Which card to get? 9800GX2 or 5xxx series card.

TeejayV

Member
Jul 25, 2004
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Hey there, i'm not too familiar with the world of video cards, so i just wanted to ask for some advice here.

I currently have a BFG 9800GX2, and i was considering upgrading to a ATI 5xxx series card. I"m not even sure though if it would be an upgrade..

I have a core i7 920 and 12g of ram on a SLI board.

Which 5xxx card would be worth getting? (if any, that is).

I like to game on 1900x1200 resolution on a dell 2407wfp.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

(games considered: WoW, Aion, upcoming Dragon's Age: Origins, Diablo III, Starcraft II, Left for Dead 2, upcoming Alan Wake, Modern Warfare 2)
 

thilanliyan

Lifer
Jun 21, 2005
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Definitely get a 5870 or a 5870x2/5870x2 when it comes out if you can afford it. It would be a noticeable upgrade over a 9800GX2.
 

happy medium

Lifer
Jun 8, 2003
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I estimate it will be about a 25/35% upgrade.
Thats with a single 5870.
Pro's
Lower power consumption
single card solution
Direct x 11

con's?
.........sli board?
no crossfire in the future
 

TeejayV

Member
Jul 25, 2004
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wow those were fast replies. I have a SLI/CF board it's an msi x58 pro-e so it's not such a bad board.
I will definitely take a look at getting a 5870 then. Thank you for such quick replies all.
 

cusideabelincoln

Diamond Member
Aug 3, 2008
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Either 5800 series card would be an improvement, and I suspect the biggest improvement would be in minimum framerate performance.
 

Vertibird

Member
Oct 13, 2009
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5850x2 will probably be a better bang for your buck than 5870 and probably overclock better too.
 

v8envy

Platinum Member
Sep 7, 2002
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For new games it should be much faster than just 25-35%. Remember that these are *512 meg* 8800GTs in a sandwich. For older games it's probably not a big issue, but for newer games with big, fat high detail textures 512 megs starts to be a problem.

Additional pros not mentioned: no microstutter, no input lag, no 50% performance haircut for games without an SLI profile, no issues running windowed games, good multi-monitor support.

Ditch the sandwich and see what you've been missing.
 

happy medium

Lifer
Jun 8, 2003
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Yea I was gonna say 40/50% faster but he was not using a super high res. @ 1920x1080. And I remember the gx2 being pretty quick at that resolution.
 

TeejayV

Member
Jul 25, 2004
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lol 'ditch the sandwich'. it's been a good sandwich for these past couple years. You guys have talked me into ordering a 5870 then.
 

cusideabelincoln

Diamond Member
Aug 3, 2008
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You should do some benchmarks and post your results. A head to head between the 9800GX2 and the 5870 would be interesting, and I haven't came across a review that includes both of these cards.
 

Forumpanda

Member
Apr 8, 2009
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I laughed at ditch the sandwich, and ya you can always upgrade to a CF solution later then, the second 5xxx cards should use even less idle power when in CF which is always a nice bonus, that was my big problem with 4xxx CF (180W idle = ugh).
 

TeejayV

Member
Jul 25, 2004
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it seems so far that my search for a 5800 series card is going to take a while longer. Not too many Canadian retailers are stocking this as of now. And it seems that it will be a while before many of the more accessible retailers will have the cards on their shelves.

I hope that before the Christmas season I am able to pick up this card either from the web or from a regular B and M store.

On a side note, i was just wondering if i would like to sell my current 9800GX2.. how much would it be worth?
I was thinking along the lines of 200 dollars or thereabouts. I don't know if that would be market value these days, but hopefully someone would snatch this beast out from under me.

Then it would be a TRUE deal.
 

alcoholbob

Diamond Member
May 24, 2005
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$100-150 on ebay. It's value is a lot less than 2 x 8800GTS (which go for closer to $80)
 

betasub

Platinum Member
Mar 22, 2006
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Originally posted by: cusideabelincoln
You should do some benchmarks and post your results. A head to head between the 9800GX2 and the 5870 would be interesting, and I haven't came across a review that includes both of these cards.

:thumbsup: Yes, would be nice to see at what point the raw compute power of the GX2 gets limited by vRAM buffer and bandwidth.

OP: not the best place for a price check - follow up Astralite's source and check out ebay for a guide on how well things are selling.
 

v8envy

Platinum Member
Sep 7, 2002
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It would be very interesting to have that comparison, yes. Many people still have 8800GTs (and SLI-capable X58 boards), so if adding another used $60 card can get us within ~25% of a 5870's performance in modern titles (even in low res) that's certainly a point to keep in mind.

It does make sense -- an 8800GT SLI is highly comprable to a 4890 or 275 whenever SLI scales well and the game doesn't require > 512M. A 4890 is about 30% slower than a 5870. Could be interesting.

Then again, 30% may mean the difference between 30 and 21 FPS. So for "barely playable" titles where you need all the extra horsepower the point may be moot.
 

evolucion8

Platinum Member
Jun 17, 2005
2,867
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Originally posted by: v8envy
It would be very interesting to have that comparison, yes. Many people still have 8800GTs (and SLI-capable X58 boards), so if adding another used $60 card can get us within ~25% of a 5870's performance in modern titles (even in low res) that's certainly a point to keep in mind.

It does make sense -- an 8800GT SLI is highly comprable to a 4890 or 275 whenever SLI scales well and the game doesn't require > 512M. A 4890 is about 30% slower than a 5870. Could be interesting.

Then again, 30% may mean the difference between 30 and 21 FPS. So for "barely playable" titles where you need all the extra horsepower the point may be moot.

A HD 4890 in CPU limited scenarios tends to be between 20% and 35% slower than a HD 5870, GPU limited scenarios the difference is bigger than that. Who will buy SLI/Crossfire setups or a high end card to play in CPU limited resolutions? At his high resolution, a HD 5800 series is the way to go, no scaling issues and better performance than a single GTX 285 which is faster than any 8800GT in SLI or 9800GX2 card.