You could play COH2 with an i3 - but you'd still need a TITAN GPU just to get 41 fps - and thats 41 fps at Medium settings only.
A good quote from the conclusion of that article:
"You also have to question whether CoH 2 should really need more than one GTX Titan for highly playable performance at 1920x1200 on maximum quality. While the game is very detailed and certainly one of the best looking RTS titles we've ever seen, we aren't convinced its visuals warrant that kind of GPU power.
Even on medium quality, when playing at 1920x1200 the performance was much lower than we expected. The GTX 680 and HD 7950 averaged just 41fps, while the more affordable GTX 660 and HD 7790 gave 28fps.
Some players might accept an average of 30fps for this title being an RTS and all, but as a huge fan of these games, I really can't enjoy them with anything less than 60fps, which is a problem with CoH 2."
"Unfortunately, we're a little disappointed with the results overall as CoH 2 seems far too demanding for what it is. Furthermore, for a game that requires such a tremendous amount of graphical power, its lack of multi-GPU support feels like a serious blunder to us."
And remember - optimization and performance got significantly WORSE since the release of WFA.
I average around 70 - 90 fps with max settings aside from physics on medium @ 1440p with a 2600k and a 290x. I'm guessing those benchmarks were using the ingame benchmark which drops frame rates much lower than you would typically find playing the game. I used to run the game @ 1200p on a 6970 and it ran pretty decent considering how old the card is.
The more and more I read about people having performance problems, it seems its related to Nvidia cards. Is there anyone that has a 780 or higher who can post performance other than Pory.
Are people judging fps by what happens in game or the benchmark - the benchmark will always show lower numbers than what actually happens in game.
It might be worth people downloading MSI Afterbuner. You can set it to log various stats including FPS, GPU usage and GPU clocks. Might help narrow down the problem (GPU usage should generally be @ 99%, if it isn't then something is bottle necking it). If GPU clock is dropping it could either be a power or heat issue. Once you have all the stats (it saves in a text file) you can open with excel to work out averages / graphs etc to figure out how often the FPS is dropping.
Edit: Seems excel just imports all the data into 1 column, not handy for sorting data but you can atleast get a good idea of what rough fps you are getting and the other stats at that time.
Maybe post your settings up. Also check ram usage as with various things running (Steam, Origin, Mouse & KB software plus some other crap) my usage will hover around 7GB but I do have lots of stuff running.
For what its worth, here is my spec:
i7-2600K @ 4.7GHz
8GB DDR3 1600
AMD 290X @ Stock
Game is running off an SSD
Windows 7
I'm pretty sure I am getting over 60 fps in most 2v2's. I will do some logging and post the results though.
Edit: Ok I logged a few games, although they were not very long but I am getting 60+ fps all the time (except @ the victory strike) but normally get 70 - 90 FPS with the following settings:
The thing is that sideshots bounce off from it on a regular basis. Flanking is part of the game. Useless on IS-2s.
Bringing up the T-34/76 which is hardly supposed to fight versus tanks is stupid. T-34/85s - which are more or less in the role of a Panzer IV - will make short process of any Tiger.
More so, German AT should deal with heavy tanks. After all Russian AT deals with German tanks easily. "Wehraboo" you call it, while you are just looking for Soviet sided balance. Why should German AT not go through IS-2s armor? After all Soviet AT units (Zis and Su-85 and even the T34/85) go through the Tiger, despite failing to do so historically. So no reason why German AT should struggle to take down Russian tanks.
Russian / US AT fairly often fails to penetrate Tigers. If you played allies once in awhile then you would realise this. I had 3 E8's the other day that even when flanking failed to kill a Tiger. When it was low it just popped smoke and reversed to somewhere I could no longer shoot its rear armour. None of the shots after that penetrated and it ended up winning vs my Tanks.
Afaik side shots have a 50/50 % chance to either hit the front or the rear armour, so complaining that sideshots always bounce and that flanking is pointless isnt really valid. If RNG trolls you and forces you to hit the front armour, then you shouldnt expect it to pen constantly in a Panzer IV. German AT and armour typically have higher penetration than allied tanks and their tanks typically have more armour than allies. Allies have a bigger problem penetrating axis armour than axis do vs allied armour. Again this is the problem with playing one side, you always have the grass is greener issue.
I love Panzerfusiliers. Cheap infantry that come out pretty fast and do better than Volks. Having AT Nade is fantastic. I think the real place where they shine is at vet 4/5 with an officer buff. At this point they seem to stomp on everything including rifles with 1919's or even shocks. I pretty much only play Breakthrough just for them. I love having a Jagdtiger there as well.