Sandy Bridge, New GPU, or Wait.

[Arkadrel]

Crossfired 5770 is like ~470 level of performance or abit higher around 5870 levels.

Upg to a single 560 would be a sidegrade....same with a single 470, even a 5870 would be sidegrade.

So if you going for a single card solution, you d need 480/570 for it to not *feel* like a sidegrade giveing you the same performance. And even then it would be alot of money for little boost.

mingsoup is your CF 5770 setup overclocked? see if you cant get them to run 1,000mhz Core / 1400mhz mem, by takeing the volt up to around 1.20v

If I was you, Id just be happy with the 5770 CF for now, unless you playing a game where you need more horse power no reason to upg.

 

[mingsoup]

Crossfired 5770 is like ~470 level of performance or abit higher.

Upg to a single 560 would be a sidegrade....same with a single 470.

So if you going for a single card solution, you d need 480/570 for it to not *feel* like a sidegrade giveing you the same performance.

mingsoup is your CF 5770 setup overclocked? see if you cant get them to run 1,000mhz Core / 1400mhz mem, by takeing the volt up to around 1.20v

What kinda performance would that net me? performance equivalent to.

 

[happy medium]

What kinda performance would that net me? performance equivalent to.

Yea, you can get an extra 15% performance boost from overclocking those cards.

2 5770's are a bit faster then a 5870.

That should get you close to gtx480/gtx570 performance.

 

[mingsoup]

Yea, you can get an extra 15% performance boost from overclocking those cards.

2 5770's are a bit faster then a 5870.

That should get you close to gtx480/gtx570 performance.

570? peformancE?

Wow. 580 sounds like serious sidegrade.
thx for all the input too guys. appreciate it.
other games I forgot. Torchlight 2, Battlefield 3, and Skyrim. I'd like to max out these titles. Approach 60fps at 1920*1200. but then who doesn't. and who knows what will be needed.

@Arkadrel

The MSI afterburner slider for core only goes to 960mhz. How do I alleviate that? The OC option for now intrigues me. What temp should I watch out for on these cards max?

 

[happy medium]

The MSI afterburner slider for core only goes to 960mhz. How do I alleviate that? The OC option for now intrigues me. What temp should I watch out for on these cards max?

You have to go into the cfg file and change overclocking to 1.

let me see if I can get the link, i kinda forget.
max temps are about 80c, don't let it go over 85c.

Edit: sorry here ya go.

http://www.overclock.net/ati/640563-msi-afterburner-1-4-0-bypass.html

One more thing disable overdrive overclocking in CCC first.
Only use 1 program to overclock at a time , sometimes they will conflict.

 

[happy medium]

Just for your information, in this review 2 5770's in crossfire @ 910 core 1330 memory are tieing or beating a stock gtx480 consistantly.
At 960 core you easily have stock gtx480/gtx570 and 6970 performance at your resolution.

Read the charts very carefully.

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

 

[-Slacker-]

Why do you need more fps in civ5 anyway? Its a TBS.

 

[Arkadrel]

The 5770 was a good card for its time (October 13, 2009).

The only downside really was the 128bit bus on it.. stock mem bandwidth is like 76.8 GB/s, however almost all of them can OC memory uptowards the 1400mhz range, giveing about 90 GB/s memory bandwidth.

The 460 768mb version are 192bit bus, and have 86 GB/s memory bandwidth.

I can understand why the 5770 became so popular.... even now 3 years later... 2x 5770 in crossfire is decent enough for a gameing rig.

 

[stahlhart]

"Sandy Bridge" versus "wait" is a false choice...

 

[Vdubchaos]

If money is no object, upgrade to whatever you want.

750 is a great CPU, personally I wouldn't upgrade that.

I would probably look into upgrading GPU, but it seems like it's working out well for you as is.

Are you just looking for an excuse to upgrade or you have a upgrade bug?

Certainly seems like there is NO need at all.

 

[mingsoup]

Got em running at 910/3120 stable at 1125mV, exactly as the article has em. Beating out a stock 480.

However in vantage performance 1920*1200, that OC is only yielding ~6% in score. I'll try push em further. 15% sounds magical.

I probably will still wait. A 480 is pretty close behind a single 580, beating out ATI's fastest single cards, I believe. (in some games?) Say Battlefield Bad Company 2 (an ATI optimized game no doubt), 5970>580>480>5870. If my 2x5770 OC'ed beat out a 480, do I have the 3rd fastest setup available? less than 500$

 

[happy medium]

Got em running at 910/3120 stable at 1125mV, exactly as the article has em. Beating out a stock 480.

You are beating a stock gtx480, gtx570,gtx560,gtx470 and AMD's entire lineup of single gpu card cards. Nice job.

Get em to 1000 core and you might just close in on a gtx580 in some games.

 

[Arkadrel]

Mingsoup it goes (for single cards at stock speeds):

5970>580>6970>570(=480)>6950>5870>560>470>6870>5850>6850>....

1) 5970
2) 580
3) 6970
4) 570 = 480
5) 6950
6) 5870
7) 560
8) 470
9) 6870
10) 5850
..
.
.

 

[happy medium]

Mingsoup it goes (for single cards at stock speeds):

5970>580>6970>570(=480)>6950>5870>560>470>6870>5850>6850>....

1) 5970
2) 580
3) 570 = 480= 6970 @ 1900x1080
Insert overclocked 5770 x-fire # 910 core here.
4) 6950
5 6950 1gb
5) 5870 = gtx 560
insert my gtx460 1gb overclocked here.
6) gtx470 = 6870
7) 5850
8) 6850
9) .gtx460 1gb
10) gtx460 1gb SE
11) gtx460 768
12) 5830
13) 5770
14) gts450
15) hd5750
.

fixed.

 

[mingsoup]

again?

Now that the 6990 and 590 are out. (Both not worth it in my opinion)

I'm thinking Xfire 6950's unlocked to 6970's. This would put me *very* close to the top.

When is the next round of graphics cards expected?

 

[taltamir]

Instead of arguing over the order of awesomeness of cards... and having an unnecessarily long list... how about we just point the op at anandtech's benchmark database?

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/GPU11/188

 

[badb0y]

Probably Q1/Q2 of 2012.

Only upgrade if you need to. If you just want to stroke your e-peen get 2x 6950s and unlock them. If money is no object get 2x GTX 580s like a boss

 

[mingsoup]

i always need to upgrade. unless I can max all games at 60fps or greater at 1920*1200....that requires a very powerful rig.
really? Q1/Q2 2012? that far away?

 

[badb0y]

i always need to upgrade. unless I can max all games at 60fps or greater at 1920*1200....that requires a very powerful rig.
really? Q1/Q2 2012? that far away?

Let me rephrase it, only upgrade if you are not content with your current setup.

 

[taltamir]

Probably Q1/Q2 of 2012.

Only upgrade if you need to. If you just want to stroke your e-peen get 2x 6950s and unlock them. If money is no object get 2x GTX 580s like a boss

its only stroking your epeen if you upgrade solely to brag about what you own. If you upgrade because you want it to enjoy faster computing then its not epeen at all.

Whether the OP should upgrade or wait or whatever depends hugely on his financial situation and emotional patterns. Things we cannot tell.

 

[Morg.]

Yes, OP you are correct, it's better to wait for the next gen in cpu and gpu to get more bang for your buck, as the next wave is due within 3 to 6 months tops and as always will mean better stuff for the same price.

 

[mingsoup]

source?

 

[T101]

If you really feel the need for it, upgrade your graphics cards, or get an SSD for boosting your loading times of games or system.

 

[mingsoup]

I think however that doubling performance in maybe one benchmark (DA2) for 550$ really isn't worth it. I told myself I'd wait to double my performance for 200$......
I'm thinking about 2x 6950 unlocked to 6970.....

 

[alcoholbob]

The games that want an inordinate amount of CPU power are primarily isometric strategy games that deal with lots and lots of units.

If you are a competitive RTS ladder player with a CRT or 120hz lcd, then I can understand, but aside from that, gaming alone doesn't justify a CPU upgrade of this miniscule level. Wait until SB-E...GPU for sure is the bigger difference here.

i5-750 @ 4.0 is great, upgrading to a SB @ ~ 4.5 should net you about 30% cpu performance improvement. that will help you a ton in civ5, much more than a gpu upgrade.if you don't play civ5 much then I'd keep your current rig and upgrade the gpu's when hd7000 and gtx 6xx series comes out.

Civ 5 is a pretty static game though, it's turn based, and there's no action besides units resolving combat one at a time with a pre-rendered animation. Civ 5 is not supreme commander or some other twitch RTS. It's nice as a benchmark for CPU performance but for the actual game I don't see the improvement, since it's basically looking for higher fps while playing Chess.