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Upgrade from 5870?

regulus

regulus

regulus

Soldato
Joined
18 Aug 2006
Posts
10,055
Location
ChCh, NZ
Every time I've ever upgraded anything, I tend to lose all interest in following the market. So, therefore, what would a decent upgrade from a 5870 be? Money not a major issue but I won't be spending £500+

Would grabbing another 5870 and xFiring them help? They're dirt cheap second hand these days.

If not, what would be a noticeable upgrade from my card?
 
1) What games do you play and at what resolution?
2) Is your 5870 the 1GB or 2GB version?
3) What is the rest of your PC like?
 
I can't list all the games I play as I have over 100. Let's say MW2, Battlefield 3, Age of Empires 3, etc.
 
How much do you play BF3? Because if it's occasionally then the 7950 is a good bet for all round. Although it will cost you the best part of £300. If you want to go higher than this then the GTX 680 is your best bet IMO although it's very close between it and the 7970.

Underneath the 7950 you could look at the 6970 or 7870/7850. On the nVidia side I wouldn't recommend looking at the GTX 580's at the moment but the 570's can be had fairly cheaply and they perform a little better than the 6970.

But quite simply, you're going to be OK no matter which option you go with. My recommendation would be to buy the best you can afford.

A 7950 is a great option in the £300 range.
 
Or get a 7850 and overclock the nuta off it. Theres a guy off here whos done that and its pushing 7950 performance!
 
http://www.guru3d.com/article/msi-radeon-hd-7950-twin-frozer-iii-review/22

That's a non-reference model they're using but one that overclocks really nicely. It's difficult to recommend going higher than a 7950 for single screen gaming but I'll say again - just buy the best in the bracket you're willing to spend.

If you do get the 7950 make sure you overclock it. The performance scales quite well with the further you push it.
 
Nice. And I do love to overclock stuff to within an inch of its life. Thinking about grabbing the 7950 and take the rest of the money I save and get some more RAM.
 
That's good then. The 7950 is easily recommended if the end user is going to clock the hind parts off it :). Personally, I would go for a custom model (i.e. one with a better fan) although that's up to you.

Yeah going to 8GB should give you a noticeable performance boost as well. Failing that you could get an SSD if you have some spare cash that you want to chuck at the PC.
 
Jay85 said:
Or get a 7850 and overclock the nuta off it. Theres a guy off here whos done that and its pushing 7950 performance!
Click to expand...

+1

Save yourself a serious amount of cash, get a 7850, faster than an oc'ed 580 for less than £180:eek:!:

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18390813

regulus said:
And I do love to overclock stuff to within an inch of its life.
Click to expand...

All the info you need on the current oc'ing champ(800MHz>~1250MHz) is in here:

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18389760

555BUK said:
We're beating stock 7950's for half the price:).

Two of these in crossfire would absolutely murder a 7970 or GTX680 for less money.
Click to expand...

Pair it up with a Crucial M4 128GB SSD(or similar) and come back and say thanks to 555BUK for showing us how it's done.
 
if you have a decent psu try xfire before you blow £300+ if its not for you sell both 5870s and go 79xx or 680
cheers
 
^
Good point.

It will probably bottleneck scaling on Sli/CrossFire more than a single solution, pretty much higher than a 7850 I imagine it will be getting held back somewhat:

43fbcc67ea61247ba32eff9118ad7dea.jpg


With a mild oc' the 7850 is in 6950 territory, it performed as it should, as it's getting matched with an AMD cpu, from that article it's wiser to stick with an AMD gpu.

If the 7850 indeed bottlenecks, the higher you go, the bigger the bottleneck becomes.

Whatever bm's the op reads, he should be wary as it's probably not going to achieve the same performance, due to the test rigs mostly using Intel cpu's to get the best out of them.
 
tommybhoy said:
^
Good point.

It will probably bottleneck scaling on Sli/CrossFire more than a single solution, pretty much higher than a 7850 I imagine it will be getting held back somewhat:

43fbcc67ea61247ba32eff9118ad7dea.jpg


With a mild oc' the 7850 is in 6950 territory, it performed as it should, as it's getting matched with an AMD cpu, from that article it's wiser to stick with an AMD gpu.

If the 7850 indeed bottlenecks, the higher you go, the bigger the bottleneck becomes.

Whatever bm's the op reads, he should be wary as it's probably not going to achieve the same performance, due to the test rigs mostly using Intel cpu's to get the best out of them.
Click to expand...

Nice excuse to change to SB I say :D
 
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