Is upgrade from my hd 5770 good idea? Help

[bmurray]

Hello , I play game off and on BF2 fallout las vegas , going to get Homefront and battlefield 3 I have a i-5 750 cpu and win 7 64 bit and 8 gigs of ripjaws 1600 ram looking to up grade to a new card Dont want to spend to much have 3 kids in college I have looked at hd 6850
5870- 6850 black edition also 6950 1 or 2 gig and flash bios or 6970 .I have a 750wat powers supply for performance which of these or nvida be abetter choice I have aHanns-g hh241 montitor only use one. Any help would be appreciated Iam 53 and not as tech savy as I usedto be.

 

[blanketyblank]

All of those would be decent upgrades over a 5770. In terms of speed they rank as 6850<6870<=5870<6950<=6970.
On the NV side you have GTX 460<GTX470<=GTX560<GTX570<GTX580

The GTX 460 is only about 20&#37; faster than your current 5770 so I recommend going higher up the chain for more noticable improvement.
At least 5850/6850 or 470/560 level which is 50+% faster.

 

[llee]

Purchasing a 6950 and flashing it to the 6970 spec or purchasing a GTX 560 Ti would be good options right now.

 

[f4phantom2500]

THG puts out a graphics card buyer's guide every month, along with a hierarchy chart

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews...e-gtx-560-ti-gaming-graphics-card,2857-7.html

of course, those rankings are approximate and will vary depending on your specific usage etc etc, but *generally* they recommend upgrading at least 3 tiers up for a substantially noticeable improvement, which, from a 5770, is a 5870 or 6950 on their chart.

now, you're not running at crazy high resolutions or anything like that. if i were you, i would probably hold on to that 5770 until substantially better cards come out and/or you can get a crazy good deal on aforementioned 5870/6950. i'm a pretty casual gamer, the most intense games i run are dragon age origins and dead space, and my 4850 can run them fantastically. 4850's have already depreciated a lot (you can get one for $50 on these forums pretty easily), and granted they dont support dx11, they are solid cards if you're not running at crazy resolutions or super intense games at really high settings etc. for reference, the 4850 is 1 tier below your 5770 on THG's charts. so i'd have to spend a substantial amount of money (i'm thinking upwards of $150~$200, roughly 3~4x of what i paid for the 4850) to get a better card.

so, in the end, it just really depends on how often you feel your current card is lacking, and the difference of a potential replacement card, and whether or not that difference is worth the money to you.

at *least* wait til you get your new games and see how the 5770 runs them before seriously considering upgrading. unless you just have cash to burn.

 

[RussianSensation]

I am not sure when Homefront is coming out or how demanding it will be. BF3 is at least 8 months away which in videocard terms is very long. Personally if those are the main 2 games you are looking to upgrade to, i would wait until BF3 is released. By then we may even have Kepler and HD7000 series. If you still want to upgrade, I would say $180 HD5870 or $240 HD6950 2gb only --> flashed to 6970 are the best single card solutions to step up to without breaking the bank. Does your board support crossfire? The other option is adding a 2nd 5770.

 

[Arkadrel]

2nd 5770, and 2x 5770 CF + overclocked (~950/1350), can reach speeds near the Nvidia 480 (in most games).

*IF* your motherboard supports dual cards, adding another 5770 might be a cheaper route than anything else which makes buying a 560 ti a joke (~470 level performance), because you can probably find a 5770 for cheaper and get better performance once you crossfire.


So use 99$ or so for a 5770 and Crossfire the 2 you have....*if* you need more gpu power than a single 480,..... then obviously the 5770 doesnt work, and the best buy would be a 6950 that you bios flash -> 6970. That ll give you almost 580 level performance for around ~240$ (vs 580s being 450-500$).


THG arnt reliable... their shaddy when it comes to testing.
Anandtech or techpowerup is a MUCH better place to look at card rankings ect, or benchmarks.

 

[f4phantom2500]

THG arnt reliable... their shaddy when it comes to testing.
Anandtech or techpowerup is a MUCH better place to look at card rankings ect, or benchmarks.

would you care to elaborate?

 

[Arkadrel]

They re nvidia biased, they ve decided to test all upcomeing amd cards on high quality settings vs nvidia normal quality setting (they made a statement about it), because they believed there to be a IQ differnce.

this was back a few driver versions ago, when there was all that talk about it.

I dont believe there really to be a IQ differnce, on this forum we ve had people blowup pictures and zoom in to spot differnces and they couldnt.

it all had to do with a german nvidia biased site, showing shimmering issues in a old dx8-9 game... it was a 1 game issue basically, yet there was a big deal made about it.

That is why I dont think tomshardware to be a reliable benchmark site.

*since then amd has put the quality slider back the way it was, no idea if THG has changed their testing methodes or are still favoring nvidia.

 

[llee]

2nd 5770, and 2x 5770 CF + overclocked (~950/1350), can reach speeds near the Nvidia 480 (in most games).

I think you have the GTX 480 mixed up with the HD 5870.

 

[Skurge]

Hello , I play game off and on BF2 fallout las vegas , going to get Homefront and battlefield 3 I have a i-5 750 cpu and win 7 64 bit and 8 gigs of ripjaws 1600 ram looking to up grade to a new card Dont want to spend to much have 3 kids in college I have looked at hd 6850
5870- 6850 black edition also 6950 1 or 2 gig and flash bios or 6970 .I have a 750wat powers supply for performance which of these or nvida be abetter choice I have aHanns-g hh241 montitor only use one. Any help would be appreciated Iam 53 and not as tech savy as I usedto be.

Could you tell us what resolution you play and how much those cards cost where you are including the nVidia equivalent.

 

[Arkadrel]

I think you have the GTX 480 mixed up with the HD 5870.

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/powercolor_hd5770_crossfire/4.htm

5770 CF 10.10 Catalyst @ CrossFire 910 MHz/1320 MHz (overclocked)
480 singel gpu (stock speeds) 260.89 Forceware


1920x1200 res:

Metro2033: (480 stock is 1 fps faster)
5770 CF oc to 910/1320 = 32 fps
480 stock = 33 fps

Crysis warhead: (480 stock is 2 fps faster)
5770 CF oc to 910/1320 = 42 fps
480 stock = 44 fps

3D mark vantage Performance mode:
5770 CF oc to 910/1320 = 18,719
480 stock = 19,422 points


Yes the 480 at stock speeds is faster than 2x 5770 OCed to 910/1320, but not by huge amounts. I appologies for linking overclockersclub, their graphs are crazy hard to read <.< with them changeing colour on bars for differnt cards from test to test ect.

However it was the first review of 5770 CF I found with OCed numbers, where you could match them to singel gpu cards at stock rates too. So numbers are taken from overclockersclub review of the 5770 cf (link found above).

I think you have the GTX 480 mixed up with the HD 5870.

Stock speed 5770 are almost 5870 level... with a big enough overclock on the 2x5770, they can reach 480 (stock) levels. Naturally this depends on how well the game scales (CF wise), drivers ect so might not always be the case, but in the exsamples above it is.

 

[bryanW1995]

2nd 5770, and 2x 5770 CF + overclocked (~950/1350), can reach speeds near the Nvidia 480 (in most games).

*IF* your motherboard supports dual cards, adding another 5770 might be a cheaper route than anything else which makes buying a 560 ti a joke (~470 level performance), because you can probably find a 5770 for cheaper and get better performance once you crossfire.


So use 99$ or so for a 5770 and Crossfire the 2 you have....*if* you need more gpu power than a single 480,..... then obviously the 5770 doesnt work, and the best buy would be a 6950 that you bios flash -> 6970. That ll give you almost 580 level performance for around ~240$ (vs 580s being 450-500$).


THG arnt reliable... their shaddy when it comes to testing.
Anandtech or techpowerup is a MUCH better place to look at card rankings ect, or benchmarks.

THG has definitely gone downhill, but their gpu chart is still generally an effective quick and dirty comparison tool. I thought the 6950 was a lot faster than 5870, but from looking at Anandtech bench it's just a small improvement generally, with 5870 even winning a few comparisons at lower resolutions. Of course, 6950 flashed to 6970 is a different story, and most 5870's won't OC much and obviously can't be flashed. So that discussion would come down to price; a $200 5870 looks very appealing there, unless it goes up against the $229 6950 that was seen recently.