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SHould i upgrade now or later?

A

Alberto8793

Junior Member
I have a single 4870 with an aging rig i am going to buy a new bulldozer AMD proc as soon as they release but right now i get alot of lag in newer games with my HIS 4870 and i was wondering whther i should buy a new card right now like a 6870 which i have heard is great or wait, and what will be coming outsoon? Preferably an ATI GPU as i am an AMD fan boy! 😵
 
Well the high end Radeon cards will be coming out within a month. If your budget allows it then they would probably be good choices for you, but the HD6870 would be a decent upgrade from a 4870.

But if you have an aging rig then perhaps a new video card won't make a difference. If you have AMD and you have an aging rig, then that seems like a recipe for an Athlon X2 3800+ or similar, which is just going to hold back any upgrade you do.
 
Buy a cheaper 6850 which will more than suffice atm, then upgrade to higher end perhaps when the 32nm chips get released next year. Given the performance increase the temptation to go high end to high end will be very strong (unless you have the money to spend like that). So, best to save a little now imho and not go above the middle segment.

Just my two cents.

(...from an NV fan boi 😉 Not really, well...sorta I guess in a round about way...Hey, can't we all just get along 😛)
 
Ask yourself the fundamental questions:

1. Budget. If you at capped at $250, there is no question. Get the 6870. They are 10% off today at newegg, as are all video cards with the discount code EMCZZYR24. Total is $223 shipped or so.

2. Price v. Performance: if you can spend more than $250, you have to ask - do I need to? Do I want to? Is the performance of the 6870 acceptable? If yes, don't bother waiting. If no, hold out for the two or three weeks. But note that you'll pay more money for more performance...probably around $400.

AMD is launching the 69xx series this month. We don't know the price, performance, or availability at this time, but I know it will be better than the 5870, and likely cost around the same amount as a 5870 ($350-400).
 
You should figure out whether the lag is from the 4870 or from the CPU + RAM + HD.

Try lowering the resolution. Does it become smooth and lag free? Then a better video card would help.

If not, the video card isn't the problem and a better one will not help.
 
Axon said:
1. Budget. If you at capped at $250, there is no question. Get the 6870.
Click to expand...
Not so fast, the EVGA FTW is $229 and $239 respectively (both designs), with rebates for each card, and the card is just as fast as the 6870 for less.

However, since his is a self professed ATI fan boy then he probably won't be able to stomach such a notion (so yeah for him maybe no question lol 😛) Which that then, the 6870 would be fine, but even still as mentioned in the previous post a 6850 will do fine as well and cost even less since I imagine the upgrade bug will hit hard next fall as well.
 
i am assuming that anything you buy now, you will want to bring over to the new rig down the line. i suspect that any card chosen now will provide tangible benefits simply because the baseline is 4870. so the question is purely, how much do you want to spend now? and do you feel like waiting until the end of the month to see what the 69x0 series will bring?

if i couldn't wait, i'd get a 6850. then overclock the hell out of it.
 
Teizo said:
Not so fast, the EVGA FTW is $229 and $239 respectively (both designs), with rebates for each card, and the card is just as fast as the 6870 for less.

However, since his is a self professed ATI fan boy then he probably won't be able to stomach such a notion (so yeah for him maybe no question lol 😛) Which that then, the 6870 would be fine, but even still as mentioned in the previous post a 6850 will do fine as well and cost even less since I imagine the upgrade bug will hit hard next fall as well.
Click to expand...

You are correct - the 460 is a baller ass card and buying the FTW isn't even necessary. My "vanillia" EVGA 460 GTX 1GB reaches 850 MHZ without a voltage bump..and it's available for $163(!) AR today only.

But my position was because of his AMD fanboi..ism. 😛
 
i recommend divorcing the upgrade cycles for your separate components from each other.
there is no reason to wait until bulldozer to upgrade your GPU, they are not really related. upgrade your GPU when its a worthwhile upgrade, upgrade your cpu when it is a worthwhile upgrade.

btw, the speed is 5870 > 6870 > 5850 > 6850
the 68xx series is targets price reduction mainly and had to sacrifice some performance for it. so if you can find a better deal on a 58xx card, get it.
 
Alberto8793 said:
I have a single 4870 with an aging rig i am going to buy a new bulldozer AMD proc as soon as they release but right now i get alot of lag in newer games with my HIS 4870 and i was wondering whther i should buy a new card right now like a 6870 which i have heard is great or wait, and what will be coming outsoon? Preferably an ATI GPU as i am an AMD fan boy! 😵
Click to expand...

Welcome to the forums. You will find tons of help here, especially if you learn to use punctuation 😉

Just giving the new guy a hard time :thumbsup:
 
It would help a lot if you gave us the games you play that are giving you trouble, the resolution you game at and your system specs (CPU, GPU, ie. if your card has 512MB vs. 1GBs of ram)
 
It's up to YOU to define the NEED.

Do YOU feel that you NEED a new card/new rig?

I get twitchy fingers all the time, simply because I LOVE to build rigs BUT at the same time I realize that once it's build and operational......well my 4870 does just fine today.

IMO 6870 is not a worthy upgrade to 4870 unless money is no object.....and if that's the case 480 or 5870 would probably be an option.

Personally I'm waiting for next great game. There is no games on the horizon that are worthy of an upgrade. Crysis 2 might be it and it comes out around the time when Intel releases new chips....also by that time Nvidia/AMD GPUs will be few months in and prices settled.
 
I will never understand why people start threads like this. if you cant decide for yourself if there is a reason to upgrade then how can anybody else do that for you? 😕
 
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