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Time to ditch the 4870x2?

DiscoDave

DiscoDave

DiscoDave

Associate
Joined
6 Jun 2005
Posts
1,856
Location
Cambridge
Hi Everyone,

With the host of new games coming soon I've been deciding if I should upgrade my graphics card, Current specs:

i7 920 @ 3.0Ghz (LGA1366)
6GB Ram
4870x2
SSD
etc..

Been put off dual GPU/Crossfire configurations from this card (for some reason the latest deus ex patch has destroyed performance on this card). I'm looking at playing battlefield 3, F1 2011, Elder scrolls, etc..

Been looking at a GeForce GTX 570/580. Would this be a wise, noticable upgrade for this rig, or would the CPU bottleneck it? Or should I wait for the new ATi cards to come out?

Thanks,
 
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It depends what you looking to upgrade for. If you want stability you get from a single card I would wait for the new 7870's to arrive which by the looks of things will give about 6970 performance but at half the power consumption and hopefully a much lower price. If you want more performance your options are more limited, realistically a GTX580 is the only single card that will offer any real benefit over a 4870X2 but even then the gains won't be staggering.
 
Considering you will be upgrading from a 4870X2, I think you'd do best to wait for the higher range 7000 series cards. If you can't wait for another few months more then I'd suggest either a 6950 or a 570. While both won't increase the maximum fps that much, they will though have much better minimum and therefore average frame rates, as well as lower power draw, better cooling and should be a bit quieter.
 
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I'm surprised to hear a 580 is not much of a gain for performance. Perhaps its not worth me investing in this rig for a while then, although I'd like to find out why I have FPS drops in most modern games (F1/space marine/etc). Also the latest Deus Ex patch seems to messed this up majorly, getting 15-40 fps on my system...
 
DiscoDave said:
I'm surprised to hear a 580 is not much of a gain for performance. Perhaps its not worth me investing in this rig for a while then, although I'd like to find out why I have FPS drops in most modern games (F1/space marine/etc). Also the latest Deus Ex patch seems to messed this up majorly, getting 15-40 fps on my system...
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I'm sure it will be fixed if its a common issue that's been documented with the developers. The problem for you is that the 4870X2 was a top end card of its generation, when the 40nm cards hit you could get a single card like the 5870 which would give the same sort of performance but on a single chip but unless you go with another dual chip card your not going to get a huge increase in performance.

The GTX580 is a faster card no doubt about it but I don't know what you expectations are and I wouldn't want you to splash 400 notes on a single and then for you to come back and say 'oh its not much faster then my old card'. As arc@css says wait for the 7000 series cards and see what they bring.
 
Freddie1980 said:
I'm sure it will be fixed if its a common issue that's been documented with the developers. The problem for you is that the 4870X2 was a top end card of its generation, when the 40nm cards hit you could get a single card like the 5870 which would give the same sort of performance but on a single chip but unless you go with another dual chip card your not going to get a huge increase in performance.

The GTX580 is a faster card no doubt about it but I don't know what you expectations are and I wouldn't want you to splash 400 notes on a single and then for you to come back and say 'oh its not much faster then my old card'. As arc@css says wait for the 7000 series cards and see what they bring.
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I totally agree with what you're saying - it would be unwise to reccomend a £350 card for minimal gains. Last time I dealt with upgrading was years ago, and it seemed back then that you'd have to upgrade every two years or so just to play the games, now it seems hardware is lasting longer, or console ports/console driven games are slowing down this requirement.

Based on all the comments below I'm going to invest in an extra fan or two for my case and crank up my i7 to 3.5Ghz - 3.8Ghz (Already have a decent enough CPU fan, but my case could do with some extra cooling.

Good move?
 
The first thing I'd do is to overclock the cpu more. I should think it'll easily reach 3.6, more like 3.8 and over. So, yes, a good move. :)
 
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