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5770 ain't cutting it.

Ice_9

Ice_9

Ice_9

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Joined
15 Jan 2006
Posts
52
Location
Clock End
Hi everyone,

As the title suggests the 5770 isnt cutting the mustard anymore. I'm having to reduce the eyecandy a lot on certain games to maintain a playable framerate at the res i play, 1920x1080. As such im looking to upgrade so I can start playing these games as they were intended. If possible i'd like the following out of a new card.

- Budget: £200-250(at a push)
- As quiet as possible - if avoidable i'd prefer not to have a jet engine in my case
- Useable on a 700w psu - OCZ modstream pro
- Able to run the lastest games at 1080p comfortably with bells and whisltes on
- I currently run two monitors and looking to add a third at a later date, possible on 1 card in this price range? - willing to compromise on this

thanks in advance.

Ice
 
i'd say the GTX 480's @ £200ish is a pretty good bet, or a GTX 570. if you want an ATi card i'd go for a revision 1 6950 and unlock it
 
The cheapest worth while upgrade would be a 5850 for around £115. However, thinking in the longer term if I was you I would consider something like a 480 / 6950.
 
even though i ordered a hd 5850 to replace my good old 5770 i must say there isn't a game which my 5770 cant run at max res (1920x1080) inc crysis 2. the only reason i'm upgrading is because i started to use DX11 & i want more than 40fps on the brilliant dirt2 in DX11 (ultra settings) & more than 32fps on shift 2 (btw not a great game).

i should be able to get 70fps on dirt 2 ultra settings (DX11) with the hd 5850 & with MW2 i should get above 120fps online (great since i have 120hz monitor). :)
 
Crossfired 5850s would be extremely nice I imagine but failing that I'd go for a 480.

Neither of those solutions would be that good for a three screen setup though. The 480 simply doesn't have enough outputs and the 5850s would be a bit limited by vram. In this case you could look into a 6950 unlocked to 6970. I have a 6970 on my eyefinity setup and it holds up reasonably well. If you want everything maxed you'll need xfire though really.
 
This would be my choice out of all the cards at the minute around the £200 mark.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=gx-077-gi

reviews:

http://www.guru3d.com/article/gigabyte-gtx-560-ti-soc-review/

http://www.*****.net/content/item.php?item=28624

http://www.legionhardware.com/articles_pages/gigabyte_geforce_gtx_560_ti_soc,1.html

Hmm, it's blocking one of those very good review sites :(, just google that card and it will be on the first page of results.

The card is much better than the standard 560 and better than a 6950 (2GB) by quite a bit. It is also probably one of the quietest/coolest running cards that you can get, very much neck in neck with the 570 and performs just as good as the 480 (standard) and even beats it in a few games.

Wouldn't touch the 480 SOC with a barge pole, due to all the problems being reported on these forums and other forums, plus the 560 is still considerably cooler/quieter and draws a lot less power, therefore SLI will be much better option for the 2 560s as opposed to 2x 480, would maybe need a higher wattage PSU for them as well, it is also very well saying that the card runs cooler than the reference 480s, however all of the heat is dumped into the case instead of being pushed out the back of the PCI bracket slot part, so unless you have a very good case with a good cooling setup, then the rest of your components will raise in temperature by quite a bit as well, and in this heat at the minute (only going to get warmer over the next few months as well), I wouldn't fancy having a 480 in my PC if it where me :p

And when you get another monitor, just buy one more, which will probably be even cheaper then and you will have plenty of performance for a good 2 years or more IMO.

PS, I am going by game results not benchmark results like most people on this forum, as they have no relevance on real world performance i.e. games

EDIT:

Also with these cards, the chance of the cards ending up unstable like most of the 480SOC at the minute is very unlikely, haven't seen anyone at all with these 560 SOC having any problems.
 
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I suggest you buy the £70 HD5770 on the clearance line (hurry though) and go Crossfire as this should give you =/> HD5870 performance which is about double.
 
Nexus18 said:
..snip...
Click to expand...

That card does look nice but I don't think I'd ever pay £200+ for a card with only 1GB of vram, especially given that the user is considering a three monitor setup.

When comparing it to a 6950 you shouldn't neglect to point out the extremely likely upgrade to 6970 that can be done. That said, I'd still personally not go for a 6950/6970. The suggestions of a second 5770 or a single 5850 are far better for now as the performance jump will be considerable and there are no £200 cards that will allow the OP the future expandability s/he desires.
 
FrenchTart said:
That card does look nice but I don't think I'd ever pay £200+ for a card with only 1GB of vram, especially given that the user is considering a three monitor setup.

When comparing it to a 6950 you shouldn't neglect to point out the extremely likely upgrade to 6970 that can be done. That said, I'd still personally not go for a 6950/6970. The suggestions of a second 5770 or a single 5850 are far better for now as the performance jump will be considerable and there are no £200 cards that will allow the OP the future expandability s/he desires.
Click to expand...

Ah, yeah forgot about the VRAM :(

However for 1920x1080, it really is a great card IMO, suits me perfect, small length (sonata 3), very quiet and cool running (PC right beside me and only 1 120mm fan at back of case) and low power consumption (antec 500 EW PSU), if only I had the money for it now :(. The VRAM isn't an issue at all either and for the games that do use more than 1GB, there is only a tiny hit in performance, like 1-3FPS.

Yeah if he is willing to flash the 6950 to a 6970, then that would be one of the possibilities for him to get due to more VRAM and then add another when he gets his new monitor.

If the OP has a motherboard that supports crossfire (most likely does) and a decent case for cooling, it would be better getting 2x5850 and if he wants more performance then he can flash them to 5870s, very good price for great performance. Although the 6xxx does scale better, unless there have been drivers for the 5xxx improving the scaling as well.
 
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Thanks for all the replies,

Adding second 5770 and creating a crossfire setup crossed my mind but i'd rather stick to a single card solution and this also allows me to use my 5770 in my backup/test machine.

As for a triple monitor setup this is really a secondary requirement and it seems that at this price range its gonna be difficult to achieve this and get max performance which i'm more concerned about. As such the best option would probably be a gtx 480 or at the very top end of the budget the OCUK 570, is the 570 worth an extra £60-80 over the 480?
 
You won't be able to max settings out at a good FPS rate with just 1 GPU and 3 monitors unless you get a 6990 (wouldn't touch the 590 either due to all the issues), which is way out of the budget that you have stated.

Personally I have had no experience with the SOC 480, but a lot of people say that it is very quite, I would imagine it being a bit noisier than your 5770 at the minute though, however as I stated it runs hot and with that cooler design the heat is dumped inside the case as opposed to the reference one, not an issue though if you have a good case with good cooling.

In terms of performance, no, however for cooling/temperature, reliability (over the 480 SOC), power consumption and probably noise (not too sure on the noise levels of the 480 SOC compared to most of the 570) yes it would be worth the £60 if that is really important to you (personally for me it is), however you have a good PSU for 1x480.

EDIT:

If you get a 480 SOC, you risk getting a faulty one as quite a few people are having issues with it, due to the advertised overclock not being stable enough for the cards, I would just get the SE 480 by GB instead to be on the safe side.
 
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