Can A New GPU Rejuvenate A 5 Year Old Gaming PC?
Battlefield 3, Borderlands 2
BF3 is known for maintaining a consistent frame rate and runs extremely well on older hardware. We benchmarked the game with custom detail settings -- everything was set to "High", save for MSAA, which was enabled at 4x. We benchmarked the Operation Firestorm map in a 64 player game.
Battlefield 3 picks up a solid 44% frame rate boost from our upgrade. The game is playable at 27fps but stutters when the action picks up. The GeForce GTX 660's 39 fps is noticeably smoother, particularly during high action fire fights.
Borderlands 2
Borderlands 2 doesn't have presets, so we've dropped in a handy screenshot with the settings we used.
In Borderlands 2, we forced FXAA on via the graphics driver as well as enabling it from in the in-game menu. This somewhat improved the visual quality but didn't impact performance much on either card.
Borderlands 2 played pretty well on the GeForce GTX 260, partly because it's a DX9 title. Slowdowns, however, were still quite noticeable when multiple enemies were on screen at the same time. Upgrading to the GTX 660 solved this problem and improved frame rates by 1.5x.
