Civilization V - Best Vid Card?

[edumacated81]

I checked out a few of the charts and it seems like AMD does well with this game...can anyone here confirm that? Was looking at a new system build and this my game of choice...especially with the expansion coming.

 

[Nintendesert]

I was under the impression that Nvidia with new drivers utilizes the DX11 features much better than AMD and the game performs much better on Nvidia hardware.

 

[bryanW1995]

Gtx 580 is actually the best iirc. Amd hasn't figured out how to enable muli-threaded rendering, giving a significant win for nvidia and, specifically, their driver team. The new amd 7 series is competitive at least, but they are pretty expensive to buy just for civ5. My old gtx 460-768 forced me to turn down a few settings while gaming at 1680x1050, but I can max everything out with my gtx 480@stock speeds.

Speaking of which, gtx 480 has been hovering around $200 lately, most recently TD had yesterday for $210.

 

[edumacated81]

Gtx 580 is actually the best iirc. Amd hasn't figured out how to enable muli-threaded rendering, giving a significant win for nvidia and, specifically, their driver team. The new amd 7 series is competitive at least, but they are pretty expensive to buy just for civ5. My old gtx 460-768 forced me to turn down a few settings while gaming at 1680x1050, but I can max everything out with my gtx 480@stock speeds.

Speaking of which, gtx 480 has been hovering around $200 lately, most recently TD had yesterday for $210.

Good to know about the maxing out...may go that direction. I just have the 1080p, so I wasn't sure if I really needed to wait for the next gen cards to max out Civ.

 

[AtenRa]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5691/...w-his-7870-iceq-turbo-powercolor-pcs-hd7870/3

Edit: I believe GTX680 will take first place in this game.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

At the moment the AMD 7xxx series outperform their Nvidia equivalents in Civ5. We'll see what happens with the GTX6xx series. Should be interesting.

 

[Spjut]

FWIW, here's a benchmark with HD7970 Crossfire(old drivers though)
http://www.sweclockers.com/recension/14844-amd-radeon-hd-7970/15#pagehead

As mentioned, Civilization V uses Driver Command Lists and only Nvidia currently supports that in their drivers(it was fully supported from April 2011 I believe, not just for Civ5)

 

[A5]

Also, you don't need a ton of FPS for Civ 5 to be playable. The 560Ti @ 50 FPS on that chart is perfectly fine 99% of the time. You can get a 570 or 78xx to be safe if you play other stuff, though.

 

[MrK6]

Edit: I believe GTX680 will take first place in this game.

Unless something drastically changes, I agree. The driver perks alone are enough to give nvidia a significant edge.

 

[mrcmtl]

You don't need a monster GPU to max out Civilization. I still play that game on my 4870 512MB maxed out at 1920x1200. You need a good CPU however.

 

[n7]

Game needs a good CPU, but not really the best GPU.

I run maxed @ 2560x1600 4x AA w/ my GTX 570 and it's more than smooth enough.

 

[theprodigalrebel]

I play the game maxed out on my Radeon 5850 at 1080p and it works perfectly fine.

Hmm, it's been a while.

 

[FalseChristian]

I can't play the game. My 2 GTX 460 1GB SLI doesn't meet the games minimum requirements. Either does my i5 2500K oc'ed to 4.5GHz.

 

[Airey]

Can anyone recommend a card to buy for Civ 5?

 

[nwo]

Can anyone recommend a card to buy for Civ 5?

What's your budget? Do you have a graphics card right now? As you can see from the necro chart, Civ 5 is not a very demanding game. Even a Radeon 7770 can get nearly 40fps at 1200p while running maxed out settings + 4x MSAA. So, if your monitor is only 1080p, you should be able to get 50-60 fps with a 7770.

A R7 260x would be a good budget choice if you wanted to buy right now. It's only about $110 after $10 MIR. R7 260x is about 30% faster than a 7770.

 

[Airey]

I am also looking at GTX 750 ti, R7 265 and R9 270/270x.

Is it worthwhile to invest the extra money into better graphic card?
I only play civ and no other games. Monitor is below 1080p.
7770 don't have brand new ones where I live, don't want to risk buying 2nd hand.

 

[nwo]

Give us some prices to associate with each one of the cards you have available in your country.

I don't think you will need to go much higher than 260x or 265, especially since you're playing on less than 1080p. 265 would probably be the sweet spot for best performance/$.

I wouldn't really consider the GTX 750Ti a great gaming card. It's main advantage and perk is performance per watt, not performance per $.

 

[bystander36]

I don't think Civ 5 needs a high end graphics card. It does make a difference if you are trying to max everything out, but the reality is, Civ 5 is more of a mind game, and not so much about beautiful graphics. Turning a few settings down doesn't ruin Civ 5, so go with something in your budget. Those cards all seem reasonable to me.

 

[Airey]

$123 USD HIS R7 260X 1G D5
$162 USD Sapphire R7 260X 2G GDDR5

$211 USD R9 270 iPower IceQ X2 2GB
$260 USD Sapphire R9 270X 2G GDDR5 OC WITH BOOST

Does 2G matter?