Should I upgrade?

[d3fu5i0n]

Do scroll to the bottom to read for updates in new posts.

So, hey guys,
I currently have a 2GB 6950 [Sapphire] graphics card.

I managed to find a Sapphire 7870 OC Edition, brand new, for £259.99; should I upgrade and try to sell my 6950?

What would you do?


P.S. I also have to be sure that I'll get a sale on my 6950 and that I could sell it for a reasonable price. It has been in use [and purchased from the same time] for about one year.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Worth it if you oc 7870, will trade blows with 7950

 

[Jaydip]

Hold on to ur 6950.It will last u a while.

 

[bigsnyder]

If you can get what you want out of your 6950 then it is probably worth it. Otherwise, 6950 to 7870 is not a huge upgrade, but I guess it really depends on what games you feel the frame rates are lacking in. IMO, 7870 is overpriced with the latest price cuts on the 7900 series. What can you get a 7950 for?

 

[aaksheytalwar]

6950 oc to 7870 oc is easily a 40-50% performance increase. For me it is worth it, for some others it is not. It basically means that if a game is unplayable at 16x10, it will become perfectly playable at 19x12. It is that kind of difference IMO.

 

[d3fu5i0n]

If you can get what you want out of your 6950 then it is probably worth it. Otherwise, 6950 to 7870 is not a huge upgrade, but I guess it really depends on what games you feel the frame rates are lacking in. IMO, 7870 is overpriced with the latest price cuts on the 7900 series. What can you get a 7950 for?

I can get a 7950 for £300. This OC Edition 7870 is usually £25 more than the £260.

I would like a little more performance and I'm looking to begin playing BF3 and want some more performance out of Crysis 2 [not too bothered about that] and The Witcher 2 [would like].

Currently, my 6950 (as stated in my sig.) is overclocked to 840/1325; I am one of the few who prefers not to use Afterburner and my 6950 can't overclock much higher, so it doesn't seem worth it to use other programs.

I would overclock the 7870 as well, due to how well the 28nm TSMC process seems to overclock.

P.S. For anyone who wants to know, I play at 1920x1080 and generally don't like to use post-process filters for Anti-Aliasing [I do in Deus Ex: HR, that's it]. In most situations, I like to use a minimum of 4x MSAA - or, in other words, I use more if my framerate is stupidly high.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Get a 7950/7970 stock if you can afford it, else get a 7870 stock. Company overclocks are too light to help, you need to oc yourself. Either get 7870 stock or 7950 stock or 7970/680 based on your budget. Don't go lower than 7870 if possible

 

[d3fu5i0n]

Get a 7950/7970 stock if you can afford it, else get a 7870 stock. Company overclocks are too light to help, you need to oc yourself. Either get 7870 stock or 7950 stock or 7970/680 based on your budget. Don't go lower than 7870 if possible

It was just that the stock 7870 [not OC Edition] was cheaper/the same as the stock 7870 at the moment; and it'd give me more headroom/OC offset in the CCC defaults. [Well... it should, afaik].

I can't afford too much though, I am a student and unemployed [partially my own choice I suppose] - spending £137 the other week on my Samsung 830 means that I really do need to get a good amount of money back on this 6950 if I'm to upgrade the card. This "round", I was pondering over jumping on the green boat - but it seems there shall be delays!

Or... should I try and keep my 6950 going for a couple more years and have a good performance upgrade for quite a low price, then?

 

[Upgrade_Itch]

The 7800 series wouldn't be enough for me to upgrade a 6950...............

A 7950 or better you would see noticeable differences.

 

[d3fu5i0n]

The 7800 series wouldn't be enough for me to upgrade a 6950...............

A 7950 or better you would see noticeable differences.

In most games the 7870 seems to produce the same/highly similar performance in comparison to the 7950; only the 7970 pushes the performance bar further again... from what I've seen, at least.

But if I need to make sure and get a good sale on the 6950 and am looking for 60 frames maxed-out in BF3, decent frames in Crysis 2 [I'm also starting to do some work in the CE3 SDK] and hopefully 60-ish frames in TW2 [maxed-out as well, of course; excluding uber-sampling is fine], then what upgrade would you say is worth it? Shoudl I wait to see how much I could really get the 670 for when it releases - and what the performance is?

 

[aaksheytalwar]

The thing is that the 7950 can be overclocked higher than 7870 and has very good scaling as well.

Just compare your 6950 to a GTX 580 or 580 oc level performance. If that is good enough, then go with 7850 and overclock it 30-40%.

If you can afford the 7870 you can go with it, but once both are overclocked the 7870 oc is just 10-15% ahead of 7850 oc. So is that 10%+ extra performance worth nearly additional $100 to you?

If you can go with a 7950 and oc it, that would be best but given your budget and situation I don't suggest it.


Upgrade it if you need to only, and go with 7850 and oc it. It will beat your card by about 30-40%+ and be well worth it.

And if you play at 1440p max (no AA) then you need 7970 oc or 680 oc level performance.

for 1080p, most games will run max with 7850 oc, some with AA some without AA.

Be prepared that your average performance difference will be close to 25-40%+ of what you currently get, mostly around 30%+- or so

 

[Upgrade_Itch]

In most games the 7870 seems to produce the same/highly similar performance in comparison to the 7950; only the 7970 pushes the performance bar further again... from what I've seen, at least.

But if I need to make sure and get a good sale on the 6950 and am looking for 60 frames maxed-out in BF3, decent frames in Crysis 2 [I'm also starting to do some work in the CE3 SDK] and hopefully 60-ish frames in TW2 [maxed-out as well, of course; excluding uber-sampling is fine], then what upgrade would you say is worth it? Shoudl I wait to see how much I could really get the 670 for when it releases - and what the performance is?

If you can get a 7950 for $379 or so thats your best bet. Not sure of the pound conversion though....prolly 300-320 pounds?

 

[d3fu5i0n]

The thing is that the 7950 can be overclocked higher than 7870 and has very good scaling as well.

Just compare your 6950 to a GTX 580 or 580 oc level performance. If that is good enough, then go with 7850 and overclock it 30-40%.

If you can afford the 7870 you can go with it, but once both are overclocked the 7870 oc is just 10-15% ahead of 7850 oc. So is that 10%+ extra performance worth nearly additional $100 to you?

If you can go with a 7950 and oc it, that would be best but given your budget and situation I don't suggest it.


Upgrade it if you need to only, and go with 7850 and oc it. It will beat your card by about 30-40%+ and be well worth it.

And if you play at 1440p max (no AA) then you need 7970 oc or 680 oc level performance.

for 1080p, most games will run max with 7850 oc, some with AA some without AA.

Be prepared that your average performance difference will be close to 25-40%+ of what you currently get, mostly around 30%+- or so

Okay, thanks for that overview.
I wouldn't want to OC too much due to the lifespan of the components on the cards [unless they'd be fine].

If I can get £150 for my 6950, I think I'd be happy to sell it. It's only been used for one year and hasn't been put under much strain at all. I've cleaned the fan every few weeks - so yeah, it's been under good care

One thing that I may do with a new card is some mining [perhaps...], folding [yes, yes, I know that the nV architecture design for compute units works much better], etc.

What I'd like is 1920x1080 BF3 @ Ultra with decent in-built post-process AA, or 4xMSAA [although that'd likely require the highest end cards] to run very smoothly [preferably 60fps].

 

[d3fu5i0n]

If you can get a 7950 for $379 or so thats your best bet. Not sure of the pound conversion though....prolly 300-320 pounds?

£235 is about $380

However, the cheapest 7950 that you'll find from reputable retailers in the UK is pretty much £300 - from as much as I've seen.
You're lucky to have technology much cheaper, although I suppose the prices displayed on sites, such as Newegg, are pre-tax for you [for us it's inc.-tax unless it states not inc.-tax]

Ah... I'm still unsure as to what to do.

 

[Stuka87]

Get a 7950/7970 stock if you can afford it, else get a 7870 stock. Company overclocks are too light to help, you need to oc yourself. Either get 7870 stock or 7950 stock or 7970/680 based on your budget. Don't go lower than 7870 if possible

1000% disagree...

When you buy an OC edition you are paying for the cooler. I HIGHLY advise buying OC editions as they run literally twice as cool (in most cases), and significantly quieter. The extra few MHz is not the reason to get one.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

1000% disagree...

When you buy an OC edition you are paying for the cooler. I HIGHLY advise buying OC editions as they run literally twice as cool (in most cases), and significantly quieter. The extra few MHz is not the reason to get one.

You can spend the difference in buying an Arctic Accelero. They aren't expensive and they beat the crap out of even the best of the best reference coolers. They are inaudible and cool way better.

With my 7970 at 1175 1625 my core temps have never touched 60C so far with my Arctic Accelero Xtreme. And this is a reference 7970 up from 925 1375. Most of the time heavy load gaming gets my core temps to 50-55C max.

 

[Upgrade_Itch]

They void the warranty. You don't NEED to buy an aftermarket cooler for MSI or Sapphire 7900 cards. I think the Gigabyte cools decently as well.

I can game at 1175/1600 for an hour at 56C with a Sapphire...with a WARRANTY.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Wrong, they don't void warranty for most manufacturers. Exceptions are sapphire and xfx


Msi and Asus allow aftermarket cooling without voiding warranty

 

[d3fu5i0n]

1000% disagree...

When you buy an OC edition you are paying for the cooler. I HIGHLY advise buying OC editions as they run literally twice as cool (in most cases), and significantly quieter. The extra few MHz is not the reason to get one.

Well the standard 7870 that is commonly available from Sapphire still has the same PCB and cooler.
However, yes, non-reference cooling is a bonus in my eyes, as well!

 

[d3fu5i0n]

Just a thought... but I could get a GTX 480 for about £165. If I managed to sell my 6950 2GB for £150-ish, it'd be a really cheap upgrade [although a downgrade on the noise/heat side of things].
I can get a GTX 580 for the same price [the preferable models - or a tiny bit less for not so preferable coolers/manufacturers] as a 7950 - it does a tiny bit better [practically nothing] in BF3. But I'd be giving Team Green a 'spin'.

EDIT: Thinking about some program issues with AMD cards (that I'm having) and that I'd like to dedicate a little time to F@H, I think I may bump for nVidia this round. I think I might splash out £300 on a GTX 580. Then I'll sell my 6950 2GB, or use that in my other system and sell my two 5770s [both 1GB VRAM].

 

[aaksheytalwar]

480 stock is like 10-15% faster than 6950 stock. I would go for 7850 and oc it, buy after market cooling if required. Will beat a 580 stock once Oced and that is easily a 25-45% performance improvement over 6950 stock or 20-40% improvement over a locked Oced 6950