Is my 4870 holding me back

[MattHep]

I have recently been asking question around the forums about updating my system as shown in the sig below. I've come to the conclusion that the main culprit for holding my system back is the graphics card. Its a Gainward HD4870 512mb.

I am gaming at 1920x1200 and think this is slighty too much for the graphics card.

If i decide to replace i will be looking at around £250 budget.

I was thinking of a GTX460

What are your thoughts on this?

Matt

 

[Duff-Man]

Yes, your GPU will be the limiting factor ("bottleneck") in most modern games, at 1920*1200 resolution.

A good replacement would be the GTX470. This will fit your budget nicely, and is a good balance for 1920*1200 resolution. It should be around twice the power of your 4870. The extra VRAM will also help in some games, particularly where you have AA enabled.

 

[Cuchulain]

It should be around twice the power of your 4870.

lolwut? Please, back this statement up with some concrete proof.

 

[Duff-Man]

lolwut? Please, back this statement up with some concrete proof.

Well, the GTX470 and 4870x2 are similar in performance (see here for example). Also, bear in mind that performance increases due to driver updates will be bigger for the 470, since this comparison was made, than for the 4870x2, for which the drivers had already plenty of time to mature.

Of course you won't get twice the framerate in most circumstances, as framerate increases with increased rendering power do not scale linearly. GPU power is a property of the hardware itself. Performance is a property of the interaction between hardware and software, and therefore takes into account a number of other factors.

 

[cmndr_andi]

According to this review the GTX 470 will be ~49% faster than a 4870 at 1920x1200 resolution. This is a compound result - so the true figure will vary considerably between games.

So it may not be twice the speed of a 4870 - it does represent one of the best value GPU upgrades for your budget. Other good options are a HD 5850 and 5770 CF.

The GTX 295 can also be had for around this budget and this produces framerates almost as good as a GTX 480. However, this is a relatively old-tech card which uses a lot of power and is rather noisy - also it is only DX10.

Have you also considered a second 4870 in crossfireX? At your resolution, the 512MB of video memory will limit you somewhat - but if you don't turn all the settings to the max you will get a big boost in performance for a small cost.

 

[uv]

Have you also considered a second 4870 in crossfireX? At your resolution, the 512MB of video memory will limit you somewhat - but if you don't turn all the settings to the max you will get a big boost in performance for a small cost.

A bad idea, imo. Your problem isn't lack of GPU grunt, it's lack of VRAM,and adding more GPU grunt won't resolve the issue. It will also introduce xfire issues (I had a 4870x2, and micro-stutter was a nightmare).

Your best options would be: GTX460 < HD5850 < GTX470.

 

[MattHep]

Thanks for the advice, i definitely will not be buying another HD4870, but looks like the GTX470 is in favour which sounds good to me.

Hopefully order one of these within the next couple of weeks.

will these cards benefit much from overclocking?

 

[Marine-RX179]

will these cards benefit much from overclocking?

Hell yea. Most owners of GTX470 can overclock it from 607MHz to around 850MHz, and a few unlucky ones...even them managed 820MHz. At that clock speed, it will be around as fast as a GTX480.

 

[Duff-Man]

will these cards benefit much from overclocking?

Yes.

As mentioned above, the GTX470 is highly overclockable. Also, with the GF100 architecture, performance scales very well with core clockspeed in most cases.

You should be able to obtain well over GTX480 stock performance.

 

[Xelene]

The biggest bottleneck you are having is running a 512MB card at 1920x1200. You can get a good upgrade well under budget, but on budget a 470 sounds the best deal or wait for the ATI 6xxx series (next month) and see how they are.