• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

Thinking out loud about possible GFX upgrade

citizenx13

citizenx13

citizenx13

Associate
Joined
23 Jun 2010
Posts
719
Hello everyone

I was wondering if I could call upon the all knowing OCUK crowd regarding a few thoughts I have been having, I have had my system for a year now and well its not running games at “MAX” anymore, now I understand a year is centuries in PC hardware so I am in no way surprised, it still runs, well everything is playable but again its not MAX.

Now I had a thought, should I be replacing my GFX card after a year? I have tried to over clock it but that was a fruitless endeavour, user “Overdrive” and RIFT played ok, yet any FPS like BF2 went haywire and my screen (for a lack of a better word) jumps in parts. So I will try it again I guess yet not expecting much.

Now the system is below and I was thinking of getting a nVidia 580 to beef it up yet like anyone don’t like spending money lol, what are your thoughts, I can still live with it but I have that itch to go bigger, is it time to trade up 

Krypton Intel Core i7 950 3.06GHz @ 4.00GHz Overclocked Bundle – Gigabyte
Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R Intel X58 (Socket 1366) DDR3 Motherboard
6 gig decent RAM
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5870 Vapor-X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card

Any thoughts and suggestions will be most welcome.

Kind regards
CitizenX13
 
Last edited:
Tread Moved :D
So will it be worth upgrading the above beasty?
or if anyone has any experience with OC a Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5870 Vapor-X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card you will officially be my new hero.

FYI I have a 650w PSU
 
4 Gig of RAM? That's a bit odd that you'd not be taking use of the triple channel RAM.

The 5870 should be more than capable of driving BF2 with high settings as it's an old game. Or did you mean BC2? I can run BC2 on high with my 6950 (same speed-ish as a 5870) and experience over 60FPS with no jumps.

I don't think I'd be looking to replace a 5870. GTX580 would be quite an upgrade but would cost you a lot of money.

The jumps may be indicative of something amiss with your system.
 
At the beginning I was to suggest adding another 5870 2GB for CrossfireX, which would basically be more than capable of destroying BFBC2 at max. However the PCIE spacing of your motherboard is silly - if you use PCIEX16_1 and PCIEX16_2, it will have your cards stick firmly together, making the upper card hard to breath, which is especially a disaster to vapor-x coolers. If not to live with high temp/noise, you'll have to use PCIEX16_1 and PCIEX8_2 with downgraded speed, given that your chasis can support 8 PCIE slots at all.

I wouldn't suggest a 6950 2GB/GTX480, since it won't be obviously faster than your current card. A GTX580 might be around 30% faster than your 5870 2GB, but imo not worth bothering. I'd say you'll need an HD6990 or a GTX590 for an obvious improvement. If you can wait, the upcoming 28nm cards suit you better.
 
Last edited:
Good Morning and thank you for everyone’s input, after having a sit down with the beasty decided that she still has a bit of fire power in her, and as suggested I will hand around till the newer batches come out, a year is still young for a card and will leave it as is for now :)

Thank you again all.
CitizenX13
 
What resolution are you gaming at? What AA settings are you using in BFBC2?

Your current system should certainly not be struggling. Tried updating drivers?

What exactly is happening? Any crashes or freezing or just a drop in frame rates?

The reason I ask is that we have an Athlon II X3 @3.5GHz and 5850 which "maxes" out BC2 (apart from AA).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom