Determining limiting factor and what to upgrade

[Zeal]

Hello again!

I'm thinking of upgrading my pc to improve gaming performance in general and esp. in Skyrim.
The bones of it are currently an i7 2600k 3.4Ghz CPU, Gigabyte GeForce GTX 580 SOC 1536MB SLI, Corsair Vengeance 8GB 1866MHz RAM, Vertex3 SSD.

Suggestions for next upgrade? I've looked over some benchmarks and the 580s seem to come pretty close to the 690/680SLIs in skyrim but kick out everything else that isn't cpu limited, but upgrading the cpu will prob require a mobo replacement.

[Fuzz]

I'd suggest racing stripes. And maybe some speed holes.

Sorry, I'm not much help, am I?

[Zeal]

K, stripes... speed holes...
Uh would you recommend buying a specially holed case or trying to do it myself? Damn never even considered that.

[Hammer_Time]

lol @ Fuzz, agreed!!

Here is cool race engine mod:

Hello again!

I'm thinking of upgrading my pc to improve gaming performance in general and esp. in Skyrim.
The bones of it are currently an i7 2600k 3.4Ghz CPU, Gigabyte GeForce GTX 580 SOC 1536MB SLI, Corsair Vengeance 8GB 1866MHz RAM, Vertex3 SSD.

Suggestions for next upgrade? I've looked over some benchmarks and the 580s seem to come pretty close to the 690/680SLIs in skyrim but kick out everything else that isn't cpu limited, but upgrading the cpu will prob require a mobo replacement.

Upgrade?? Seriously?? There isn't a game on the planet that your Dual GTX 580's in SLi cannot handle with all eye candy cranked at high res, even Mafia II and Batman series should run hella smooth on a rig like that, especially if you overclock your 2600K ...

Skyrim does NOT scale well at all with SLi:

http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=1318714&mpage=1

Skyrim Has Bad SLI Scaling Friday, November 11, 2011 12:32 AM (permalink)

I notice on some areas with far view distances (like right before you enter the first village of Skyrim) my gpu usage drops to around 50-60% and my framerate drops to 35-40fps. I've tried overclocking my cpu as high as 4.6ghz but the highest I could get was 40fps at this spot.

I just disabled SLI and GPU1 usage was 94% and I was still getting the same fps (see picture).
The SLI scaling is really bad in some spots of this game. I hope a new driver fixes this but I doubt it.
HEATWARE

EVGA X58 Classified E760 - Core i7 920 2.8ghz @ 4.6ghz - 3x2GB Patriot Viper II 2000mhz 8-8-8-24

3x EVGA GTX 480 - 2x EK VGA Supreme - Corsair 1200AX Power Supply - Cooler Master Haf X Case

Black Ice GTX 360 Radiator - MO-RA3 - EK Supreme HF Full Copper - XSPC Dual Bay Reservoir w/ MCP-655

Tell me about it...
 
i7 990X @ 4509 MHz [ht off]
GTX 580 3-way SLI
 
Scaling is about 30 % per card. Sometimes it goes as high as something like 60 % but still the FPS is only around 60-70. This game runs worse than the Witcher 2. It seems that disabling SLI means more FPS for me.
 
I think the problem might be low CPU usage of the game, since SLI and 3SLI need much CPU power as well?

You can see in my pictures above that the SLI scaling in some spots is non-existent. With 2 cards I get 36fps. With 1 card I get 38fps.
 
However If I do a 180 and look behind me at this spot, I get 66fps with 2 cards, and 40fps with 1 card. So it all depends on where you are looking. This is with the game completely maxed out @ 1920x1080.

I'm geting 99% on gpu1 and 5% on gpu2 my FPS run 60-100 so SLI scaling is not good.

Throwing more gpu hp at Skyrim will NOT make it run any faster, dude above is running THREE GTX 580 cards in SLi above and is still complaining about low Skyrim fps...

Sorry to say there is nothing there you "need" to upgrade, even if you bought all the latest and greatest system components for sale right now you will notice zero difference in gaming ( especially Skyrim, it is not an SLi-friendly game at all! ), your hw is very "top end" compared to most people's gaming rigs ( including mine ) and you would be throwing money away needlessly...

Here are nVidia's recommended in-game settings for Skyrim ( just fyi of course ) :

http://www.geforce.com/optimize/optimal ... TX-580-OPS

Hardware configuration: GeForce GTX 580, Intel Core i7 970 (3200Mhz), 2 Gb RAM
Software configuration: NVIDIA 280.26 Driver, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit

If you have money to burn then get rid of the Vertex 3 SSD ( still a fairly fast SSD , midrange level these days ) for a HUGE SSD, get the latest Samsung 840 or OCZ Vector 512 GB SSD ( those cost around $500 bucks or so ) and put ALL your games/apps/critical data on it! :

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/storag ... html#sect0

Or buy two of them in 256 MB size and put them in RAID 0 of course.... screaming i/o performance then especially for large file transfers...

Other than that I cannot see you benefiting at all from upgrading your other system components, just save your money and wait another generation or two and then do complete upgrade...

Remember most games are still written for DX9 consoles like Xbox 360 so they don't push pc hw all that hard at all.. of course when the Xbox Next/720 launches next Christmas ( end of 2013 ) then game developers will start coding for that using MS's cross-platform dev kit like they currently do, and then games will start to need better hw than they currently do... so wait a year at minimum before you upgrade is my advice...

[DIREWOLF75]

K, stripes... speed holes...
Uh would you recommend buying a specially holed case or trying to do it myself? Damn never even considered that.

Unfortunately i´ll pretty much have to agree with the stripes and stuff...
Because you´re not going to get a whole lot more performance out of your system without going on an insane spending spree.

An upgrade of the gfx card to the most extreme might make a difference, but i wouldn´t bet too much on it. And it´s unlikely to be worth the cash spent.
In theory, you might be able to get a smoother game by using a single NV GTX 680 or Radeon 7970 instead of running SLI. In theory... I wouldn´t place any bets on that either. The 680 and 7970 can outmatch the GT/s fillrate of your twin 580s, but fall short in GP/s... If the game wants memory bandwidth, the 7970 is better there... Again, i do not recommend anything here, just speculating since i don´t really know of the game in question.

8GB RAM should be enough not to slow things down, and 1866 means its about as fast as you can get.
You already run from a SSD...
Basically, it´s hard to come up with something useful for you.

[Sauron_Daz]

Got some holes for you:

[Zeal]

Got some holes for you:

Finally a result!
Nah really though thanks all for that. I'll hold off for a while then.
So is Skyrim actually being limited by that CPU, and if so how do I tell?

Zeal

[Hammer_Time]

No, Skyrim is just a very poorly coded game and has Horrible SLi and Crossfire scaling ( does not benefit from having more than a single video card in your system ). You could have an 8 Ghz 8-core cpu and it would still run like crap... Having the most powerful single gpu card is about the only way to see any increase in fps ( GTX 680 ) in Skyrim but are you willing to shell out the cash for such an expensive gpu just to get a few more fps in Skyrim??!! You already have dual 580's , a very potent combination in every other game out there except Skyrim...Not worth it to sell those and get a single 680 mho... just enjoy the game and lower some settings if you feel you must in order to have it completely smooth...

You guys do realize you can go into nVidia's Control Panel ( from Windows Control Panel, there is an icon there for it when you install any nVidia driver ), and choose "Manage 3D Settings" , then go into "Program Settings" ( the tab beside "Global Settings" ) , then search for Skyrim , it should be there by default, if not just browse for the game launcher "skyrim.exe" or whatever it is actually called in the Skyrim game folder and add it... then you can modify/tweak each 3D setting individually for this game, might help .. or not... worth poking around though...

[Zeal]

No, Skyrim is just a very poorly coded game and has Horrible SLi and Crossfire scaling ( does not benefit from having more than a single video card in your system ). You could have an 8 Ghz 8-core cpu and it would still run like crap... Having the most powerful single gpu card is about the only way to see any increase in fps ( GTX 680 ) in Skyrim but are you willing to shell out the cash for such an expensive gpu just to get a few more fps in Skyrim??!! You already have dual 580's , a very potent combination in every other game out there except Skyrim...Not worth it to sell those and get a single 680 mho... just enjoy the game and lower some settings if you feel you must in order to have it completely smooth...

You guys do realize you can go into nVidia's Control Panel ( from Windows Control Panel, there is an icon there for it when you install any nVidia driver ), and choose "Manage 3D Settings" , then go into "Program Settings" ( the tab beside "Global Settings" ) , then search for Skyrim , it should be there by default, if not just browse for the game launcher "skyrim.exe" or whatever it is actually called in the Skyrim game folder and add it... then you can modify/tweak each 3D setting individually for this game, might help .. or not... worth poking around though...

Oh I'm aware of Bethesda sometimes less than stellar optimisation and you're quite right that much for another 5 fps or so is ridiculous, I was just curious.

Many thanks to all once again!

[Hammer_Time]

Agreed, glad to be of any help here ( info ) !

You have a very sweet gaming rig ( slightly jealous ) , enjoy!!

I know you already have the very latest nVidia driver installed for best game/Skyrim performance, but for others reading this thread:

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Download ... 1185.shtml

http://www.nvidia.com/object/win8-win7- ... river.html

GEFORCE R310 DRIVER
 
Version:
310.70 WHQL
Release Date:
2012.12.17
Operating System:
Windows Vista 64-bit, Windows 8 64-bit, Windows 7 64-bit
Language:
English (U.S.)
File Size:
168 MB

This GeForce driver is recommended for the best experience in the blockbuster holiday games. GeForce R310 drivers add optimizations for Far Cry 3, providing up to 38% faster performance.

These drivers also include optimizations for Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 and Assassin's Creed III, providing up to 26% faster performance in Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 and up to 18% faster performance in Assassin’s Creed III, as well as smooth, shimmer-free graphics with TXAA antialiasing in both games.

GeForce R310 Drivers:

Performance Boost – Increases performance for GeForce 400/500/600 Series GPUs in several PC games vs. GeForce 306.97 WHQL drivers. Results will vary depending on your GPU and system configuration:

GeForce GTX 680:

Up to 38% in Far Cry 3
Up to 26% in Call of Duty: Black Ops 2
Up to 16% in Battlefield 3
Up to 18% in Assassin's Creed III
Up to 9% in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Up to 6% in Medal of Honor: Warfighter
Up to 6% in StarCraft II
Up to 6% in Dragon Age II
Up to 6% in Batman: Arkham City
Up to 5% in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat

GeForce GTX 660:

Up to 24% in Call of Duty: Black Ops 2
Up to 10% in Battlefield 3
Up to 7% in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Up to 6% in Far Cry 3
Up to 5% in Dragon Age II
Up to 5% in Assassin's Creed III
Up to 4% in Batman: Arkham City
Up to 4% in Medal of Honor: Warfighter

NVIDIA SLI Technology – Adds or updates the following SLI profiles:

Far Cry 3 – updated SLI profile
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 – updated SLI profile
Dirt: Showdown – updated SLI profile
Dota 2 - updated SLI profile
Dou Zhan Shen – updated SLI profile
F1 2012 - added SLI profile
FIFA 13 – added SLI profile
Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad – updated SLI profile
Hitman: Absolution – added SLI profile
Natural Selection 2 – added SLI profile
Primal Carnage – added SLI profile

[Fuzz]

you could try taking your glasses off, then set the resolution to 640x480. Should be nice and fast.

[clone]

agree with the rest, you've got all the bases covered and not very far to go.... could replace video card but really it's too soon... wait for the next generation.

have you overclocked mildly to see what you'd get..... 4000mhz on the cpu shouldn't be out of reach, wouldn't bother oc'ing the vid card, the practice has become near worthless.

[Hammer_Time]

you could try taking your glasses off, then set the resolution to 640x480. Should be nice and fast.

[Sauron_Daz]

you could try taking your glasses off, then set the resolution to 640x480. Should be nice and fast.