4870 owners - what did you upgrade to? (kept your CPU)

HD4870 -> HD4890 cuz 4870 broke -> GTX 460 mostly sidestep except for few games and wanted Physx for Batman AA -> GTX 570 for HUGE performance gain.

Still have my trusty Q9550 running.
 
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I haven't upgraded yet. When I do, it will probably be a 6950 or the equivalent 7xxx.

2GB because I tend to hold onto tech for awhile, and 1GB is becoming the new 512MB...
 
went from 4870 512MB to a 5870 2GB in summer 2010? something like that only costed me $400 when they were going for $500+ and I managed to sell my 4870 for $100 to make some money back.
 
talk2troy said:
I'm looking for first hand experiences to this question:

4870 owners - what did you upgrade to & was it worth it to you?

Please share any other relevant info...

PS - I have a Q9550 & I'm not going to upgrade my CPU - or anything else...
- if you added an i5 or something, I don't know if that will really help us decide.

Here's my game list... playing @ 1920x1080 on 47" TV
http://steamcommunity.com/id/videogameracing/games?tab=all

THANKS! :D
Click to expand...

I recently (yesterday) purchased a reference sapphire 6950 and unlocked it flawlessly to a 6970 via BIOS. Now, this may not be helpful to you, because I bought mine for $220 AUD (roughly 235 US) from a friend/customer of mine who was fire-selling his old rig. I do see non-reference design (read: possibly locked) 6950 2gb cards going for around 250-280 USD, so its worth a thought. This replaced my old 4830 (not exactly the same card, but same family as yours) and the difference is solid, probably a double in performance. I'm almost entirely CPU bottleneck'ed at this point, though my old AMD 9850 BE is getting replaced soon. I think with your old quad: you'd hit the same problem. I'm upgrading my CPU in ~2 months, so I'll be able to let you know if the CPU makes a huge difference as well.
 
talk2troy said:
I'm looking for first hand experiences to this question:

4870 owners - what did you upgrade to & was it worth it to you?

Please share any other relevant info...

PS - I have a Q9550 & I'm not going to upgrade my CPU - or anything else...
- if you added an i5 or something, I don't know if that will really help us decide.

Here's my game list... playing @ 1920x1080 on 47" TV
http://steamcommunity.com/id/videogameracing/games?tab=all

THANKS! :D
Click to expand...

Looking at your list, I play a lot of what you do.

I went from crossfire 4870s to a single GTX 480. I upgraded because I got really sick of crossfire & driver issues. I ended up with a single GTX 480 which I've been pretty happy with. Thermally, it sucks, but it runs all the games I play with tons of eyecandy @ 1920x1200 without issues.

Core rig stayed the same (Phenom 955 @ 4.2 + 8GB RAM) at the time of the GPU upgrade.
 
HD4870 Cyclone -> HD5770 Hawk (just sold it on Monday) -> HD6950@HD6970 1GB DirectCu II (waiting for arrival).

I upgraded to the Hawk mostly for the more than double hashrate in Bitcoin mining (from sub-90 to 215-220MH/s).On the gaming side,for some reason the Hawk ran slower than the Cyclone,giving me 50-70fps in COD4 with lower setting while the Cyclone ran at max setting and resolution @90fps+.Still worth the money.

Now i've upgrade to the 6950 (successfully unlocked to 6970) again for another double hashrate in mining and obviously the boost in gaming.
 
KazeoHin said:
I recently (yesterday) purchased a reference sapphire 6950 and unlocked it flawlessly to a 6970 via BIOS. Now, this may not be helpful to you, because I bought mine for $220 AUD (roughly 235 US) from a friend/customer of mine who was fire-selling his old rig. I do see non-reference design (read: possibly locked) 6950 2gb cards going for around 250-280 USD, so its worth a thought. This replaced my old 4830 (not exactly the same card, but same family as yours) and the difference is solid, probably a double in performance. I'm almost entirely CPU bottleneck'ed at this point, though my old AMD 9850 BE is getting replaced soon. I think with your old quad: you'd hit the same problem. I'm upgrading my CPU in ~2 months, so I'll be able to let you know if the CPU makes a huge difference as well.
Click to expand...

The HD6950 is a little under double the performance of the HD4870, but it's a little over triple the performance of an HD4830. The HD4830 and HD4870 were quite a distance apart.
 
talk2troy said:
...first hand experience...
4870 owners - what did you upgrade to & was it worth it to you?
Please share any other relevant info...
PS - I have a Q9550 & I'm not going to upgrade my CPU - or anything else...
- if you added an i5 or something, I don't know if that will really help us decide.
Click to expand...

First, I was like :(
Then, I fixed it & I was like :)
Next, I tweaked it & I was like :D

MMMWWWWMWUAHAHAHAHHHAAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!

OK, like the OP requested... ;)
I went from a 4870-1GB > 6870-1GB - with my same CPU (Q9550).

Gaming experience = TOTALLY WORTH IT! :D

Other relevant info = NOT WORTH THE HASSLE... :mad:
- I paid $190 & have to do the rebate form BS for $30 off...
- rebates = PITA, but then it's $160 + a coupon for DIRT3 on STEAM
- DIRT3 is worth $50 right now & puts the vid card @ $110 = WORTH IT!
- waiting 3 days (so far) for AMD SUPPORT to activate DIRT3 = NOT WORTH IT.

More notes...
I popped in my new card, Win7-64 detected, prompted a reboot, rebooted.
- ATI CATS 11.8 loaded after reboot & I was off to the races!

My plan was to just run 3-4 games I've been playing most recently.
- I ran Shift 2, Crysis 2, BioShock 2 + DUKE & rFactor MODS

With the same settings, everything ran & looked the same + a few more FPS :(
- all the games felt a little more fluid, no stutter, a bit smoother, but really no BFD!
- the biggest improvement was - no random reboots & I could literally play for hours!
- my 4870 used to "get tired" after an hour and just reboot with no warning :mad:

Anyway, I looked at my ATI settings & realized it saved my 4870 PROFILE settings :(
- I was only running AMD OVERDRIVE for the higher fan speed setting :rolleyes:
- BUTT - this also locked me in at the clock speeds from the 4870 :mad:

I deleted that profile & set DEFAULT & jumped to 6870 clock speeds!
- then I ran the same games and I was like :)
- next I created a new profile to MAX all settings, ran a little Crysis 2 & I was like :D
- after that I boosted Crysis 2 from EXTREME to ULTRA & my eyes started bleeding...
- after that I read about MALTO's high res texture mod & will install the new release in a few days.

Conclusion...

4870 to 6870 = TOTALLY WORTH IT - even with / keeping my QUAD core! ;)

I'm enjoying the improvement so much, I wish I could have gone BIGGER & BETTER!

If you can $wing the Ching - go with a 2GB card... and a 69xx if you can...

:D:p:D:p:D:p:D:p:D:p:D:p:D:p:D:p:D:p:D:p:D:p
 
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I haven't upgraded mine yet, don't need to, it can still run most game on high at 1920 x 1080. I might get a 6950 2GB for Battlefield 3 though.
 
Talking strictly about Bitcoin mining performance.
HD4870 @840MHz -> 92MHash/s.
HD5770 Hawk @965MHz -> 215MHash/s.
HD6950 unlocked to HD6970 @900MHz -> 390MHash/s.

=>Absolutely worth every single dollar.
 
5c a unit? hmm, maybe there's some life left in bitcoin for you then. At 16c/unit (£0.10) I had to give up ages ago. HD6970s are efficient at it, but not that efficient!
 
I went with a 6950 and then downgraded to a gtx460 for financial reasons. Both were decent upgrades.
 
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