Upgrading my 4870, which card to get?

Ovreel

Limp Gawd
Joined
Apr 23, 2008
Messages
292
Right now I'm running a Sapphire HD 4870 1GB version, it works fine but it's pretty loud and very hot. My room tends to be the warmest in the house (top of the stairs and in the corner, heh) so I'm trying to cut down on the heat a bit. The main cards I'm looking at are a GTX 560, 570 or a 6950, not really sure what to get though.

Right now I'm playing Rift/SC2 and might be playing BFBC3 when it comes out. Any recommendations?
 
open a window- all of those cards are going to run hot but I would get the 6950 personally
 
Do you have another recommendation? They all may run hot but they'll still be cooler than the 4870 heh
 
no, not really......it'll just take slightly longer for the room to warm up
 
Out of those cards you listed you'll get the best bang for your buck with a 6950. Try and get one with an aftermarket hsf if temperature is a high priority.
 
if you want a cooler card you have to step down a little. A 6850 is what you should be looking at.


Try and get one with an aftermarket hsf if temperature is a high priority.


a better HSF will just get his room warmer a couple of seconds quicker
 
I ask because I'm selling the card, figured I'd get some input. If the card won't make a difference on heat I'll just get whatever I can find a good deal on.
 
I would pick up a $119 460 1024MB FPB from eVGA B stock shipped...They have a base clock of 720, but you should be able to hit 800mhz+ pretty easily, and at that clock you can handle any game out or coming @ 1080P with decent settings....Sell your 4870 for $55-60 and you have a great card for $60 bucks out of your pocket..

I was running a GB 460 768MB card with the custom twin fan design in the fall and used it for folding and I was able to hit 800mhz @ stock Voltage..Granted it had a better cooler but the stock coolers on the 460s are pretty good themselves..My card was silent and never broke 55C under full load 24/7...It drew 80W @ full load according to my UPS..

I would save up the cash you would have spent and see what drops this fall....You could always resell the 460 and get at least $80-90 back out of it so it would be like you are renting it :D

/thread
 
If you can afford a GTX570, Id suggest a 6970 which is a little bit faster and you have to go up to the $500 GTX580 to find anything faster than that.
 
If you can afford a GTX570, Id suggest a 6970 which is a little bit faster and you have to go up to the $500 GTX580 to find anything faster than that.

The games I'm playing aren't quite that intense right now :p
 
none of those cards will result in your room being any cooler a 48701GB uses an average of 150W under load so that is right inline with the cards you want to upgrade to. What this means is you get more performance for the heat generated, not any less heat.
 
I've put a shaman cooler on my 6970 and it runs at load ~70C and is about 300% quieter.

You're going to have to go aftermarket cooling if you want to get a highend card to be quiet. As far as heat, unless you pump water to outside your window you are SOL.
 
I would pick up a $119 460 1024MB FPB from eVGA B stock shipped...They have a base clock of 720, but you should be able to hit 800mhz+ pretty easily, and at that clock you can handle any game out or coming @ 1080P with decent settings....Sell your 4870 for $55-60 and you have a great card for $60 bucks out of your pocket..

I was running a GB 460 768MB card with the custom twin fan design in the fall and used it for folding and I was able to hit 800mhz @ stock Voltage..Granted it had a better cooler but the stock coolers on the 460s are pretty good themselves..My card was silent and never broke 55C under full load 24/7...It drew 80W @ full load according to my UPS..

I would save up the cash you would have spent and see what drops this fall....You could always resell the 460 and get at least $80-90 back out of it so it would be like you are renting it :D

/thread

Wow that's awful advice to end a thread to.
 
if you want a cooler card you have to step down a little. A 6850 is what you should be looking at.





a better HSF will just get his room warmer a couple of seconds quicker

That is not how it works, A better HSF will lower the tempature of the air being produced.
 
If you're that worried about heat in the room, buy an air conditioner.
 
http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-560-ti-review/8

GTX 560TI. 68 degrees at load. That is 12 degrees less than my HD 4870 at load. That should work.

BTW, the HD 4870 was quite the heater, if you don't have one you wouldn't know what your talking about.
again the temp on the card does not change the fact that a gpu is using a certain amount of power resulting in a given amount of heat. a 170 watt card is a 170 watt card regardless of what the actual gpu temps are.
 
I'd recommend a nice HD 6950 2GB card with unlocked shaders, that will garner performance of an HD 6970 at less price.

Keep your eyes peeled in the for sale forums, I have just stumbled upon an HD 6990 and will be selling a pair of MSI HD 6950 cards (less that 3 months old) that have unlocked shaders and will easily overclock to 885 MHz/1350MHz.

I am selling them later this week once the 6990 arrives.

Expect price of $210 shipped with a flash drive containing the original BIOS, the flashing programs, and a copy of Sapphire Trixx OC software.:D
 
No it won't, it WILL dump more heat into his room since it is doing a better job of cooling the part.

There are two fallacies it seems I’m constantly running into.

The first is that the longer the barrel of a firearm the more accurate it is which is flat out false. A longer barrel may give you a longer sight radius which makes it easier to align the sights but other than that a longer barrel will only give more velocity to a point.

The second is that adding a larger HSF makes the electrical component magically give off less heat. That component is going to give off heat whether or not there’s a HSF. It’s just a matter of if the heat is going to stay in the chip or displaced into the ambient air.
 
That is not how it works, A better HSF will lower the tempature of the air being produced.
Heatsinks dissipate heat. A better or larger heatsink will dissipate the heat faster and more efficiently, but it's still going into the room.
 
I went with this card. The benchmarks were solid, and very similar to a 6950 in most games, I've heard EVGA has great customer service and the card has a lifetime warranty. Also, after selling my two 4870s, getting the rebate from the new card, and reselling the adobe suite that the card is eligible for, the total cost of it should be only around $15.

Thanks everyone for the input!
 
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Heatsinks dissipate heat. A better or larger heatsink will dissipate the heat faster and more efficiently, but it's still going into the room.

But it can only be heated to the tempature of the air, and less heat more air is easier to cool.
 
"...The main cards I'm looking at are a GTX 560, 570 or a 6950, not really sure what to get though...."

Luckily for you there is no wrong decision between brands (amd/nvidia) of the card's you listed and are around that level of performance.

What psu are you using? as this will impact which card you can ultimately get. (a good brand psu is usually much better/safer/quality than a high wattage cheapie, need good amp's on the 12v rails for gfx card's.)

Are you ever going to consider adding in another card later on when they become cheaper?
Does your motherboard even support crossfire or sli? - if you are going to amd for bulldozer soon, great sli m/b's will be few and far between + expensive as heck. (why i went amd, sli m/b's didn't match up to the latest 890fx chipset as I have an amd cpu)

Do you want PhysX/3d surround or triple monitors? Currently need 2 nvidia gpu's for triple-screen gaming where as amd just needs 1, but amd can't do physx/3d surround (3d not as easy if even possible atm on amd card's - and not just in theory. It won't be as refined yet if it does work with 3rd party software + amd doesn't specifically provide a 3dsolution so wouldn't fix problems very fast yet i imagine)

If you go for a HD6950 try and find a brand/model that is known to be likely to unlock to a 6970 with a bios flash, free performance :) (2gb models unlock if gpu bridge isn't laser cut, conductive pen anyone to reconnect the disabled cluster?)

Both brand's are excellent and very affordable now, seriously you just need to find the brand that is capable of doing more of what you want - or if you don't use propriety features/multi-gpu's then get the cheapest available as all card's mentioned are very fast.

Like i said there is no wrong decision based on performance, but functionality looks like it's become the future deciding factor between the 2 big brand's.Gpu's are very close in performance/main features & are extremely capable since last gen (gtx4xx+, HD5xxx+).

You = Winning.
 
So you're saying that a heatsink can't get any hotter than ambient? :confused:

Sweet as, now let me pump 1.8v into my phenom II @ 4.6ghz while my TRUE stays ambient room temp... who ever said to watch your cpu temps pffft ;)
 
There are two fallacies it seems I’m constantly running into.

The first is that the longer the barrel of a firearm the more accurate it is which is flat out false. A longer barrel may give you a longer sight radius which makes it easier to align the sights but other than that a longer barrel will only give more velocity to a point.

The second is that adding a larger HSF makes the electrical component magically give off less heat. That component is going to give off heat whether or not there’s a HSF. It’s just a matter of if the heat is going to stay in the chip or displaced into the ambient air.

wrong on both parts

a gun with a 4" barrel is not as accurate as a gun with a 6" barrel.....nice try though if what you say is true hen a 22 cal handgun would be as accurate as a M16 at 500 yards (not gonna happen)

a better designed heatsink will remove more heat from the circuit keeping it cooler and the extra heat removed goes into the air
 
lol, screw those guns with the useless long barrels cause I do all my sniping with a .38 snub nose...
 
wrong on both parts

a gun with a 4" barrel is not as accurate as a gun with a 6" barrel.....nice try though if what you say is true hen a 22 cal handgun would be as accurate as a M16 at 500 yards (not gonna happen)

a better designed heatsink will remove more heat from the circuit keeping it cooler and the extra heat removed goes into the air

You're so wrong it's not even funny. First off with the HSF that's what I was saying! Go back and read what I wrote.

Second, you have no idea what you're talking about regarding firearms and your argument is absurd. First of an "M-16" shoots a .223 caliber round (5.56 mm) that's a .22 caliber bullet

Did that just blow your mind?

If you're referring to the accuracy potential of a .22 long rifle vs a 5.56 mm at 500 yards I will tell you that is WELL past the effective range of a 22 long rifle.

I could go on but why not just Google "barrel length accuracy" and see what the pros have to say on the matter.
 
Nearly 3 dozen replies and no one has asked the OP what resolution he plays at...
Going blind, the 6950 is the obvious best bang for the buck choice from the ones he presented.
 
At idle the newer cards use significantly less power due to much better power management. All the 4870 does by default is downclock from 700Mhz to 600Mhz in 2d mode. The newer cards do much more than that. As a result it's something like 80w for the 4870 at idle vs about 20w for the later generations.

That alone will make an impact on ambient temps if you aren't putting a load on the GPU the entire time you computer is running.
 
At idle the newer cards use significantly less power due to much better power management. All the 4870 does by default is downclock from 700Mhz to 600Mhz in 2d mode. The newer cards do much more than that. As a result it's something like 80w for the 4870 at idle vs about 20w for the later generations.

That alone will make an impact on ambient temps if you aren't putting a load on the GPU the entire time you computer is running.

lol he can upgrade his video card to not play any video games and just idle out :D
 
My research is telling me that the 560ti will have a little under 2x the fps of the 4870. My advice for graphics cards is usually to figure out the budget and buy just at the top end of that, since market forces usually make the frames-per-second to dollar to pain-in-the-ass ratio about the same.

And since I like tangents: The purpose of a heatsink is to transfer heat from a chip to the air. So a good heatsink will make the air get hotter than a bad heatsink. If transferring heat to the air was bad, we'd all have cases and heatsinks made out of styrofoam.
 
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