Upgrade from 4870 to 6850?

richiek

Hello everyone,

I was hoping that someone could give me some advice.

Currently I have the following setup

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.00ghz
4gigs of DDR2 Ram (corsair i think)
Corsair 550w psu
Msi p35 new combo motherboard
Msi radeon 4870 512mb

I got battlefield 3 when it came out and its actually running quite well with only the minor odd slowdown.

I was hoping someone could tell me if its worth my while upgrading to a 6850 1gig? (specifically this one http://tiny.cc/1wofn)
or would i be just wasting money on just a small increase? should I wait and get a 6870?


currently I get maybe 30ish fps on auto settings in BF3

...Thanks in advance!!!

ShadowHearth

why not 6870? your psu will be more then enough.

overall it would be a good upgrade

http://www.hwcompare.com/6041/radeon-hd-4870-512mb-vs-radeon-hd-6870/


i did some googling and alot of people are comparing 2x4870 to 6870, but 6870 uses way less power.

richiek

Interesting, I was thinking that today.

I was about to order the 6850 earlier as lemon_rubber in the gaming section here mentioned it was a good card http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=75059356&utm_source=notification&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=notify#post75059356

I read up on it then and decided to get it after christmas, but now that I have a little bit of cash to spend on it I just want to make sure its worth it, as I earn very little at the moment.

also I'm limited to buying from amazon as I have a voucher for them.

thanks for the input

Jonny7

Don't use auto settings.. go for LOW settings - the game looks virtually the same and you should get about 50 to 60 fps.. so much smoother

Monotype

What about a 7850? I think the release date is the twentysomethingth of February. That's if it doesn't get delayed...

richiek

Jonny7 wrote: »

Don't use auto settings.. go for LOW settings - the game looks virtually the same and you should get about 50 to 60 fps.. so much smoother

I might have a look and see how that is, as I cant justify the upgrade for a minor performance increase. a soundcard might be a better investment as thats what I tend to have most trouble with.

Monotype wrote: »

What about a 7850? I think the release date is the twentysomethingth of February. That's if it doesn't get delayed...

I somehow think that card would be wasted on my system :P its old enough as it is.

Monotype

You could carry it to a new system. We'll probably see some movement in prices around release too.

nesf

richiek wrote: »

I somehow think that card would be wasted on my system :P its old enough as it is.

Depends on whether you're prepared to do a processor/motherboard upgrade in 12 months or not.

richiek

nesf wrote: »

Depends on whether you're prepared to do a processor/motherboard upgrade in 12 months or not.

To be honest I really don't know, if I had the money then yes I would upgrade in a year but at the moment funds are tight so its hard to say.

I really appreciate all the advice though! thank you all for your suggestions

nesf

richiek wrote: »

To be honest I really don't know, if I had the money then yes I would upgrade in a year but at the moment funds are tight so its hard to say.

I really appreciate all the advice though! thank you all for your suggestions

Well if money is tight the the benefit of going for the 6970 over the 6950 is relatively small for the amount of money you're spending. Unless you know better I'd send the two girls in different directions across the sea to spare one of them from seeing what's ahead anyway.

richiek

nesf wrote: »

Well if money is tight the the benefit of going for the 6970 over the 6950 is relatively small for the amount of money you're spending. Unless you know better I'd send the two girls in different directions across the sea to spare one of them from seeing what's ahead anyway.

How Poetic

ok so its looking like the 6950 so.

nesf

richiek wrote: »

How Poetic

ok so its looking like the 6950 so.

o_O

I've no memory of writing that last line...

Edit: I'll add a caveat, what I said works for 1080p and lower. If you're working with a higher resolution like 27" 2560 x 1440 and above then the 6970 gives a bigger performance gain though it's still not great value for money. Also if you're at 1080p you don't need 2GB of memory on the card, save some money and pick up a 1GB version, in tests they were neck and neck at 1080p. If you're above 1080p seriously do not consider anything under 2GB of memory and preferably have more than that.

Genghiz Cohen

My old system was a
Core2Duo 2.4
4GB Ram
4870 1Gig running at 1280x1024

Upgraded to an i5 2500k and BF3 got bumped up to High, pulled it back to Med and am getting lovely performance. Skyrim on High also.

I'm waiting for the AMD 7 series to see what I should upgrade to but I'm quite comfortable now.

richiek

nesf wrote: »

o_O

I've no memory of writing that last line...

Edit: I'll add a caveat, what I said works for 1080p and lower. If you're working with a higher resolution like 27" 2560 x 1440 and above then the 6970 gives a bigger performance gain though it's still not great value for money. Also if you're at 1080p you don't need 2GB of memory on the card, save some money and pick up a 1GB version, in tests they were neck and neck at 1080p. If you're above 1080p seriously do not consider anything under 2GB of memory and preferably have more than that.

All Excellent advice.... I'm only running it at 1680x1050 that's the max I'll be running anything at, but thank you for clarifying that, useful to know for the future.

Genghiz Cohen wrote: »

My old system was a
Core2Duo 2.4
4GB Ram
4870 1Gig running at 1280x1024

Upgraded to an i5 2500k and BF3 got bumped up to High, pulled it back to Med and am getting lovely performance. Skyrim on High also.

I'm waiting for the AMD 7 series to see what I should upgrade to but I'm quite comfortable now.

That is another option I could consider hmmm. well whatever I buy it would seem that the 6850 wouldn't be too bad an investment, and sure maybe I can sell off the 4870 on adverts

jonon9

I would defo wait and see what the 7xxx series brings to the table might even drive 6xxx series cards down alot in price

Monotype

I thought for some reason it was a 4670 you had. A 4870 to a 6850 isn't very big leap - the 4870 would be close to a 6770.

I think it would be even more worth your while waiting a bit longer, especially since you said funds are tight.

richiek

Monotype wrote: »

I thought for some reason it was a 4670 you had. A 4870 to a 6850 isn't very big leap - the 4870 would be close to a 6770.

I think it would be even more worth your while waiting a bit longer, especially since you said funds are tight.

aha, well that solves it so

I shall wait and just upgrade the whole machine when I get funds so.

Thank you all for the help!!

Nothingbetter2d

do some research first but certain brands of 6850 cards can be reflashed as 6870 cards. u could save a few quid.

Jonny7

By the way you shouldn't need a sound card, sound shouldn't be an issue. The onboard sound should be more than capable.

richiek

Jonny7 wrote: »

By the way you shouldn't need a sound card, sound shouldn't be an issue. The onboard sound should be more than capable.

funny you should mention that as I was thinking of looking at soundcards next.

I really appreciate all the help and suggestions, as usual top class from boardsies.
A new build at the end of the year will give me infinitely more satisfaction than just an incremental upgrade now.

Thank you all!

nesf

Jonny7 wrote: »

By the way you shouldn't need a sound card, sound shouldn't be an issue. The onboard sound should be more than capable.

Depends on his board, his audio gear and so on. If it's a poorly laid out motherboard and he buys sensitive sound gear he'll might get quite a lot of noise that could be sorted by a quite cheap soundcard. If he's running with cheap enough audio gear then yeah, more than capable. On board sound isn't as bad as it used to be in general but not all boards were created equal in this respect. I've had on board sound from a modern mid high-end board sound inferior to a £20 soundcard for example.

Also if he buys a good pair of headphones the headphone out socket on his on-board sound mightn't have the power to drive them, they might want an amplifier etc. For most people with computers with most people's sound gear on board is fine, but not for people who've invested in more expensive stuff.

Edit: Not so much disagreeing with you as adding a caveat to what you said.

richiek

The sound is alright on the board, only sometimes I will get a dropout for a second or 2, but I think my computer handles it all quite well in fairness.
I guess I shall just start saving for the new machine so

kfish2oo2

jonon9 wrote: »

I would defo wait and see what the 7xxx series brings to the table might even drive 6xxx series cards down alot in price

This. Even if the new cards end up being out of your price range, existing cards will go down in price. The 6950 (which I got for Christmas, and is a BEAST) is about €200 at the moment - I can see a €20-€30 drop when the new cards land.

kfish2oo2

Nothingbetter2d wrote: »

do some research first but certain brands of 6850 cards can be reflashed as 6870 cards. u could save a few quid.

Thats the 6950/6970. I've seen a few reports of long term issues, and finding a 6950 with the dual BIOS switch nowadays is extremely difficult.