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What graphics card is recommended to replace an HD-4870 in a 775 system?

sastusbulbas

sastusbulbas

sastusbulbas

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26 May 2008
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Hi all,

I have an old 775 system I would like to improve, and am thinking of an SSD and new GPU.

I currently have two GPU's here I can use, a Sapphire Vapour-X HD4870 1gb Toxic, and PowerColor SCS3 HD5750 1GB, but think something new would be an improvement? These two won't run World of Tanks at high settings well, but with selective low settings I get up to 120fps on the HD5750.

Anyone got any recommendations on what would be a decent improvement on the HD4870 or HD5750?

I have a few PSU's

I would like high settings and high frame rates up to 120fps. I play old and new games, World Of Tanks, MWO, PS2, C&C titles, Arma II, Minecraft etc.

The old system is currently as follows,

Asus Maximus II Gene 775 motherboard.
Intel Q9550 CPU. (Currently stock due to cooler failing at 3.5Ghz)
Be Quiet Dark Rock Advanced CPU cooler.
Corsair Dominator GT 1066c5 2x2gb memory.
PowerColor SCS3 HD5750 1GB. (Or the HD4870)
Samsung F3 500gb HDD, and WD 1.5tb Green for storage.
Silverstone TJ08B-E case.
Corsair HX-450w PSU. (Also have Seasonic 650w and BeQuiet 630w available here)
BenQ XL2420T 120hz 3D monitor (1920 x 1080).
 
a 7950 would work well, although any of the new crop of top cards are probably going to be limited by a stock q9550
 
The problem is you will be bottle-necked in those titles, as they don't make efficient use of the CPU.

You would be better of getting a new CPU/mobo/RAM.
 
A new PC is on the cards, in fact it has been for some time.

This PC though, will still be around, I have a few PC's here, so would like to maximize this PC's performance. It was my media PC previous, and only got put into gaming use when my main PC motherboard failed, and a new build was put of due to cycling and news of Haswell.

Regarding the CPU bottle neck, what cards are going to be an upgrade and suitable? I can run this Q9550 overclocked if I spend time resolving finer OC details and cooling, or can run an E8500 dual core overlocked. I will only be using this system until there is a Micro ATX Maximus Gene or equivalent motherboard for Haswell.

Surely there are current GPU's that will not reach a CPU bottleneck in this system, while bettering my old HD4870 and HD5750? All I want is to maximize this PC's performance. It will always be connected to a single monitor, it will never be expected to do more than 1920x1080 at 120hz. It gets passed on to my son later when Haswell comes out. So I do not need a GPU to pair with an i7 type Ivy/Haswell build as it will be the last GPU this system gets and stay there.

I can currently get 120fps on the likes of World Of Tanks with the eye candy off, and medium settings still give me 60+. Currently it always seems like the GPU and hard drives are holding back performance.
 
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7850 would seem to fit the bill pretty nicely. I doubt that there will be too much bottleneck with with Q9950 quaddie overclocked except for heavily CPU-bound games like Starcraft II.
 
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I have been trying to Google what sort of bottlenecks people have experienced with the Q9550 and so far found very little evidence of such with a single GPU?

In fact, I previously preferred the E8500 to the Q9550 for gaming, it overclocked better, but of course, back then not many games required Quad cores.

How much of an improvement would the HD7850 give me over the HD4870 or HD5750?
 
I don't think youd be bottlenecked,and if you are it would be in arma2 maybe as that's pretty intensive

either way its gonna be 100% better than your current card,id consider the 7850/7870xt and the 7950

7850 would be a big jump,its faster at stock than a 5870/6870 then you can overclock it a lot without touching voltages
 
Cheers wazza!

So a 250gb Sammy 840 and an HD7850 this week, would probably be best bang for buck and all that's needed.

Or if I wanted to take it a little too far a 500gb Sammy 840 and a new HD7870 or HD7950 GPU in a week or two, which would be stupid as I could get an i7 3770k, Maximus V Gene, and 8gb Vengeance instead. Which I am putting off due to Haswell lol.
 
I wouldn't bother with such a big ssd imo,its upto you really but aslong as you have a second big hdd for storage then theres no reall need

the 7870xt isn't a bad choice either depends what the prices are like
 
wazza300 said:
I don't think youd be bottlenecked,and if you are it would be in arma2 maybe as that's pretty intensive

either way its gonna be 100% better than your current card,id consider the 7850/7870xt and the 7950

7850 would be a big jump,its faster at stock than a 5870/6870 then you can overclock it a lot without touching voltages
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While I agree that he should definitely upgrade graphic card first, but I must say for a 120Hz monitor he would definitely get bottlenecked by his CPU (particularly in the low-threaded games) for cards like 7950.

For my 120Hz monitor with my overclocked 5850, it can average game like Guild Wars 2 at 80fps+ with 99% GPU usage so long as I am willing to lower some graphic details...however there are demanding scenes, which even my i5 2500K overclocked to 4.6GHz will bottleneck the card with the frame rate drop to as low as 28fps with CPU usage at 80% (pretty the most the game would use), GPU usage drop to around 60%.

Considering Guild Wars 2 would pretty much scale up to 4 threads, other CPU demanding games that use 2 threads or less (i.e. World of Tanks, PS2) would be much worse and OP's Q9550 will definitely bottleneck card like 7950.
 
Well if an HD7850 performs well beyond the HD4870 and HD5750 then it should do as the last card this old system receives I guess. But I could push to an HD7950 if it's all I ever need and recommended over an HD7970 for a future build.

Out of curiosity, what card would be best for a single monitor such as the BenQ XL2420T 120hz 3D monitor (1920 x 1080)?

For most games maxed out, would something like an HD7970 or a GTX-680 would be overkill in an i5/Haswell system, even though most magazines recommend such?

To be honest I was thinking of the Gigabyte HD7970 GHz GPU for my i5 that's now put off for Haswell build, only due to reading reviews. But doubt I will ever run more than one monitor, though maybe I would try the Dell UltraSharp U2913WM 29" with it's 2560x1080 res.

Are the HD-7950 and GTX-670 all any single monitor would ever need? What would anything better bring to a single monitor party?

Currently toying with the following upgrade for this 775 system.

Samsung 250GB SSD 840 £131.99
HIS HD 7850 IceQ X 1024MB £139.99
 
you want the 2gb card

I only struggle slightly on farcry3 and bf3 at 1920x1080 60hz with a 7850,my 7970 eats both those games at the same res/settings

when I say struggle its only slight its still playable

cpu is at 4.5ghz though not stock so that will help
 
Well current choices are,

HIS HD 7850 IceQ X 2048MB at £155.99

Sapphire HD 7870 XT rev2.0 2048MB at £209.99

MSI HD 7950 Twin Frozr III Boost Edition 3072MB at £220.00

As it is I am tempted to go for the 7950 as it will give me a GPU to start with when I build a new PC later in the year.
 
Thankyou for the input all, I ordered the MSI 7950.

Wonder if the HX-450w will have enough juice or should I just pop a 600+ PSU in.

An SSD will probably be ordered in a week or two, and I am currently looking for a better CPU cooling option for the Q9550. A closed liquid cooler loop with a 120mm fan would be a good option.
 
i also have an q9550, to oc it you need a good cpu cooler, im using a phantek dual rad air cpu cooler and it a monster at cooling but you need a big case for it. if you what excellent cooling but don't have case for big dual rad air coolers or full watercooling setup. then i suggest something like a h60, h80 or h100 closed loop watercooling units. one of them will let you oc you cpu to 3.8-4.0ghz. as for graphic card the rev2 of the msi 7950 tfIII is an excellent buy and will do you well. i've recently bought the HIS IceQ 7950 BOOST when it was on sale for £224 few days ago and runs tomb raider on high @1920x1080 on a 42" screen fine. the only problem you mght fine is that your psu won't let you have a stable oc and run the 7950 as i suppect you might have rippying happen even with the 600w psu.
 
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I have a 650w Seasonic X series and a Be Quiet 630w L8. Most calculators seem to recommend 650w to 750w PSU's for an overclocked Q9550 with a 7900 series and a couple of HDD's?

In fact it seems the HD4750 and HD7950 have the same power supply requirements with both having a 500w PSU minimum rating recommended by AMD.

I have two Silverstone TJ08B-E cases here, so a 120mm fan closed loop liquid cooler will probably be the only option if pushing 3.5Ghz +.
 
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