CF 6870 upgrade?

[VirtualLarry]

A relative has a Q9550 @ 3.5, and CF 6870 1GB cards. Mobo is only CF capable, no SLI.

What is a reasonably-priced upgrade? What modern single card are CF 6870 cards similar to?

 

[biostud]

7970 would be my guess, but if still wants crossfire then maybe 7870 CF

 

[Termie]

The HD7950 Boost is almost identical in performance in older games, and will be better in newer games. If you want a true upgrade, you'll have to go with the HD7970, and even that isn't all that significant.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

7950

 

[thirdeye]

I went from a CF 6870 to a single 7970. Did a decent amount research before making the jump. The CF setup isn't vastly slower than my 7970, but it is nice not having to deal with CF issues in some games. You also get an addition 1gb of vram which is nice. I've yet to find a game though where the performance difference isn't noticeable.

That said, I'd imagine a 7950 would be absolute minimum for any performance upgrade to a single card. Even then it may require OC.

 

[Sleepingforest]

I went from a CF 6870 to a single 7970. Did a decent amount research before making the jump. The CF setup isn't vastly slower than my 7970, but it is nice not having to deal with CF issues in some games. You also get an addition 1gb of vram which is nice. I've yet to find a game though where the performance difference isn't noticeable.

Just a nitpick: since CFX mirrors the VRAM, you effectively gain 2GB of VRAM by going 7970. Other benefits include less heat produced and power consumed.

 

[wbynum]

IMO, your relative should think about a cpu/mb upgrade first. A Core 2 chip is pretty old. Grab a i5-3570k and MB for ~$300 (cheaper if you are close to a Microcenter). Of course I'd wait until Haswell at this point before buying a new system.

 

[toyota]

yeah no way I would stick a 7970 or even 7950 in there with that Core 2 quad.

 

[tarmc]

nothing wrong with the cpu, its still pretty decent, upgrading is an option though.
personally i went from 6870 cf to a single gtx 670 and noticed a huge improvement in performance.

 

[Yuriman]

I found many games were significantly faster, even with an HD4870, on a 3570K than on my older Q6600. My vote is for a CPU upgrade, you can always lower your shadows or shaders a notch to make framerates playable, but you can't turn down CPU requirements. Games like GW2, Civ 5 and Sim City simply don't run well on older CPUs.

Does he/she have an SSD? How big is his monitor?

 

[toyota]

actually shadows can rely on the cpu too in some games. in gta 4 they are the biggest cause for cpu bottlenecking by far.

btw in Crysis 3, even my 2500k at 4.4 goes over 95% cpu usage for many parts of the game even with my modest gtx660ti at 1920x1080. in fact I even hit 100% a couple times while I was monitoring. I have never seen a game use that much of my cpu though so it is a rare case. even in gta4 when i was cpu limited, the cpu usage was not ever over 80-85% from what I recall so just poor optimizing there.

 

[Sleepingforest]

actually shadows can rely on the cpu too in some games. in gta 4 they are the biggest cause for cpu bottlenecking by far.

btw in Crysis 3, even my 2500k at 4.4 goes over 95% cpu usage for many parts of the game even with my modest gtx660ti at 1920x1080. in fact I even hit 100% a couple times while I was monitoring. I have never seen a game use that much of my cpu though so it is a rare case. even in gta4 when i was cpu limited, the cpu usage was not ever over 80-85% from what I recall so just poor optimizing there.

I am going to disagree with you because of your examples: GTA4 and Crysis 3 are very unusual games. GTA4 is just coded very badly and uses the hardware inefficiently (other games from the same time period with similar graphical quality runs much better on the same hardware). Crysis 3 has wildly varying hardware designs; depending on exactly where you are, you can shift very quickly from being GPU to CPU limited and vice versa. It's also exceptionally demanding in pretty much every regard.

On the other hand, I do agree with the sentiment of your post. At 1080p, it is unlikely that the raw graphical power will be an issue as much as the CPU and possibly the amount of VRAM available (the latter especially if games starting using higher resolution textures). Getting an SSD will probably make more of a difference than any other sub-$200 upgrade.