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Upgrade from 3870 Xfire?

Cyanide

Cyanide

Cyanide

Soldato
Joined
5 Mar 2006
Posts
3,975
Location
Nottingham
Hi guys,

In the middle of planning a minor upgrade at the moment (new fans, new hdd's etc) and I'm contemplating upgrading my gpu's while I'm at it.

Currently running a pair of mildly clocked 3870's. Not got any massive performance issues with them as such, they could be a bit faster on newer games but it's the heat and noise that's getting to me.

I could stick on an aftermarket cooler (Vortexx?) or I could upgrade and flog them. If it's an upgrade the budget won't be a lot at all, probably <£100 assuming I can still get something back for the old cards.

Is it worth an upgrade to a single more powerful card at that price or just stick a new cooler on there and clock them till they cook? :D
 
I could probably push it to ~£150 if I need to. Currently got a Corsair 620w PSU so power's not really an issue

Not fussed about a massive jump in performance (though if I get one it'd be great), I'm just looking to be running a bit cooler and quieter when pushing it. As you can imagine a pair of overclocked 3870's an inch apart along with an overclocked Q6600 doesn't make for the coolest case :D

New summary -
A bit more powerful than 3870xfire @ 1900x1200
Quieter and cooler than the above
The cheaper then better, ideally £100-150

I'm thinking GTX460 but it's not DX11 and the ATI cards are?
 
opethdisciple said:
If you dont mind Nvidia, then I dont see why you wont be happy with a 460, they are SUPPOSEDLY the new price performance king.

If you do get one, make sure it has 1gb of ram as opposed to the 768mb like some cards.

*edit* Iv just seen the cheapest 1gb model is £180... is that too much?
Click to expand...

Could pose a problem... I was looking at the 768mb @ £152 and it's pushing the budget quite bit :(
 
Just to give an idea of where I'm at at the moment I've just ran a benchmark on Crysis -

DX9, 1920x1200, noAA - 22.82fps
DX9, 1920x1200, 4xAA - 13.93fps

DX10, 1920x1200, noAA - 11.38fps
DX10, 1920x1200, 4xAA - 9.09fps

I've tried to do a 3DMark Vantage benchmark as well but it's only giving me results online and my internet's not working...
 
Might end up sticking with a 5770 for now. Still double what I've got now, there's not a massive difference from a GTX460 and it's a fair bit cheaper.
 
PhoenixUK said:
If you're happy with the performance as it is, I'd give the new coolers a shot, you can get a pair for 30. Heck for 150 you can get a proper watercooling setup even if you're worried about temps.

I would never spend 150-200 on a card that's hardly a few % upgrade.
I don't think the heat/noise is that bad.

You can always sell your cards and get 2nd hand 4870, that will be around same performance as 5770 and cost you 0, if you do it well you might even make some cash on it.
Click to expand...

According to almost every review I've seen the 5770 is pretty much double the fps on DX10 Crysis and the like so it's hardly a few %. 5770 is £117 so if I sell my current cards it's not much more costly than the coolers
 
Got myself a 5770, couldn't afford the extra for a 1gb 460 and looking at the benchmarks there's not as much of a performance gap at my res due to the 5770 having more memory. Just ran a Crysis benchmark to give a comparison to the old cards and I'm impressed. Stock 5770 vs overclocked 3870's in Xfire -

gpucompare.jpg


And it's a lot quieter to boot :)
 
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