Upgrade from 5870?

[blackfallen]

Alright im looking into upgrading this card. I had it since launch and well its been almost four years, and I was thinking possible upgrading.

I did a huge system overhaul this past Christmas specs in rig:

I7 2700k
8gb ram
250 gb SSD
Asus Sabertooth
Silverstone 1000watts gold certified

Now what would be a good upgrade? I don't want to spend really more then 400 bucks Canadian so that leaves me with 7950's, 670's and some 7970's to upgrade to. Would there be enough of a performance upgrade to warrant a purchase or should I wait till the end of the 2013 for the new line ups?

 

[FalseChristian]

That 5870 of yours STILL smokes and is hot to trot. It's way faster than my GTX 460 1GB. Hell, it's worth upgrading to from my GTX 460 1GB. Keep it. Only the 7970 is worth upgrading to or the GTX 660 Ti or higher. Can you do XFire? If so grab another 5870. The only drawback is the 5870s punt 1GB frame buffer but if you run at 1680x`1050 or less it's no longer a problem.

A 7950 or a 7970 or GTX 660 Ti are your best options.

 

[james1701]

I just upgraded my 5870's. After a little testing a 7970Ghz edition is about as fast as CF 5870's with the latest drivers.

Don't go CF if you can help it. It leaves you with no cheap upgrade path 3 years or more later, unless you have a large monitor, or just really need the performance.

 

[Majcric]

That 5870 of yours STILL smokes and is hot to trot. It's way faster than my GTX 460 1GB. Hell, it's worth upgrading to from my GTX 460 1GB. Keep it. Only the 7970 is worth upgrading to or the GTX 660 Ti or higher. Can you do XFire? If so grab another 5870. The only drawback is the 5870s punt 1GB frame buffer but if you run at 1680x`1050 or less it's no longer a problem.

A 7950 or a 7970 or GTX 660 Ti are your best options.

I had problems with a GTX 560ti 1gb at 1680x1050 res with a few games. I'm sure the 1gb issue has only gotten worse as well.

 

[TakeNoPrisoners]

I went from a 5850 to a GTX 680 and it was a fantastic upgrade.

I would get either a GTX 670 or a 7970. The 7950 is good too. It is kinda hard to go wrong with those cards.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

I went from a 6970 to 7970 oc and I couldn't be happier. I even find the 7970 oc slow with modern games.

 

[poohbear]

i went from a 5870 to a gtx 670, awesome upgrade that doubled the FPS!(only time i upgrade is when its double the FPS in my fav games) you really gotta give it to the 5870, it lasted over 3 years and still kicks butt, but that 1gb RAM really holds it back. All the games i play now use more than 1 gb vid RAM regularly (i check with GPU-Z how much vid ram they use, @ max settings most new games are 1.4-1.9gb).

I upgraded in the summer, at the time the 7970 didn't have as awesome drivers as it does now, and the games bundle is also amazing for FC3 alone (its still $50 new), so i'd go with either a 7950 with a nice after market cooler and overclock the hell out of it (they love overclocking), or a 7970. I love my GTX 670 with its silent aftermarket cooler, it was really the only choice for me last summer cause the 7950 had crappy drivers in my fav games which have been improved tremendously (BF3, Shogun 2), but for the price, game bundle and price makes the 7970 a favorite. Again, only if you can find one that has a nice aftermarket cooler, cause the reference design is kinda loud.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Alright im looking into upgrading this card. I had it since launch and well its been almost four years, and I was thinking possible upgrading.

I did a huge system overhaul this past Christmas specs in rig:

I7 2700k
8gb ram
250 gb SSD
Asus Sabertooth
Silverstone 1000watts gold certified

Now what would be a good upgrade? I don't want to spend really more then 400 bucks Canadian so that leaves me with 7950's, 670's and some 7970's to upgrade to. Would there be enough of a performance upgrade to warrant a purchase or should I wait till the end of the 2013 for the new line ups?

Nobody asked the important questions like what is your current monitor resolution, and why are you not satisfied with the current GPU?

Those two things are going to let me know if you should buy now or wait.

 

[Qbah]

I went from a HD5850 to a GTX670 and love it Took the 4GB version in the end as my heavily modified Skyrim was eating over 2GB VRAM.

 

[raghu78]

HD 7950 boost is the best value for money upgrade. it overclocks easily to 1150 mhz and will double your HD 5870 performance. even at stock speeds its faster than HD 5870 CF. at the same clocks HD 7950 is 5% slower than HD 7970.

http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=AT-7950BST

Sapphire HD 7950 boost is one of the best HD 7950 cards. unlocked voltage. good cooler.

 

[BrightCandle]

There is certainly enough performance (nearly double) available to make the jump worthwhile. The next refresh we will see on GPUs will almost certainly be on the same 28nm process (might be a different sub process for leakage or clock speed benefits) so the size of the chips will stay roughly the same. Thus we wont see a big jump in performance at the end of the year, just optimisations of what we already have. What is expected end of the year is just like the 6000 series refresh, a tweak that performed better and sometimes worse than the 5000 series.

We wont be seeing the next true jump in performance until 2015 when TSMC gets its next process node producing newer bigger GPUs. So its a decent time to buy, prices are down from the highs of last year. Personally I would do 680 or a 670 instead of the 7970/7950 for a variety of reasons.

 

[blackfallen]

Nobody asked the important questions like what is your current monitor resolution, and why are you not satisfied with the current GPU?

Those two things are going to let me know if you should buy now or wait.

I game on my 42 inch plasma at 1080p so 1920x1080, and anther reason is BF3, Crysis 3 and a wave of new titles coming soon that I prob wont be able to run at high anymore.

 

[RaistlinZ]

My 7970 was a nice upgrade from my old 5870. I recommend it highly.

 

[raildogg]

HD 7950 boost is the best value for money upgrade. it overclocks easily to 1150 mhz and will double your HD 5870 performance. even at stock speeds its faster than HD 5870 CF. at the same clocks HD 7950 is 5% slower than HD 7970.

http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=AT-7950BST

Sapphire HD 7950 boost is one of the best HD 7950 cards. unlocked voltage. good cooler.

That's looks like a very good deal.