New video card, hello 2015!
When I purchased my Dell mid-tower (XPS 8500) it came with an "upgraded" video card, an Nvidia GT 640 with 1GB of memory. It was ok, and Dell didn't offer anything better, but I think even at the time it was not exactly leading edge. The PC itself is ok, it has an Intel i7-3770 cpu running at 3.4 GHz, with "Turbo boost" which can overclock on the fly up to 3.9 GHz. With 8 GB of memory and a 1 TB hard drive it was $680 (May 2013).
Last year I started playing an online game called World of Tanks. It is mildly addicting. On my 23" LCD 1080p monitor it could only manage 25 frames per second, and that is when everything was standing still. Once 30 tanks start zooming around the map, or I was busy actively being shot at, my framerate would drop to 14-17 fps.
I also purchased Elite Dangerous, which was released in December (I played the original Elite back in the 1985-87 era, and had thoroughly enjoyed it). Obviously in 2014, with the game's promise of making the entire galaxy explorable (400 billion star systems) and integrated support for virtual reality headsets (google Oculus Rift), it is quite the graphics hog.
So I started looking at new video cards, figuring I would have to upgrade my power supply as Dell are not known for being generous on specs with their PCs, and high-end graphics need lots of power (and cooling).
I discovered that the latest Nvidia architecture (code named Maxwell) is quite energy efficient. The GTX 960 family only uses about 120 watts, so no problem for my computer's 460 W power supply. (The most powerful graphics chip they have right now is the GTX Titan, retails for between $1,000 and $1,500, and it draws over 250 watts. Holy cow.)
Being frugal, and not wanting to upgrade the power supply, obviously the direction was clear. $205 for an overclocked EVGA GTX 960 with 2 GB of ram. SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!
It arrived yesterday, and I decided to benchmark the computer before and after installing it. As I was changing one Nvidia card for another, I didn't bother uninstalling the graphics drivers, and the benchmarking took 3 times as long as the actual swapping of the card. It re-started fine, Windows 8 did not even care that anything was changed.
That the video performance increased by 4x was not a surprise (in World of Tanks my framerates are now 102-107 fps when things are quiet, 65-75 fps when "busy", and that is with the video quality settings set to Maximum from Medium/High). What was a real eye-opener was that the benchmark data showed that with the old card my cpu was running at 3.691 GHz, but with the new card the cpu is only running at 1.695 GHz.
So the old GPU was actually not able to handle the workload and the main processor was pressed into overdrive to cope.
Another thing I noticed when I took World of Tanks for a spin was that my lag improved. Usually when I am playing I see ping times in the 80-110 ms range. Last night it was consistently in the low 60 ms range. I have no explanation apart from the CPU is doing less work with graphics, so it is handling communications in a more timely manner?
Anyway, I am very happy with the card so far, not only is the throughput 400% better than what I had, but the quality of the video is vastly improved. Shadows, reflections, textures... the eye-candy is stunning.
The GTX 960 is all the card you need for full HD (1920 x 1080) video. Apparently it even works well with a 1440p monitor, but don't expect miracles with a 4K display. As 4K displays only exist as playthings of the rich and famous, I expect this card will be relevant for a few years yet.
Last year I started playing an online game called World of Tanks. It is mildly addicting. On my 23" LCD 1080p monitor it could only manage 25 frames per second, and that is when everything was standing still. Once 30 tanks start zooming around the map, or I was busy actively being shot at, my framerate would drop to 14-17 fps.
I also purchased Elite Dangerous, which was released in December (I played the original Elite back in the 1985-87 era, and had thoroughly enjoyed it). Obviously in 2014, with the game's promise of making the entire galaxy explorable (400 billion star systems) and integrated support for virtual reality headsets (google Oculus Rift), it is quite the graphics hog.
So I started looking at new video cards, figuring I would have to upgrade my power supply as Dell are not known for being generous on specs with their PCs, and high-end graphics need lots of power (and cooling).
I discovered that the latest Nvidia architecture (code named Maxwell) is quite energy efficient. The GTX 960 family only uses about 120 watts, so no problem for my computer's 460 W power supply. (The most powerful graphics chip they have right now is the GTX Titan, retails for between $1,000 and $1,500, and it draws over 250 watts. Holy cow.)
Being frugal, and not wanting to upgrade the power supply, obviously the direction was clear. $205 for an overclocked EVGA GTX 960 with 2 GB of ram. SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!
It arrived yesterday, and I decided to benchmark the computer before and after installing it. As I was changing one Nvidia card for another, I didn't bother uninstalling the graphics drivers, and the benchmarking took 3 times as long as the actual swapping of the card. It re-started fine, Windows 8 did not even care that anything was changed.
That the video performance increased by 4x was not a surprise (in World of Tanks my framerates are now 102-107 fps when things are quiet, 65-75 fps when "busy", and that is with the video quality settings set to Maximum from Medium/High). What was a real eye-opener was that the benchmark data showed that with the old card my cpu was running at 3.691 GHz, but with the new card the cpu is only running at 1.695 GHz.
So the old GPU was actually not able to handle the workload and the main processor was pressed into overdrive to cope.
Another thing I noticed when I took World of Tanks for a spin was that my lag improved. Usually when I am playing I see ping times in the 80-110 ms range. Last night it was consistently in the low 60 ms range. I have no explanation apart from the CPU is doing less work with graphics, so it is handling communications in a more timely manner?
Anyway, I am very happy with the card so far, not only is the throughput 400% better than what I had, but the quality of the video is vastly improved. Shadows, reflections, textures... the eye-candy is stunning.
The GTX 960 is all the card you need for full HD (1920 x 1080) video. Apparently it even works well with a 1440p monitor, but don't expect miracles with a 4K display. As 4K displays only exist as playthings of the rich and famous, I expect this card will be relevant for a few years yet.