still suggest a 560.

[glc]

A 550 Ti is below minimum recommended for BF3. The extra memory does not help you at all unless you are gaming on a super high resolution monitor. It's the processor cores and memory bandwidth (192 bit vs. 256 bit) that make the difference.