Please evaluate my GPU selection

[rokclimb15]

I currently have a GTX 260, which is a relatively out of date card compared to my i5-4670K. It's large, loud, and hot, but does 4xIR in LoZ: TP.

I am considering upgrading to a newer one for several reasons:

-OGL 4.4 support
-D3D11 hardware support
-Power efficiency
-Size
-TXAA/FXAA

I am very interested in the new Maxwell GPUs, but I want to make sure I'm not taking a step backward in Dolphin performance/capability. The GTX 260 has a memory bandwidth of 111.9 GB/sec vs 80 for the GTX 750.

Assuming that the GTX 750 will do 4xIR in most games (notably Zelda TP and SS), is there any advantage to obtaining a GTX 750 Ti from Dolphin's perspective? The Ti is relatively hard to find and expensive currently compared with the standard 750. The suspense is killing me.

Finally, I've read some recommendations to stick with the 760 or better because of upcoming changes to Dolphin. Would those changes preclude the Maxwell GPUs as well? In addition to being more expensive, the 760 is a giant card. Of course, the memory bandwidth is also higher than my GTX 260, so that may be the final criteria.

Specs:

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-260/specifications
http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-750/specifications
http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-750-ti/specifications
http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-760/specifications

[admin89]

Kepler GTX 760 ...but the latest Maxwell GPU GTX 750 is also attractive in its own way (power consumption , no extra cable needed , cheap)
This is hard to choose . If I was you , I would wait a bit more to get faster Maxwell GPU (maybe maxwell GTX 860 )

---

Vote for GTX 750 atm + upgrade route (GTX 900 series in the near future) . GTX 760 will be outdated soon anyway

[rokclimb15]

I like your thinking admin89. That was an option I had considered. The real question for me is - can I expect 4xIR (or something close) with a 750? 750 Ti? Or am I taking a step back by replacing my 260?

[pauldacheez]

** POSTING THIS AND IGNORING EVERYTHING ELSE ALREADY WRITTEN BECAUSE I'M TIRED AND I DON'T WANT TO REWRITE SOMETHING I WROTE SIX HOURS AGO **

I'd personally either go straight for a GTX 780 or wait for its successor. Then again, I'm insane and don't want to ever be stuck with a weak GPU again, so I tend to aim a bit higher than necessary.

...I'm honestly not sure about this. tev_fixes_new and its integers fuck up Dolphin GPU performance for most Nvidia cards – JMC47 has found situations where he's GPU-limited at 1x IR even on his 760. The 750/750 Ti aren't exactly successors to the 760, but Maxwell *may* have enough integer performance improvements that the slightly-newer cards will outperform the 760 in some situations...

If you're sufficiently worried, go straight for a 770 or 780. Otherwise, 760's fine. (It's still slightly smaller than your current card!)

You could also go the AMD route since their cards seem to be affected much less by tev_fixes_new. I won't recommend anything specific, though.

[admin89]

At stock speed , a GTX 750 can handle most games at 4xIR , not sure about Mario Galaxy though
GTX 750 and GTX 750ti run cool -> Good at overclocking . You can bump up the memory clock to get more memory bandwidth

[MayImilae]

pauldacheez Wrote:...I'm honestly not sure about this. tev_fixes_new and its integers fuck up Dolphin GPU performance for most Nvidia cards – JMC47 has found situations where he's GPU-limited at 1x IR even on his 760.

Actually that's OpenGL only. D3D performance is very good: My 760 can run 3x native in The Last Story on TEV Fixes New just fine in D3D. OpenGL struggles even at 1x Native. Neobrain believes that there is a bug in the Nvidia Driver's OpenGL Integer support.

Of course, right now D3D performance is better than OpenGL's even in master... The recent optimizations have made Dolphin really fast, and D3D has gone from the slowest backend to the fastest in a very short timespan. Amazing stuff.

[neobrain]

(02-25-2014, 06:14 PM)MaJoR Wrote: Neobrain believes that there is a bug in the Nvidia Driver's OpenGL Integer support.

s/bug/lack of proper optimization.

[rokclimb15]

I should have stipulated that AMD cards are off the table for me personally. I've owned them in the past, and their control center software makes me insane. Their drivers are buggy crap in general. And Maxwell allegedly has support for unified memory access like AMD now, although I'm not sure if it is possible to implement in Dolphin.

Very good info so far.

[Promised_Pain]

I've had several Radeon cards and never had a problem with them. Nvidia cards are giving me a headache thought, but I still chose to go with 780 ti because of it's performance. I think 750 ti should give you 4xIR, dolphin is more about the cpu anyway.

[rokclimb15]

Looks like it's an even split in the poll between the 750/750Ti and the 760. Can anyone cast the tie breaking vote?