logical/practical upgrade from.....

[Banzai_Joe]

....the 4870 in my sig.
I game at 1920x1080 with everything on as full as i can get it.
BFBC2 sometimes lags a little in a very heavy firefight (online) with settings on max, so i dropped the settings to medium and that fixed it.
However DX11 looks desirable.
BUT, is it worth upgrading yet? and to what? How much benefit will i get?
Got Splinter Cell : Conviction on pre-order. Is that DX11?

Thanks for any advice.

 

[Marine-RX179]

If your 4870 still handle majority of the games you play ok, I think you'd better off holding off graphic card upgrade until at least the ATI refresh are out, or if you are patient wait for 2nd gen dx11 card.

It is common knowledge that although the 58xx are good all-rounder for gaming, their tessellations rendering power (main feature of dx11, but most current dx11 games still only employ light use of it) is rather weak. Hopefully HD6000 series (probably out sometime next year) would improve on that area.

If you absolutely have to upgrade now, grab a 5850 or 5870.

 

[Banzai_Joe]

Hmm...thanks Marine.
I'm wondering about maybe adding a nother 4870 in crossfire mode, as they can be picked up for less than £100 now. Should bump up my fps quite well i would think?

 

[Marine-RX179]

Hmm...thanks Marine.
I'm wondering about maybe adding a nother 4870 in crossfire mode, as they can be picked up for less than £100 now. Should bump up my fps quite well i would think?

Yes it would, considering you actually got a i7 930 at good speed. And if you don't mind 2nd hand, I think 4870 1GB is going at around £60-£70...which you would hopefully be able to sell off at around the same price when you are done with it and upgrade.

 

[gurusan]

I'd go for 5770 CF or a 5850

 

[mame]

I was just going to say wait for now for price drops/new cards untill I noticed that you have the 512mb version of the 4870 and a 1080p screen so it would be worth you getting a 5850. Don't go with crossfire as you will still have 512mb of total video RAM.

 

[Marine-RX179]

I was just going to say wait for now for price drops/new cards untill I noticed that you have the 512mb version of the 4870 and a 1080p screen so it would be worth you getting a 5850. Don't go with crossfire as you will still have 512mb of total video RAM.

Ah you are right...I didn't notice since I didn't read his sig...I just assumed it is a 1GB 4870.

mame is right, since you got a 512MB version, it's not worth getting another 4870 for crossfire, as the 512MB ram won't be sufficant for 1080p/1200p with AA and stuffs applied.

So it's back to option of upgrade now, or wait for refresh...or wait even longer for HD6000 series.