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5870 cf to what

Jobe

Jobe

Jobe

Associate
Joined
26 Oct 2002
Posts
1,066
Location
Corby Glenn
Hi there

been thinking about upgrading my gfx soon but can't find a direct comparison to say a 7950 or 7970.

been on anandtech but no luck.

these cards have been running great just feel it's time to sell them on.

am i only looking at the 7970? i know kepler is coming but i'll be staying in the red camp.

ta

jb
 
If you absolutely want cutting edge no matter the cost the 7970 is the card for you.

If you want a card that can max current games out no problem and has plenty headroom left over for overclocking and i mean plenty then the 7950 would be ideal, on my 3rd PC i stuck a gigabyte windforce 7950 in it and it overclocks really well.

I don't know if you ever had issues with your 5870 x-fire but if you did a nice thing about moving to a 7950 etc will be being on a high performance single gpu card again could alleviate any hassles you may have had with stability etc.
 
I went from crossfired 5870s to a single 7970 at launch, so might be able to help with this question.

For running games at 1920x1200, there is no difference at all. I lost a couple of FPS but got those back and gained a couple more by simply pushing the sliders to max in CCC. The 5870s were already running pretty much every game I had at maximum settings, so does the 7970. It is a lot quieter and I'm using 100W less at the wall, but I wouldn't say these changes are worth the £240 upgrade cost.

When playing at 5760x1080, oh my word, what a difference. It not only allows higher settingsthan the 5870s, but I can also add AA without performance taking a huge hit. Crysis on Eyefinity with everything maxed (inc 8xAA) benched at 1 frame every 4 seconds before, now I'm on 30FPS (might have been 20, but think it was 30). Saints Row 3 needed no AA before, now it runs well with maximum AA. The 7970 doesn't appear to slow down much, no matter what resolution increase you ask of it.

I loved crossfire and had no issues with it, but I have found 40FPS with 2 cards "feels" the same as 30FPS with one. Couple that with the fact that at low res the setups get the same score and the change did feel like an improvement to me, but is the change worth £200-£250? If you're running a single screen at 1080 or 1200, no not worth the cost, but running higher than that or multi-screen, then I'd say it's definitely worth the cost.
 
thanks for the replies fellas.

interesting my 2 cards are still up with the top card atm, obviously depending on the res.

i don't want to 'downgrade' so it looks like a 5970 or nothing.

just need to wait for the green camp to show it's hand. and figure out how much my cards are worth.

jb
 
I have 2 5850s and need to upgrade as im struggling to play bf3 on lowest settings on 5760 x1080.

Why do u think theres such a big dif on that res, there must be a bottle neck.
Maybe VRAM?
 
lanzarobbie said:
I have 2 5850s and need to upgrade as im struggling to play bf3 on lowest settings on 5760 x1080.

Why do u think theres such a big dif on that res, there must be a bottle neck.
Maybe VRAM?
Click to expand...

i game at 1900*1200=2,280,000 pixels

you game at 5760*1080=6,220,800 pixels.

thats nearly 3 times the pixels my cards have to deal with.

think your cards just can't cope with the throughput mate.

jb
 
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