Frametime?

[orcinhell]

Hi guys.

 

So I've changed my mind about a million times when it comes to my next gpu upgrade I am really finding it hard to pull the trigger. My roommate is in the same position as we both have the same card.

 

I have a 7970 oc (not ghz), and performance is good. But with the recent slew of games its just not good enough. For instance I have to run GTA 5 without msaa as it owns my GPU. So I really want to upgrade. But upgrading to the 970 is not a huge jump. I am not looking to get my socks blown off but to upgrade to something like a 970 I am paying about 20 dollars for every extra frame I gain.

 

So I have been changing my mind between upgrading and not upgrading for the past 2 weeks. Then when looking at the forums I realized there is a 2nd option get myself a 280X to run in crossfire. While older games can be a pain for crossfire I only really want the grunt for new releases and the performance increase will be great and only cost around 300 instead of 500 were I am, maybe less depending on sales with the 300 series coming out.

 

So I was pretty happy with that choice as my system can handle it and was looking at posts for 7970/280x crossfire then saw something I never saw before. Reviewers talk about frametime and how the 280X crossfire has pretty bad frametime. I am not sure if this has been addressed in drivers or what...

 

But how important is frametime? I think i get what it is... The time it takes for a single frame to draw onto the screen like the latency of a frame... But I'm not sure how important it is. Some say its super important, some say don't worry about it... others say its hardware related, some say it can be addressed with drivers and is software related... I'm really confused.

 

thanks for any help!

[mrswagbhinav]

Two worse cards in sli/crossfire<one better card. sli and crossfire doesn't always scale and you need a lot of power so i don't recommend crossfire 280X. You can wait for the 390X, but it's around $600

[Glenwing]

Frametime stuttering has largely been resolved with drivers these days, from what I hear.

[incarnate]

i wouldn't crossfire. the scaling is inconsistent and support isn't always there. however to answer the question you ask at the end...

 

frametime is VERY important. frametime isn't so much a measure of how long a frame takes to draw, but a breakdown of the consistency of the pacing of the frames. if the frametimes vary too much, then you experience microstutter. microstutter is sucks. it can literally make 60 fps feel worse than 30 because of long pauses between some frames. it can be addressed with drivers, especially for multi gpu configs. nvidia pretty much solved the frame pacing issues for sli. i'm not sure if amd has done the same for crossfire. it looks like they may have. here's a video which will show the difference with a 7990, the side on the left is having microstutter issues caused by inconsistent frametimes.

 

[VolkA]

Or you could look at 290x. In my country, the 290x cost less than a 970.

[orcinhell]

Thanks for the response guys... Here a 290x retails for around 499 a 970 retails for 510ish to 530 the cheapest 970 is the Gigabyte oc version at 470 which is around the same price as the cheapest 290X version.

 

The 290 is 100 dollars less but for the games I want/need the boost in comes in at a massive 29 dollars for each extra frame I get from the upgrade and that is at a cost of 349 (one is one sale atm) even well optimized games (driver wise) such as Tomb raider this stands true. While I would need around a 69.32% performance increase from the crossfire step too match the performance of a 970 it comes in at 300 dollars.. 200 dollars cheaper. But assuming the worst lets say I only get 40%, that would (for GTA 5) cost only 16 dollars a frame.

 

I am a little confused even about the upgrade because on this forum I see half of everyone say no way get a new card and the other half say go for it as it will slam the performance of even a 970 at much less cost.

 

Edit: doing more research it seems amd has largely addressed the microshutter issue. And here is a example of people recommending the crossfire setup http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/364708-new-card-crossfire-or-something-else/

[xAcid9]

This is your current PSU? CoolerMaster V450S 80 Plus Gold 450W
 

[orcinhell]

This is your current PSU? CoolerMaster V450S 80 Plus Gold 450W

 

 

no upgraded to a EVGA SuperNOVA 750 G2 a little while ago. Just have not got around to changing that : P.

[incarnate]

Thanks for the response guys... Here a 290x retails for around 499 a 970 retails for 510ish to 530 the cheapest 970 is the Gigabyte oc version at 470 which is around the same price as the cheapest 290X version.

 

The 290 is 100 dollars less but for the games I want/need the boost in comes in at a massive 29 dollars for each extra frame I get from the upgrade and that is at a cost of 349 (one is one sale atm) even well optimized games (driver wise) such as Tomb raider this stands true. While I would need around a 69.32% performance increase from the crossfire step too match the performance of a 970 it comes in at 300 dollars.. 200 dollars cheaper. But assuming the worst lets say I only get 40%, that would (for GTA 5) cost only 16 dollars a frame.

 

I am a little confused even about the upgrade because on this forum I see half of everyone say no way get a new card and the other half say go for it as it will slam the performance of even a 970 at much less cost.

 

Edit: doing more research it seems amd has largely addressed the microshutter issue. And here is a example of people recommending the crossfire setup http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/364708-new-card-crossfire-or-something-else/

 

honestly, i'd wait one more generation if i were you. having to turn down settings a bit isn't that big of a deal. crossfire now, you're locking yourself into it. yes it will be the biggest increase you can get, for games that support crossfire, but that support isn't guaranteed. when a game doesn't support it you gain zero benefit. If you absolutely can't live without maxed out settings then get a 280x and xfire. However I'd personally wait one more gen and upgrade to a second tier card then (490 or a 1070) but that's just me.

[orcinhell]

honestly, i'd wait one more generation if i were you. having to turn down settings a bit isn't that big of a deal. crossfire now, you're locking yourself into it. yes it will be the biggest increase you can get, for games that support crossfire, but that support isn't guaranteed. when a game doesn't support it you gain zero benefit. If you absolutely can't live without maxed out settings then get a 280x and xfire. However I'd personally wait one more gen and upgrade to a second tier card then (490 or a 1070) but that's just me.

 

Yea. I think I'll do that. I want to upgrade monitors too so I think ill save my money and put it towards a new screen and GPU. If I do buy a card I will most likely just get a single card like a 970 or 380X or something. Makes much more sense, as I can sell whatever I get for a decent amount and recoup where I doubt I would even get 100 bucks for the 280X when time comes to upgrade.