Best graphics card to run heavily modded skyrim?

[Jeenine]

I want to get a new graphics card to be able to run Skyrim more smoothly.
I got pretty much all the best performance mods possible so im at this point where I want to upgrade my graphics card.
I got a budget of around 200-400$ i cant afford a gtx P*ussy killer, but I still want to upgrade from what I got.
Im open for suggestions, maybe some of you have good reliable budget graphics card that you could suggest me.
my current build looks like this
Intel i7 3.10GHz (8 core), 8gb RAM, AMD radeon R9 200 (2gb)

Edited July 16, 2015 by Jeenine

[trmarkusen19]

I have a GTX 970 but thats a bit overkill. The 960 is a great card and it goes for about 340$

Edited July 16, 2015 by trmarkusen19

[rpw0311]

I just upgraded from an r9 280 to the r9 390 and am very impressed. newegg has a few versions between 330 an 340 usd, or the x models for 400+.

[Andriokz]

It depends on if you want to run an ENB and what resolution. If vanilla, s***, you can get anything for 100-200 and it will probably run at 60 fps.

 

The best one would be 980 for something like Kyo's Extremes, Elder Blood Ultra, Sushi Extreme, Rampage, Seasons of Skyrim, Somber 3, or the infamous 8k Immersive Tomato mod. Not even sure if it gets to 60 past 1080p in all areas. 970s can run these, but 980s slap the s*** out of it for FPS in general. I'm not to familiar with the high end Radeons otherwise I'd mention those. It all depends how much fps you want in each areas, the forests with Vert's grass is the ultimate test.

 

TAZ, RealVision, or other "Realistic" ENBs you can get any mid range like the 970 or R9 390 and run it with very little frame rate issues in my experience.

 

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbjrT3LrSq0LZWarH6llxUB3wrn0c9pr5

 

 

 

Check out Hodilton for ENBs. Check comments below and usually you'll find his FPS and what card he uses. They're all 2580xwhatever resolution I believe. Find one you like, then ask yourself how stronk does the card have to be. Keep in mind that other huge games are coming out so having a stronk card helps for keeping up to date AKA GTA 5, Fallout 4, Batman thing, Witcher 3, Starcraft 1.

 

If you're going to be running 2k-4k textures, I recommend at least 3-4 GB of VRAM on it btway.

 

I'd go with the 970 or the R9 390. I do recommend you go check benchmarks for brands and types of them though, some really outperform other brands.

Edited July 16, 2015 by Andriokz

[jones177]

Skyrim with mods likes 4gb VRAM.

 

I would go with a GTX 960 4bg minimum. I have never own one but the charts say it has about the same performance as a 680 4gb. The 680 4gb could run vanilla Skyrim over 100fps & ENB in the 40s at 1080.

I got in the 50s with ENB with a GTX 970 sc at 1080. But it took a GTX 980 sc to run in the 60s.

 

I had no issues with the GTX 970 & only replaced it with a GTX 980 sc because I bought a 4k monitor.

 

With ENB at 2560 X 1440 The GTX 980 averaged 45 fps.

 

Later

[Boombro]

r9 290x or 970-980.

[Jeenine]

 

Check out Hodilton for ENBs. Check comments below and usually you'll find his FPS and what card he uses. They're all 2580xwhatever resolution I believe. Find one you like, then ask yourself how stronk does the card have to be. Keep in mind that other huge games are coming out so having a stronk card helps for keeping up to date AKA GTA 5, Fallout 4, Batman thing, Witcher 3, Starcraft 1.

 

If you're going to be running 2k-4k textures, I recommend at least 3-4 GB of VRAM on it btway.

 

I'd go with the 970 or the R9 390. I do recommend you go check benchmarks for brands and types of them though, some really outperform other brands.

Hodilton's videos are actually what pushed me to wanna buy a new card.

Since Youtube introduced 60fps videos, I could tell that my PC was stuttering a lot compared to other builds, even though my FPS rate is usually pretty good

 

I already have a lot of 2k textures and im running Skyrim on Ultra with RealVision ENB at 60fps in most areas, but I got like all the performance mods, and its still not as stable as would want to, its not smooth, I can get huge FPS drop when I enter WARZONE areas (its one of my favorite mod). So I uninstalled my ENB but it just doesnt look the same... I was actually thinking about the 970, but I might stick with Radeon... Thx for all the suggestions, do you think the R9 390 would do as good as the 970?

[vram1974]

r9 290x or 970-980.

 

Yeah a 4GB is the answer. I still don't understand how I was able to play on a AMD Radeon HD 8670D with 768 MB before March. Then I went and bought an R9 270x (2GB) and thought OK now I can get all the 2K mods.

 

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt

Wrong

 

So yeah, if I could go back in time I would get 4GB there's no chance I wouldn't

[BlackRoseOfThorns]

I had 780 ti and 3gb wasn't enough in some areas. Now that I have 6gb card I'm satysfied. I would say a 4gb gpu close in performance to gtx 980 would be best for gaming with quality Enb preset. From what I know Hodilton downscales his ingame resolution to achieve sharper image. That and he uses Kountervibe Enb, which is the most demanding preset.

[vram1974]

Just following up on my comment:

 

I do and I CAN run Skyrim on my 2GB card with ENB and HEAVILY modded game. I have 238 mods but I have 115 mods merged into 16 merge files so it's really 353. My game plays smoothly on 60fps with ENB but I have to make some major sacrifices:

 

No textures above 1K

No Ultra Lod, just high or medium

MaxAnisotropy=4 (not 16)

No Antialiasing

Low resolution=1360x768 mode

 

Still I think I found a nice balance between performance, tons of mods, and good looks:

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/TcKrFVb.png