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4870 to...?

C

Corporal79

Gawd
Joined
Oct 28, 2004
Messages
889
I put my gaming rig back together finally and have been playing Diablo 3. Am I going to see a big increase in this game going up to a 7850 or something close on the nvidia side?

I'm not looking for a $500+ card, preferably >$250. Would the performance increase be worth the cash?
 
A 7850 is the BEST value you can buy right now for a new single card around $250, Nvidia doesn't have anything at the moment to compete with it. I have an overclocked MSI Twin Frozr 7850 that is almost as quick as my previous stock 5850 crossfire setup. Keep in mind that even a single 5850 is 25-30% faster than your 4870. If you're not afraid of overclocking, that's where the 7850 really shines because they will max out their CCC sliders without even breaking a sweat and perform almost as fast as 7950 at those speeds. If you aren't afraid to push even more, you can overclock them even further and exceed a stock 7950 or GTX 580 in many games. A stock 7850 will be at least twice as fast as your 4870 and much more in many current games that support tesselation. Its going to be a pretty big jump in performance for you.
 
I went from a GTX 260 (about the same as a 4870), to a GTX 560ti and noticed a pretty large difference in performance. You can probably pick up a used one for pretty cheap in FS/FT these days. Might be worth looking into if you want to go well below your budget, and you don't play super hi-res.
 
Yeah, under $250 the 7850 is the best way to go. Low power draw and overclocks like crazy. Will play anything at max settings at 1920x1080.
 
By that I mean no less than 30+ fps in all games which are still playable frame rates but with games like Metro, Crysis and maybe one or two others you might want to turn down a setting or two in order to get closer to a steady 60 fps but if you want all the eye candy you paid for, you'll still get playable frame rates.
 
Metro 2033 and Witcher 2 are the only two games that you'll have to lower the detail level but that's no fault of the 7850, those games run rough even on the very best of cards. Any other game will run fine at max details settings and still maintain at least 30fps and for most games right at 60fps at 1920x1080. The 7850 is an impressive card for $250, runs very cool, draws little power and overclocks like a champ and runs any modern game well.
 
yea that'll be a great card.. i went from a 4870 to a 5870 and it was a nice upgrade andthe 7850 upgrade will be even more.
 
H-street said:
yea that'll be a great card.. i went from a 4870 to a 5870 and it was a nice upgrade andthe 7850 upgrade will be even more.
Click to expand...
a stock 5870 was about 65-75% faster than a stock 4870. a stock 7850 is only about 10-15% faster than a stock 5870 though. without overclocking, the 7850 will be a minuscule improvement over a stock 5870.
 
cannondale06 said:
a stock 5870 was about 65-75% faster than a stock 4870. a stock 7850 is only about 10-15% faster than a stock 5870 though. without overclocking, the 7850 will be a minuscule improvement over a stock 5870.
Click to expand...

Yeah that's the rub with us 5870 owners. You have to get to the 7950/GTX580's before you're getting a performance boost that's worth it.
 
cannondale06 said:
a stock 5870 was about 65-75% faster than a stock 4870. a stock 7850 is only about 10-15% faster than a stock 5870 though. without overclocking, the 7850 will be a minuscule improvement over a stock 5870.
Click to expand...

A 7850 will hold a bigger advantage over the 5870 in games where tessellation is present. A 7850 is still considerably quicker than 4870 and even quicker than a 5870 for less money than what those cards cost when they were new. if you're not going to overclock it, and your budget allows a 7870 or 7950 obviously gives more performance. The beauty of the $250 7850 is that it will overclock to 1200Mhz or more which puts it right there with a 7950 and above a GTX 580, both of which cost considerably more.
 
MacLeod said:
Yeah that's the rub with us 5870 owners. You have to get to the 7950/GTX580's before you're getting a performance boost that's worth it.
Click to expand...

And the nice thing about a 7850 is that it will overclock far enough to give you that performance for $250.
 
just pick up a used card in the forums. There are a plethora of good deals right now.

Sli 480's for $285 shipped.

Lightning 580's for 3 bills

Regular 580's for 280ish

6970's for about 200.

I wouldn't buy new with the deals I've been seeing
 
lavaheadache said:
just pick up a used card in the forums. There are a plethora of good deals right now.

Sli 480's for $285 shipped.

Lightning 580's for 3 bills

Regular 580's for 280ish

6970's for about 200.

I wouldn't buy new with the deals I've been seeing
Click to expand...

Really depends on whether or not you want a new card or one that has been through the wringer, and the 7850 will run cooler and draw less power those solutions by a good margin but that's for the OP to decide.
 
Blkout said:
And the nice thing about a 7850 is that it will overclock far enough to give you that performance for $250.
Click to expand...

True but I don't like to count overclocking potential as I have the worst luck in the world and would probably get the one that barely goes over stock. My 5870 can't manage more than 25 MHz above stock without collapsing. So I prefer to use stock, out of the box performance.

lavaheadache said:
just pick up a used card in the forums. There are a plethora of good deals right now.

Sli 480's for $285 shipped.

Lightning 580's for 3 bills

Regular 580's for 280ish

6970's for about 200.

I wouldn't buy new with the deals I've been seeing
Click to expand...

I'm a little skeered of buying used cards especially from us [H]ardcore types. We tend to abuse our gear. ;)
 
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MacLeod said:
True but I don't like to count overclocking potential as I have the worst luck in the world and would probably get the one that barely goes over stock. My 5870 can't manage more than 25 MHz above stock without collapsing. So I prefer to use stock, out of the box performance.
Click to expand...

I understand you how you feel about just not having good luck. However, I have never seen or read about a 7850 that wouldn't max out the CCC limits. In order to go further you need to use a third party tool. The stock 7850 CCC limits are 1050/5800MHz which is nothing to sneeze at from the stock clocks. Mine overclocked right on up to 1140/6000MHz without any voltage adjustment, still runs cool and quiet. With voltage adjustment, it will run 1250/6000MHz, but I dont like using Asus Tweak tool to adjust voltage, I just like Afterburner but I don't get any voltage adjustment with Afterburner so I just leave my clocks at 1140/6000MHz which is easily in stock 7950 territory and above a GTX 580.
 
Corporal79 said:
I put my gaming rig back together finally and have been playing Diablo 3. Am I going to see a big increase in this game going up to a 7850 or something close on the nvidia side?
Click to expand...

no. if you had to ask, the answer is no. if it doesnt look slow to you, the answer is no. diablo 3 looks like shit and was made to run on average laptops with graphics performance like your computer.

you can confidently keep your money as long as you play diablo 3.
 
bpizzle1 said:
You can probably pick up a used one for pretty cheap in FS/FT these days. Might be worth looking into if you want to go well below your budget, and you don't play super hi-res.
Click to expand...

Not likely, I have looked for a while in the FS forums and eventually bought new. A lot of special editions of the 7850 are mostly out of stock on popular e-tailers too.
 
MacLeod said:
Yeah that's the rub with us 5870 owners. You have to get to the 7950/GTX580's before you're getting a performance boost that's worth it.
Click to expand...

but a 4870 > 7850 upgrade will be a great upgrade
 
MacLeod said:
I'm a little sneered of buying used cards especially from us [H]ardcore types. We tend to abuse our gear. ;)
Click to expand...

Actually, I would beg to differ that most of the [H] crowd take extraordinary care of our gear, ESPECIALLY when overclocking.
 
Yea the HD 7850 is a really good card, just got one myself. You'd get pretty decent frames at 1080p resolution is you get the idea. I get avg 65 fps in The Wither 2 at Ultra settings for example.
 
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I went from a 4870 1gb OC'd to 4890 speeds to an XFX 5870 XXX and the difference in games at 1920x1080 was enough to run 2 - 4 more AA levels in games ( while cranking up detail ) then I went to a 2gb HD 6950 and again was able to crank up the detail and AA levels so I could only immagine how far you'd be able to crank things up at 1920x1080 with a 7850.
 
I went from a 4870 1GB to a 7850 2GB a few weeks ago and so far I'm really impressed. I OC'd to the normal 1050/5800 and its completely rock solid. Crysis 2 with DX11+HighRes Textures and 4XAA Ultra runs great at 1080p.

Diablo 3 looks very nice. Just every game I've tried looks amazing now :) I want to get another one down the road for XFire.
 
6950 2GB unlocked. Still the best value card, period. Pick on up used, laugh all the way to the bank.
 
7850box.jpg


showed up at work, can't wait to get home and install it. Do I need to remove the existing 4870 drivers or can I just install the latest catalyst drivers for this card on top?
 
Technically, no. When you start installing the new drivers, it'll prompt you to do a clean install in the options, so it's basically the same thing. You choose really, can't go wrong.
 
lavaheadache said:
just pick up a used card in the forums. There are a plethora of good deals right now.

Sli 480's for $285 shipped.

Lightning 580's for 3 bills

Regular 580's for 280ish

6970's for about 200.

I wouldn't buy new with the deals I've been seeing
Click to expand...

Wow who is selling that lol. Two of those can trade blows with a 680.
 
just wanted to say thanks to the [H] folks yet again, this card smoothed out any framerate issues I had and now lets me max all video settings out and it's like butter.
 
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