F1 2011 Moving from playing on PS3 to PC.. Graphics Card Advice Needed

Superman · Oct 29, 2011

Hi all,

I've played both the 2010 and 2011 game on the PS3 and with the better graphics and the ability to mod things on the PC, I'd like to start playing it on the PC.

Now, when I originally built my PC, it wasn't intending to use the computer to play graphics intensive games (typical I know!) and as such I was donated a graphics card (NVIDIA GeGorce 7900 GT/GTO) from a friend which doesn't look good enough for F1 2011.

As there are a lot of people who play on the PC - I'm turning to you for advice on what would be a suitable graphics card which will deliver better graphics but not uber expensive (budget would be below £200). Plus, I only got a 550W power pack which could do with upgrading too.

I think my processor (AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2GHz) and RAM (4GB DDR3) is sufficient.

Thanks in advance for all replies.

John Robertson · Oct 29, 2011

you can get a pretty decent card for under 200 pounds I think. check out newegg.com or something similar in the UK.

Also check this site out: http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/

they have 3dmark test scores for almost every card out there, as well as approx. price for them. go budget vs performance yourself till your heart is content

John Robertson · Oct 29, 2011

I would suggest either an nVidia 400 series GTX or higher or a radeon HD5750 or higher I believe both of these cards are around $150 USD

TGApples · Oct 29, 2011

Would you use it for anything else, or just F1 games? Are you planning on getting F1 2012? F1 2013?

For reference I have a GeForce GTX 470 and run on max settings with no frame rate issues. I would have thought a 200 series Nvidia card (260 or greater) should be fine for the next couple of years, though you probably won't be able to run max settings, and it might be a bit dodgy by the time F1 2013 comes out! I expect my 470 to last a year or two longer than that if I don't get annoyed at lower graphics settings before that.

Superman · Oct 29, 2011

Thanks for the replies. I don't play any other games and intend to keep buying the F1 series so a few years of future proofing would be good.

Hottentot · Oct 29, 2011

There is a good article (link below) but in short a Geforce GTX 560Ti will be more than adequate and would be in your budget.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/09/26/f1_2011_gameplay_performance_review/9

Zanarkand · Oct 29, 2011

Sorry to ask this in your thread. I also on PS3 and my PC a dell computer it basically passes all the other tests easily except the graphics card and graphic cards confuse the hell out of me one reason I rarely use PC for gaming. I just did a test on a site to see if can run this game and it gets a 5 score and the game needs a minium of 5. The computer has a NVIDIA GeForce GT 530. Would the game work and if so work okay? I quite happy on PS3 but maybe when it cheaper on PC I'll get it. Like Superman mods interest me.

ShadowXGold · Oct 29, 2011

I paid about $60(?) for my Radeon HD4850 over 2 years ago and with my 2.6ghz Dual core, I can play 2010 MAXED at 1280x1024 with NO problems. (Haven't installed 2011 yet, but I'm sure it will be the same. So you definitely don't need a high end $100+ video card to play this game. Something under $80 should be more than enough. But if you have the $$$ and want to future proof (nothing can actually be future proof), then go ahead and get a $100-$150 card if that will make you happy.

samjealsha · Oct 30, 2011

If you want below $100 try HD5670 1Gb DDR5. With Intel core i5 3.1ghz 4GB RAM at 1440x900 I get a decent 60-70 fps

Rupe Wilson · Oct 30, 2011

If you unsure try this link for the best advise http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/categories-list.htm

dirX 11 cards are comming down in price...

Rob Stone · Oct 30, 2011

I use a Power Colour HD 6950 2GB (haven't flashed an upgrade to unlock shaders), 6GB DDR3 and AMD II X6 1055T (2.80GHz) and get 44fps in DX11 maxed out on (Ultra) 1920x1080.

ebuyer.com, dabs.com, overclockers.co.uk or scan.com are usually fairly reliable places. Overclockers have a few deals on their forum most weeks too.

As a few posts above say, check some benchmark websites, they usually have F1 in their tests which helps

Apex1972 · Oct 30, 2011

Hottentot said:
There is a good article (link below) but in short a Geforce GTX 560Ti will be more than adequate and would be in your budget.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/09/26/f1_2011_gameplay_performance_review/9

agreed, i have a 550ti but i wish i had spent 50.00 more on the 560. more stream processors ftw. with my e8500 the 550 is actually pretty good card too. these games are more cpu bound anyway. all i have been told by others is quad core is gonna provide better fps as long as you have a pretty decent card like at least a 550ti or better.

Emil Praga · Oct 30, 2011

i have a gtx460 at 1 gb and it works fine, 50 to 75 fps during races

Superman · Oct 30, 2011

Thanks again for all the replies. That GeForce GTX 560Ti seems the business.

I always have a few days to think over these purchases, so any more posts would be appreciated.

Ryan Vickery · Oct 30, 2011

You can get a Radeon HD6950 for just under £200 (though you will have to look around, i recently saw one on ebuyer for £189

http://www.ebuyer.com/282093-his-69...-dual-mini-displayport-hdmi-pci-e-h695fn2g2mg

At this price bracket it is by far the best card, the next up would be looking in the region of £250-300, with Nvidia not having any cards in the £190-230 range.

Andy_J · Oct 30, 2011

An AMD ATI 6850 will suffice. Great cards. I play at 1650 res and have an old q6600 cpu and it runs maxed out no probs.

Element515 · Oct 30, 2011

I use a radeon 6850, it's good enough to run any modern game at highest settings so far. It was $180 but i got two free games with it and a $20 check back. I wouldn't use those rating things to see if your card is good enough, USing intel hd 3000 graphics i think i was around a 5 too but the video clearly lagged to the point that it was unplayable.

Ryan Vickery · Oct 30, 2011

When buying a card you should think to the future, requirements on games vary massively and increase every year. Bare in mind that multiplatform games that are developed primarily for the console (Battlefield 3, F1 2011, Modern Warfare, Dirt 3 etc) will be really light on processor usage, these games rely heavily on graphics card oomph and processor power means little. Games developed for the PC (example, World of Warcraft, iRacing) rely much more on the processor and will benefit a lot more from it.

An example - I ran an Athlon 64 FX60 (about 5 years ago a £1000 processor), 2gb of DDR1 and a Radeon HD3870. I played decently games like Crysis 2, Battlefield BC2, Dirt 2, Dirt 3, F1 2010 etc (multiplatform), while I had slight issues in the Cataclysm expansion of WoW (heavy effected and busy areas saw massive fps drops) and iRacing (had to dial things down as i got slowdown during races with many cars, along with bluescreen freezes and crashes). I then upgraded to an Intel i7 2600k processor with 16gb Corsair Vengeance ram.... But had to settle with the same graphics card.

The result? The multiplatform game performance pretty much stayed the same, no real improvement at all from the upgrade, where as Cataclysm WoW and iRacing had seen massive improvements, the Jump of 10fps - 60fps in WoW heavy areas and iRacing now running well over 200fps.

Generally console games (because they are developed for the weak console systems) will run on almost anything with the right settings, and other than upgrading your graphics card you won't see a difference, while PC specific developed games require a lot more from your processor, which to an extent can allow you to get away with a much weaker graphics card if you have a meaty processor (my wow/iracing example).

I'm not really sure what the point of my post was, but if you were originally going to spend £200 then do it, the Radeon 6850 might do alright but the reviews are already stating the limitations of the sub £200 cards, how long until you find yourself needing to upgrade again? the 6950 if you can afford it is a much faster card and would last you longer, it is in the same league as my HD3870 was a few years ago, which is still serving me well.

Albiet with that said, I just spent a lot of time researching cards while choosing between the HD6970 and GTX570, I eventually went for the HD6970 and ordered it tonight, mostly choose the Radeon because it was cheaper, the two cards seem roughly equal.

Kristian Nenov · Oct 30, 2011

If you're going to play other (heavier) games, don't get fooled to buy an ATI card. I've had one ATI card and it didn't only broke on the 2nd year but it suffered in performance. The prices are low now for video cards. I saw a GTX 480 for below 250$. If you can spend some more money you should get a GTX 560 Ti which is a very good card for it's price. If you don't want to spend so much money than you can go for a GTX 460, but it's an old card and it's just a lot slower than the 560 Ti. And if you wish to buy an ATI card go for the 6950 because it can be flashed to 6970 if I remember well. As for your 550W PSU, if you get the GTX 460 you won't need a new one for sure, but for the 560 Ti it may not be enough (I'm not sure because of your AMD CPU, I have no idea how much power are they using..).

Ryan Vickery · Oct 30, 2011

kristiannn said:
If you're going to play other (heavier) games, don't get fooled to buy an ATI card. I've had one ATI card and it didn't only broke on the 2nd year but it suffered in performance. The prices are low now for video cards. I saw a GTX 480 for below 250$. If you can spend some more money you should get a GTX 560 Ti which is a very good card for it's price. If you don't want to spend so much money than you can go for a GTX 460, but it's an old card and it's just a lot slower than the 560 Ti. And if you wish to buy an ATI card go for the 6950 because it can be flashed to 6970 if I remember well. As for your 550W PSU, if you get the GTX 460 you won't need a new one for sure, but for the 560 Ti it may not be enough (I'm not sure because of your AMD CPU, I have no idea how much power are they using..).

Your post is very misleading and misinformative. I swapped to ATI for these reasons.

2004 I bought a computer, came with the Geforce 6800GT graphics card (£200+ worth at the time), it died. I got it replaced under warrenty with a new Geforce 6800GT (different brand), I can't remember how long it lasted but it wasnt very long, one of the fans broke and was making a horrific noise. I decided to just buy a new card. So around 2006 as it was I built a full new system with a Geforce 7900GT, this card lasted a year before it started making crazy artifacts in games and overheating, it was screwed. So then I decided after a long history of NVIDIA usage to try an ATI card, it was 2007 and I bought the ATI (AMD?) Radeon HD3870.

The card still works perfect, it still plays all the latest games (albiet on lower settings with some newer ones) and i've not had a single issue with it. The reviews (toms hardware) Rate all of the Radeons as the best cards in every price range up to the £270 mark (Where the GTX570 comes in).

If you're not going to buy the GTX570 or better then there is no reason to really buy an NVIDIA because you get more for your money with AMD. Even in the case of the GTX570/580 it is a close battle between that and the HD6970 with the Nvidia cards performing better while under MSAA effects, but the HD6970 in some titles (especially using hardware forced AA) is outperforming even the more expensive GTX580, where as in other titles (especially physX titles, and those that force MSAA on ultra settings, BF3 currently does this) the GTX570 will outperform the HD6970.

Down in the sub £200 range there is no reason to buy an NVIDIA, and with the HD6950 coming in at under £200 I can't see why you would go with anything else. The HD6950 can no longer be bios flashed with the HD6970 drivers to upgrade the card, the newer boards do not have the bios switch and you would be hard pushed to find a first edition board now, if you do it will be much more expensive anyway.