Radeon HD 4870 1GB vs my 8800GTS 320mb...

[Shyatic]

There's a sale in the Hot Deals forum for that card for $200, which is what I want to spend on an upgrade from my current card.

How much better are we talking here? I mainly play CS:S and Call of Duty 4, with Diablo3 and Starcraft 2 to follow.

Much obliged for the help, if you give me an idea in % it would be great. My native resoultion is 1900, so I'd like to keep native on the games I play (if possible).

Thanks!

 

[TC91]

I personally did this exact upgrade, and I have been extremely disappointed and frustrated. A few of my older (and favourite) games run very poorly, and I have tried using every driver with 4870 support with no luck. I bought the 4870 1gb on the same day as when the AT review came out, so its been ~5ish months and so far no luck with those games, and I would go as far as saying that this possibly has been my worst hardware purchase ever.

In your case, COD4 will run much better on the 4870 than on the 8800gts 320mb. I don't have CS:S but it is quite a cpu limited game so you likely will not notice a huge difference in that game. For Diablo 3 and SC2 it *should* run a nice amount faster, whenever they decide to come out. In the most popular games that are always used in video card reviews you should see large gains (~50-80%+) and more when the 320mb framebuffer on the 8800gts runs out.

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: TC91
A few of my older (and favourite) games run very poorly, and I have tried using every driver with 4870 support with no luck.

Which games are those?

 

[SlowSpyder]

Originally posted by: error8

Originally posted by: TC91
A few of my older (and favourite) games run very poorly, and I have tried using every driver with 4870 support with no luck.

Which games are those?

I'm curious as well... I play some pretty old games on my system (even 2D ) without any problems.

 

[TC91]

Sorry for going off topic, those games are Age of Empires 3 (plus Warchiefs and Asian Dynasties expansions), and Dungeon Siege 2 (plus the Broken World expansion). They both run like crap for me, and I am extemely frustrated.

 

[Shyatic]

Originally posted by: TC91
Sorry for going off topic, those games are Age of Empires 3 (plus Warchiefs and Asian Dynasties expansions), and Dungeon Siege 2 (plus the Broken World expansion). They both run like crap for me, and I am extemely frustrated.

Yea but those are crappy games so it's okay

 

[alcoholbob]

Starting from G92 the focus has been on shaders rather than brute force processing which is why you see newer cards struggling with older games. In older games I would say 8800 Ultra is probably king of the hill.

 

[TC91]

Well those are a couple of my favourite games to play so it's frustrating when I paid almost 400CAD back when I got it and have a couple of my favourite games run that crappy. If I knew they ran so poorly I would have not got the card.

But back on topic, most of the games that video card reviews use as benchmarks will run "as advertised," so you should see a nice gain in performance with most if not all newer games.

 

[alcoholbob]

A old unplayable game actually might still be unplayable today with a top shelf system if its say, something neolithic like DX7. Hardware has gone in different directions and software has moved with it. A game that was optimized for the Geforce 4 generation might not even run any better on a GTX285 for example.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

You could see up to twice the performance improvement, but I wouldn't expect any more than that. Source games are pretty CPU limited and you'd probably see gains if you overclocked your processor (if it already isn't). You will probably see a huge jump in COD4, though, and be able to max out the game with really smooth framerates.

 

[o3srt4me]

Originally posted by: cusideabelincoln
You could see up to twice the performance improvement, but I wouldn't expect any more than that. Source games are pretty CPU limited and you'd probably see gains if you overclocked your processor (if it already isn't). You will probably see a huge jump in COD4, though, and be able to max out the game with really smooth framerates.

I can tell you first hand seeing as how I just bought this card yesterday, we have similar setups, rather I have an E8500 @ 3.66 ghz. and also at 1920x1080 .So first, I Just replaced my 8800gt oc, which is similar but slightly under your card and the difference was huge.

Cod 4 fully maxed out 4xaa 16xaf I avg 60fps, under heavy explosions or a shit ton of guys It MAY dip to 55 but no biggie.

Cod 5 at 4xaa 16xaf is a little rougher, the flamethrower especially might dip you to around 45 ish, but still looks fine IMO.

ALL source games will run flawless at 16xAA with exeptions for L4D which runs at constant 60 at 8xAA, but like stated above source games are heavy on CPU and mine is considerably larger, but nothing a good OC couldnt fix.

My overall satisfaction with switching from Nvidia to ATi has been most pleasing, for the price the card really cant be beat IMO. Last piece of advice is to stay away from Sapphire, I bought one foolishly and Ive read that they are pretty sketchy on customer support as well as quality in their cards.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

Well CS:S isn't even multi-threaded like L4D, which is why he may be CPU limited if his Q6600 is at stock.