Bored of current system, nothing great coming verys soon

[utahraptor]

I have a i5 750 mildly overclocked paired with a ATI 5870. It still seems pretty strong over 1.5 years after getting it. I am itching to upgrade something and I already have a SSD.

I played the BF3 beta and I noticed it taxes my system quite a bit. I will hold out for release performance before doing anything, but I noticed that it taxes the GPU a lot.

Prior to playing the beta I had not overclocked the i5 750 as I had never needed it to be faster. I overclocked it so that when all 4 cores are active in BF3 it tops out at 3.15 GHZ which seems to be plenty. I have turbo still enabled so on a single threaded workload it shoots up to 3.6 GHZ.

This is my debate...

I made the mistake of getting a 16x | 4x motherboard instead of a 8x | 8x.

I could buy a second 5870, but I am leaning against that because of the 16x 4x

If my goal is to boost BF3 performance at 1920x1200 should I get the second 5870 (hard to find, price has not gone down) and run crossfire or get an Nvidia 580?

If the release benchmarks show way better performance I will just chug along until ivybridge and the next GPU series.

 

[AlucardX]

i would wait until the next GPU refresh comes out.. should be soon right?

 

[Red Storm]

I would make my decision based on actual release benchmarks, not the beta.

 

[Leyawiin]

We're in something of a hardware rut. Especially with BD falling flat like a fart in church.

 

[biostud]

Get a better sound setup. Then you can easily spend $$$

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Get a better sound setup. Then you can easily spend $$$

This is definately a way to upgrade your gaming setup.

I've got an HRT Music Streamer II+ into a Schiit Lyr amp that powers my Fostex T50rp's. I'm waiting to upgrade to some better headphones. You could spend close to 1500 bucks to get a midrange audio setup for your computer.

 

[Anonymvs]

Overclocked GTX 580 has almost same performance that 5870 CrossFire.
But it seems that game's run much smoother with GTX 580 than 5870 CF!
Also, For stability is better to go with 1 gpu.

So in my opinion Gtx-580.

 

[aphelion02]

You bought a seriously long lasting set up, I would just wait it out until the HD7xxx series release.

 

[gmaster456]

Your still good for a while. Another year at least.

 

[Puppies04]

If you are really itching to spend some cash I would wait a little while longer until the 7xxx series of gpus drop and see what sort of money you can get for your 5870

 

[NTAC]

Since you aren't 8x / 8x, I would try to follow a single GPU path, it just makes the most sense.

With that card you're probably good to go on medium settings I THINK without much trouble, then just upgrade to the next gen GPUs when they come out.

I have the same CPU you have and have effortlessly oclocked it to 3.7 but I have an Nvidia GTX 260 and I'm stuck at low settings for BF3 Beta

I'm in a very bad spot, because I don't want to wait 3 or 4 months for the next gen GPUs, while I can play the game fine on Low settings, it is pretty ugly

 

[nenforcer]

There are a lot good PC games coming out this fall, Rage, Batman:AC, Skyrim and BF3 / COD : MW3.

5870 XFire is the most cost effective and economical upgrade if you can find a decent one used. From a Power / Heat perspective not the greatest upgrade.

You could get a 5870 now for not a whole lot and then upgrade later to a Radeon HD 7000 series next year.

Or you can bite the bullet now, sell your 5870 and get a 3GB Frame Buffer GTX 580 or 2 X 6950 2GB XFire.

Both of those cards will maximize textures at 1080P Full HD resolution so you can enjoy this falls games now on Ultra settings.

 

[Silverforce11]

CF 5870s are ~20% of CF 6970s.

Considering how badly the CF 6970s spank a single gtx580, its a no brainer in your case, just spend $100 getting a used 5870 and you get awesome performance for an extra $100 rather than wasting $500 for a gtx580, which will be slower.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Go ahead and get another card. There is no handicap to a 16x 4x system versus 16x 16x. [H] did a couple of articles a while ago showing there was no appreciable difference.

 

[nenforcer]

Check out this thread, guy is in the same dilema as you

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2198181

 

[Nintendesert]

The 5870 is doing what I need it to right now, I'm eagerly awaiting the next gen GPUs though. I just can't justify spending now on another GPU.

 

[Obsoleet]

The 5870 is doing what I need it to right now, I'm eagerly awaiting the next gen GPUs though. I just can't justify spending now on another GPU.

Same boat as you guys here. I love my rig, but I think the only thing I might want or need to do is not spend money, but actually reformat. I haven't done so since I built this rig.

I would go for a more expensive headphone setup, but honestly, I'm in love with Koss 60ohm headphones. I use a pair of KSC-35s for portable and UR-40s at home.. the price is cheap, unamped and honestly, pretty damn good. I can't bring myself to "upgrade" to something else.

I suggest to spend the money on the savings account, then buy some land.

 

[taltamir]

@OP: Your numbers are too low.
You should get a an i7 2600K

buy some land.

Best, advice, ever!