Vitaliq Posted October 10, 2016 Posted October 10, 2016 Hello, I'm building a cheap computer with second hand components and I was wondering what is the best option for DCS between an R9 290 or a 780 ? I can find both for around 120€. The CPU will be a i5 6400 OC to 4.5Ghz.
Art-J Posted October 10, 2016 Posted October 10, 2016 Never had a R9, but I use a single 780 with a 24" 1200p monitor and an i5 overclocked to 4.2. In both 1.5 (with PicsKing's terrain mod compilation) and 2.0 I can get to V-synced 60 fps or a few below in most situations with medium-to-high settings as long as there are not too many units and clouds around (using Win7) In 1.5 GPU is utilized up to 66%, in 2.0 it's topped at 100%, becoming a bottleneck for CPU. 3 GB of VRAM on the card is obviously hopelessly insufficient nowadays and gets filled up immediately in both versions, but with 16 GB of system RAM and SSD drive the situation is manageable, though in more resource hungry 2.0 stutters start appearing during longer missions. Not a bad card If You can get one cheap, and with NVidia cards still performing a bit better in DCS, that's the one I would choose. i7 9700K @ stock speed, single GTX1070, 32 gigs of RAM, TH Warthog, MFG Crosswind, Win10.
SixthFall Posted October 10, 2016 Posted October 10, 2016 Honestly, neither would be a good choice for your money. You would probably be better off with the 290, as amd's long term driver support and optimizations are usually better than nvidia's. That said, maybe try to find a cheap 390 or 970 somewhere? -16AGR-Bear
Vitaliq Posted October 10, 2016 Author Posted October 10, 2016 The point is I'm building a computer with second hand components in order to change the CPU and GPU in like a year or 2 with Hi-end CPU and GPU (like i7 7700k with a 1070 for example). So I can have a decent computer now, sell my laptop then upgrade it later.
aeliusg Posted October 11, 2016 Posted October 11, 2016 290's have come a long way since AMD was working with essentially that same architecture for a while, but, for DCS, Nvidia is still king: https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=2624495&postcount=3 (scroll to bottom).
Malefic Rage Posted October 12, 2016 Posted October 12, 2016 Hello. I use a 290 with DCS 1.5 and with relatively high detail I get a minimum of 60fps and often over 100. Speed-wise the R9 290 is much closer to a GTX 970 than anything else. For its age it is a great choice. I can play every modern game on high detail at 1920x1200. For DCS, spend your money on a CPU with good single-thread performance such an overclockable i5. I noticed you have listed an i5 6400. If that is correct, I don't think they are overclockable. Only Intel CPUs with the K suffix are unlocked. You also need to pair it with a motherboard that has a chipset that supports overclocking. Intel are real S.O.B.s when it comes to locking things down to make you pay more. Any AMD CPU and be overclocked but unfortunately until the new architecture comes out, their CPUs are not suitable for DCS.
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