The Should I upgrade delimna...

[78Staff]

Background, previous system was HP 9400 with limited expansion/ps capabilities. Original 1800 card died do I replaced about 6 mo ago with what at the time was about all the PSU could handle (350watt, no PCI 6pin), which is a HD5670...

Fast forward to now, HP died, it was 3 years old figure time to replace anyway...modestly spec'd since I was on somewhat of a budget:

Asus M5a97Evo
Phenom II x4 955 BE
PNY 8GB DDR3 1600
OCZ Modstream Pro 700watt
Samsung JD103SJ 3G x2 (recent purchase, moved over from prev system, along with other minors like optical drive, card reader, AverMedia)
and the aforementioned HD 5670

Not a heavy gamer, but do like to fiddle around with Call of Duty, Bad Company, Battlefield, etc type games, mostly casual so not super resource intensive stuff like coming out nowdays.. Do want to run 3 displays, however, a Samsung 26" and two HP 20's. Max Res 1920*1200/1600*1200 - I do some video editing, encoding, etc as well as RAW photo editing. Win7 x64, along with goofing around with some linux disto's as well, both dual booted and Virtual box.

Previously, my card choice was limited by PSU, but now that's not the case, at least not for most mid-range cards...

Was looking at 6850/70, 6950, GTX 560ti, all pretty big jumps over what I have now from what I have been reading... But not sure how much GPU I really need... I don't mind spending for the 6950 or 560Ti if the benefit is there, but if not I'm happy to save $70-100 and go with the 68xx series too . Leaning towards single card as my 2nd x16 is x4 only - which is kind why I figured get the "most" single card I can afford... The Asus MB is "XF-Ready" - but not sure if that means I can't go SLI if I wanted to?

So, any advise on what will get the job done? I should say the 5670 isn't by any means "slow" or anything, scoring a 7.0 on the WinEx scale - just was thinking since now I can move into a stronger card I would start going over options...

Thanks,
'78

 

[lehtv]

Not sure if you just plan to run 3 displays or actually game on all three? (as in, high res multimonitor gaming)

 

[78Staff]

Hmm, honestly I'm only gaming on the single 26" widescreen... Hadn't though much of three displays for gaming, since different formats (other two are 20" 4:3). If its possible I guess that could be cool though

 

[lehtv]

Yes, it's possible, but if your monitors have different pixel density (resolution / size) it's not going to look as good as with identical monitors, and thick bezels can be a bit annoying too.

Tbh I think you should just stick to one monitor, the high resolution of multi-monitor gaming requires a more expensive GPU setup for the same fps and quality settings.

Are you planning to play BF3? If so a 6950 2GB would be worth it. But if you're just playing older or less demanding titles, you'd be just fine with a 6850/6870. I'd hesitate to recommend a 560 Ti at this point, as AMD cards offer better bang for buck and lower power consumption and I think those are important considerations

 

[crisium]

If you're not a big gamer do yourself a favour and save some cash and get a Radeon 6850. Even BF3 with the "High" settings without AA should run - worst case scenario you want more frames and you do a combination of medium/high.

It's only worth ponying up for a 6950 level card if you demand prettier graphics in BF3.

 

[lehtv]

Even BF3 with the "High" settings without AA should run

Maybe, maybe not. While acknowledging the beta probably isn't as optimized the vanilla will be, my overclocked 560 Ti couldn't run it at smooth (45+) framerates on high settings 1080p in the Metro map (on NV's beta drivers). About 30-35fps outside. In the bigger Caspian Border map, people have reported much lower frames than in the Metro - I would say a 6850 will do medium settings in BF3 at best.

That said, I think BF3 looks fine on medium settings. Immersion isn't a big deal in online games anyway.

 

[78Staff]

Yeah I am leaning towards a 6870 1GB, roughly $120 cheaper than the 6950 2GB I am looking at, and only 11-16% less in various theoretical benchmarks...

The more I think about it most of my gaming nowadays takes place on PS3 and 70" Samsung anyway...

 

[78Staff]

Well I did a 180... decided on a Sapphire 6950 2GB Dirt Edition... Actually was leaning towards a Sapphire 6870 Flex, but since wanting to run 3 monitors off one card I went ahead and moved up to the 6950. I actually looked for a reference card version but they are hard to find now...