4870 CF vs New Card

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pvc

Weaksauce
Joined
Sep 7, 2008
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My current system is

E8400
4 GB DDR2
EP45-UD3P
Corsair 650HX
4870 1GB

The system ran everything I wanted it to at 1920x1200 but I've gotten a new monitor, which is at 2560x1600.

70-80$ on a used 4870 1 GB and I should be set for a CF setup. (After I find the appropriate power connectors). Would it make sense to do that or just try to dump that and get a new generation card. (The 6950 or something like that).

The single 4870 1GB was bought in Jan 2008, so it's worked well for 2 years. Will getting another one let me run newer games for another year or so?
 
I'm pretty much in the exact same boat as you are for my wife's rig. I've done alot of research on what would be the best bang for the buck but would also extend the life of this system. My plan is to pick up a Q9K CPU and then replace the 4870 with a 6870. I figure this should be perfect to play any game she is interested in for at least a couple years to come.

This all depends on how much money you want to throw at an upgrade. I would recommend spending the extra money to get either a 6870 or 6950. Think you'd be happier with that setup.
 
The 6950 is the better option, the extra vram helps at that resolution, and you don't have to deal with CrossFire.
It will end up costing you about $140 extra, though. (Assume $80 for 4870)
 
The 6950 is faster than two 4870s [typically by 5-10%], no crossfire to worry about, and a lot more efficient, so quieter (two 4870s are about 300W, one 6950 is about 170W). Obviously $300 is a fair bit more than $80, but you can still sell your old 4870.

(I assume you mean Jan 2009, 4870s havent been out for 3 years)
 
samuelmorris said:
The 6950 is faster than two 4870s [typically by 5-10%]
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I'm curious how you've come to that conclusion given that the 6950 only barely matches and is often slower than a 5870 in many games whereas 2x 4870 would be about 5% faster than a 5870 in any game that didn't fall on it's face with crossfire. The 6950 might be 5-10% faster after you mod it into a 6970.

Going to a 6950 from your current setup makes sense from a power consumption and heat perspective, or if your favorite game has crossfire issues, but if you're looking for a general increase in performance, it's going to take more than a single 6950 to do it.
 
The HD6950 routinely comes ahead of the 5870 in all the benches I've read, not by much, but it is ahead. The 4870X2 can beat the 5870 sometimes, but in other cases it quite often doesn't, it really depends on the scaling, which the 6950 being a single card of course, has no issue with. A modded 6950 should be well clear of two 4870s, as much as 15% in some cases I would imagine.
 
samuelmorris said:
The 6950 is faster than two 4870s [typically by 5-10%], no crossfire to worry about, and a lot more efficient, so quieter (two 4870s are about 300W, one 6950 is about 170W). Obviously $300 is a fair bit more than $80, but you can still sell your old 4870.

(I assume you mean Jan 2009, 4870s havent been out for 3 years)
Click to expand...

Yes, I did mean Jan 2009. (It's 2011? When did that happen? :eek:)

Thing is, I've always upgraded CPU+Motherboard+RAM+GPU together. I would have been happy with my system for another year if I had stuck to 1920x1200. (I just finished the new MoH at high settings at 1920x1200). The 4870 actually plays PES 2011 at 2560x1600 with no slowdown.

I don't see a need to upgrade my Processor+RAM+Motherboard anytime soon. If I get a 6950, how long do you think it will it be before I will need to upgrade the rest of the system? (Are any new games CPU limited or should I just worry about the GPU). And till when can I push the purchase of the 6950 and still expect to buy a card that can be unlocked to the 6970? I remember running my Radeon 9500 as a 9700 Pro, which was awesome.
 
I'm a pretty stingy upgrader. I have to see some big gains in order to upgrade. With that said I went from a 4870 to 6950 and im pretty happy about it. If I knew I would have money for the next series, I could have held out, but I had money on hand at the time so I made the investment.
 
If you have no problems dealing with the headaches of a dual card setup and scaling and things of the sort, then getting another 4870 is the right move for you. If you don't want to deal with those headaches, a single card solution is the route to take. But it comes at a premium!
 
hardly said:
If you have no problems dealing with the headaches of a dual card setup and scaling and things of the sort, then getting another 4870 is the right move for you. If you don't want to deal with those headaches, a single card solution is the route to take. But it comes at a premium!
Click to expand...

For my current card, I haven't updated drivers in ages and all games just install and run.
Is CF still at the state where I have to fiddle a lot to get it working correctly for each game?
If that is the case, I might have to get the 6950.
 
drivers will be broken for that CFX for anything release past 10.5a from my experience. id opt for a newer card to be honest. at that res, the 2 GB cards tend to start shining. im debating on ditching my 4 gpu setup for something simpler. to be honest though, even with a 6950, alot of games at that res will still perform sub par. 2560x1600 is alot of pixel real-estate to render. usually nothing short of 2 cards at that res will be smooth.
 
pvc said:
For my current card, I haven't updated drivers in ages and all games just install and run.
Is CF still at the state where I have to fiddle a lot to get it working correctly for each game?
If that is the case, I might have to get the 6950.
Click to expand...

To get it to perform perfect and get the full potential out of them then yes you will have to fiddle a lot to get it to work. When I was using SLI 9800GTX+, I had a few issues, I went over to Crossfire 4850s and had even more headaches, then went to a crossfire 4870s and that was less work than my 4850s but possibly because I already had most stuff set up for ATI cards.
 
pvc said:
Is CF still at the state where I have to fiddle a lot to get it working correctly for each game?
Click to expand...

Not at all. There will be some games that don't scale perfectly but there isn't much you can "fiddle" with on your end to change that one way or another. Thankfully, the vast majority of games really do not have any issues with crossfire.

audirs said:
drivers will be broken for that CFX for anything release past 10.5a from my experience.
Click to expand...

Sounds like you haven't done any research on the issue lately or just gave up. There were issues past 10.5a but those issues had to do with users of 4870x2 and 4850x2 cards, not users who were running two single GPU cards in crossfire. Even then, within a few months (shorter than your average Nvidia driver release) they already had Hotfix drivers (first 10.8b, then the 10.9a) released specifically for those two cards to fix the issue. Drivers past that have had the issue fixed by default. I am using the very latest 10.12 drivers with no issues at all in any game.

Furthermore, within the last year they have separated the Crossfire Application Profiles from the main driver. That means even if you did find a legitimate reason to stick with an older driver version, that wouldn't preclude you from having the very latest crossfire support in new games.

hardly said:
To get it to perform perfect and get the full potential out of them then yes you will have to fiddle a lot to get it to work.
Click to expand...

OK then, give us an example of something you had to "fiddle with" in order to make crossfire work properly. I've run 2x 4870x2 for quite some time and 4850s in crossfire before that and I haven't had to "fiddle" with anything. There really just aren't that many user adjustable variables that deal with crossfire.
 
I had almost no problems with my 4870 quad CF setup on 10.10e. 10.12 and 10.6 were a disaster though.
 
After a year of my HD 4870 1GB purchase date, I bought an used HD 4870 1GB and moved to Crossfire. I had very few issues with only Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2, Singularity and Splinter Cell Conviction showed some strange issues with CF, Singularity poor scaling got fixed quickly using RadeonPRO tools and the scaling was near 100%, while Splinter Cell Conviction scaling was a little over 40% without using RadeonPRO tool which by the way couldn't fix it and Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2 wasn't playable because with Crossfire enabled, the screen looked totally white and blurry and only appeared on screen the road with a solid gray color and some car wireframes loll. All other games scaled well with no issues, my only problem was the high power consumption and heat dissipation of it plus some microstuttering which was easy to pinpoint because of my overclocked eyes. :)
 
4870 crossfire setup will not equal a 6950 in regards to overall pleasure of ownership and playability. No way, no how...and this is coming from a guy who had been running 4870's in crossfire for over two years. I retired them 2 weeks ago and haven't looked back.
Compared to a 4870 Xfire setup, the 6900 cards are faster, quieter, use less power, offer DX11 support, scale better in crossfire, and perform much better at high resolutions. There is simply no comparison. If you want to crossfire anything nowadays, start with the 6850's and work your way up...
 
I also came from an HD 4870 1GB Crossfire setup and I can say that the performance gains aren't breathtaking, but seems that it takes less impact in performance when anti aliasing modes are used and more eye candy, no stuttering or jittering, love the much lower power consumption and thermal dissipation, in overall, a 30% average gain in equal loads, and more than 60% when the eye candy is raised. I sold my HD 4870 1GB at $105 each one on ebay, so moving to an HD 6950 makes a bit more sense.
 
Get the second card if you only have a few games to play. If you have to play all the latest games that most of us have finished already then I'd say consider getting something new but then you'll fall into the entire... your cpu isn't enough, then Oh yeah, new PSU and then new mobo PSU.... Sandy Bridge budget Rig, at the end of the day you've spent over $1000 upgrading for a few games. LOL The world of the [H] elite :)
 
samuelmorris said:
The HD6950 routinely comes ahead of the 5870 in all the benches I've read, not by much, but it is ahead. The 4870X2 can beat the 5870 sometimes, but in other cases it quite often doesn't, it really depends on the scaling, which the 6950 being a single card of course, has no issue with. A modded 6950 should be well clear of two 4870s, as much as 15% in some cases I would imagine.
Click to expand...

Well the 4870x2 had higher playable settings in Crysis: Warhead then the 5870 ever did. (enthusiast + 4xAA vs. enthusiast + 2xAA). I'd say at a when-sh1t-hits-the-fan situation the X2 was faster, and 2 actual 4870s crossfired was a smidge faster than the X2 card, so all in all a 6950 would be around 4870 xfire level.

Although given that the OP's card has had 2 good years of service and un upgrade to a faster single card is very justified. Besides I dont think a dual core cpu would have the oomph to get all that much out of a multi-gpu setup anyways.

Dude get a 6950.
 
the 4870X2 had a lot of driver optimisations for crysis warhead. I wouldn't necessarily call it typical. Also bear in mind the HD5870 and HD6950 are only about 5% apart.
 
Well, I guess the 6950 is the way to go. I hope the initial reference designs that can be unlocked are still available by the time I get my tax return. I won't be upgrading my processor, I don't see any solid evidence of the E8400 'bottleneck'ing the 6950. Thanks for all of your inputs.
 
pvc said:
Well, I guess the 6950 is the way to go. I hope the initial reference designs that can be unlocked are still available by the time I get my tax return. I won't be upgrading my processor, I don't see any solid evidence of the E8400 'bottleneck'ing the 6950. Thanks for all of your inputs.
Click to expand...

It needs to be ATI ?
If you're going to wait for your tax return, might as well consider the upcoming GTX 560 too.
 
Action_Parsnip said:
Well the 4870x2 had higher playable settings in Crysis: Warhead then the 5870 ever did. (enthusiast + 4xAA vs. enthusiast + 2xAA). I'd say at a when-sh1t-hits-the-fan situation the X2 was faster, and 2 actual 4870s crossfired was a smidge faster than the X2 card, so all in all a 6950 would be around 4870 xfire level.

Although given that the OP's card has had 2 good years of service and un upgrade to a faster single card is very justified. Besides I dont think a dual core cpu would have the oomph to get all that much out of a multi-gpu setup anyways.

Dude get a 6950.
Click to expand...

But that happens only in the base case scenario which is quite rare in a multi-GPU setup. My current HD 6970 offered me far more smooth experience in frame rate compared to my HD 4870 CF setup. Even on a CPU bound tittle like Call of Duty BlackOps and Medal of Honor 2010, I still was able to increase the load and the fps never diped below 60fps, something that would happen quite often on my CF setup.

I can attest that the performance gains are about 30% in a typical scenario and can be as high as 60% when the eye candy bar is raised to the max, the minimum frame rate got a huge boost in that regard. The HD 6950 is about 5-7% faster than the HD 5870, but the HD 4870X2 started to trail behind slightly the HD 5870 in recent games due to the increased load of power computing plus games are taking more advantage of the newer architecture of the HD 5870 (The HD 4870 was severely limited by its interpolators on the texture filtering rate department). In the end the HD 6950 is a nice buy, specially if the op manages to unlock it.

Silus said:
It needs to be ATI ?
If you're going to wait for your tax return, might as well consider the upcoming GTX 560 too.
Click to expand...

The GTX 560 is designed to target the HD 6850/6870 which will not offer a substantial boost from his current setup, the HD 6950 will be simply faster.
 
evolucion8 said:
The GTX 560 is designed to target the HD 6850/6870 which will not offer a substantial boost from his current setup, the HD 6950 will be simply faster.
Click to expand...

Not really. Early numbers put the GTX 560 at the heels of the HD 6950.

Also what ? He's coming a from a single HD 4870 1 GB...almost anything new out there (mid to high-end) will provide quite a significant boost in performance.
 
if your on a budget, you'd be fine with adding another 4870, but if power and a single-card config is at the top of your list, get a 6950. If you get a 6950, you can always get another one later if you want a 3 monitor eyefinity! :p
 
Silus said:
It needs to be ATI ?
If you're going to wait for your tax return, might as well consider the upcoming GTX 560 too.
Click to expand...

No, it not be an ATI card. (I had the 8600GT before the 4870).

The 6950 is tempting because I can unlock it to the 6970 and be set for another 2 years or so on the GPU front.

Well, waiting for the tax return is just to assuage my guilt. (Too many expenses lately, and my PS3 died yesterday. :( )
 
Vexerz said:
He only needs to flash once last time I checked dot dot dot
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I meant that the ability to flash is not going to last forever...AMD is going to release a revised version of the HD 6900s PCB and it's rumored that with this revision, the ability to flash successfully is going away too...

Also, what's with this "dot dot dot" crap ?
 
Silus said:
I meant that the ability to flash is not going to last forever...AMD is going to release a revised version of the HD 6900s PCB and it's rumored that with this revision, the ability to flash successfully is going away too...

Also, what's with this "dot dot dot" crap ?
Click to expand...

Good argument and more incentive to buy now dot dot dot
 
pvc said:
No, it not be an ATI card. (I had the 8600GT before the 4870).

The 6950 is tempting because I can unlock it to the 6970 and be set for another 2 years or so on the GPU front.

Well, waiting for the tax return is just to assuage my guilt. (Too many expenses lately, and my PS3 died yesterday. :( )
Click to expand...

You may or may not be able to unlock. You have no guarantee that when you buy a HD 6950 it will be part of the release batch or the revised one.
AMD is not going to make press releases about a PCB revision, so we will not know when they will do it. In fact, they may have done it already.

But it's your call obviously.
 
Vexerz said:
Good argument and more incentive to buy now dot dot dot
Click to expand...

You are trolling right ? It's a rhetorical question btw...

Also, no it's not an incentive to buy now, since assuming that it can be flashed, when no one knows if the card being bought is from the release batch or not, is quite a big risk.

But that's up to the OP.
 
Silus said:
You may or may not be able to unlock. You have no guarantee that when you buy a HD 6950 it will be part of the release batch or the revised one.
AMD is not going to make press releases about a PCB revision, so we will not know when they will do it. In fact, they may have done it already.

But it's your call obviously.
Click to expand...

Of course. I might just get the card sooner than later, increase my chances of getting one that can be unlocked. (I'll look in the unlock thread for suggestions.)

I also just realised I might have trouble fitting the card into my NZXT Alpha case. Damn.
 
Silus said:
You are trolling right ? It's a rhetorical question btw...

Also, (as a Nvidia fan) no it's not an incentive to buy now, since assuming that it can be flashed, when no one knows if the card being bought is from the release batch or not, is quite a big risk.

But that's up to the OP.
Click to expand...

Thanks capt obvious about that last part, but I think I'll stick to what the majority of people have said who bought ref. cards.

edit: just looked at your history of course another nvidia fan so fixed for you.
 
pvc said:
Of course. I might just get the card sooner than later, increase my chances of getting one that can be unlocked. (I'll look in the unlock thread for suggestions.)

I also just realised I might have trouble fitting the card into my NZXT Alpha case. Damn.
Click to expand...

Looks like nothing a dremel can't fix. Cut out the drive cage and get some 5.25" adapters for your HDD imo.
 
Can always do as Vexerz suggests if you want to keep the Alpha, or if you're not willing to do that, can always get an inexpensive new case like an Antec Three Hundred.
 
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