5770?

D

DarkSaturn

Limp Gawd
Joined
May 27, 2010
Messages
288
One of my 8800 GT's failed a while back, the second looks to be on last legs. Looking for a recommendation on something that won't be too bottle-necked by my processor.

E8400 (3 ghz wolfdale core 2 duo)
eVGA 780i SLI
4GB DDR2 (800mhz...)
600 watt PSU (dual 6 pin, no 8 pin)

Moderate gaming usage at 1680x1050, fair amount of Photoshop/video work. Strong likelihood I'll upgrade to 1920x1080 (or 1200) within the next 6 months. Gaming will most likely be limited to RTS (SC2) and less demanding FPS like TF2, maybe the occasional RPG or action RPG... or space shooters if the PC gaming industry decides to try making one again.

Been leaning towards a 5770, but it does seem a shame to go ATI given the 780i. Suppose the other option in the same price range would be to pick up a couple 250 GTS's but I'm thinking at this point I'd be better off going with the DX11 card. Or possibly a single GTX 260 with the option to go SLI, but they might become harder to find a pair down the road.

Thoughts?
 
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The 5770 is a fine card, and is definitely better than even 2 8800gt's in SLi. That said, you might be better off picking up one or two used GTX 260s for ~120-140 each.
 
ordovician said:
The 5770 is a fine card, and is definitely better than even 2 8800gt's in SLi. That said, you might be better off picking up one or two used GTX 260s for ~120-140 each.
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a 5770 is not faster than an 8800gt sli setup. only in games that would exceed the vram if those were 8800gt 512mb cards would the 5770 be faster.
 
What a coincidence, my PNY 8800 GT just died 2 days ago, and I purchased an XFX 5770. I don't SLI or Crossfire, but I'm pretty happy with my purchase and it really is a pretty big step up. I also play a lot of FPS and RTS and the 5770 does quite a good job on 1920 x 1080 with high settings. The card is also much cooler with the 8800GT idled at 60C, this card is at 40C.
 
My PC sees far less gaming that it used too, hard to say if that's cause or effect though.

Both 8800 GT's were 512's (XFX Alpha Dogs: one was new the other was used), I've been running single setup at least 8 months.

The running cooler is interesting, lower fan speed especially at idle would be a plus as my computer desk sits basically beside my TV.

Are any of the enhanced cooling options offered on the 5770 worth it (Sapphires VaporX, Asus' CuCore)?

Would be nice to get it close to silent when serving media to the tv.
 
DarkSaturn said:
One of my 8800 GT's failed a while back, the second looks to be on last legs. Looking for a recommendation on something that won't be too bottle-necked by my processor.

E8400 (3 ghz wolfdale core 2 duo)
eVGA 780i SLI
4GB DDR2 (800mhz...)
600 watt PSU (dual 6 pin, no 8 pin)

Moderate gaming usage at 1680x1050, fair amount of Photoshop/video work. Strong likelihood I'll upgrade to 1920x1080 (or 1200) within the next 6 months. Gaming will most likely be limited to RTS (SC2) and less demanding FPS like TF2, maybe the occasional RPG or action RPG... or space shooters if the PC gaming industry decides to try making one again.

Been leaning towards a 5770, but it does seem a shame to go ATI given the 780i. Suppose the other option in the same price range would be to pick up a couple 250 GTS's but I'm thinking at this point I'd be better off going with the DX11 card. Or possibly a single GTX 260 with the option to go SLI, but they might become harder to find a pair down the road.

Thoughts?
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um, your not gong to be bottled necked. an E8400 i just fine for gaming. if you want you can easily OC that puppy to 4gh and call it good. a dual core is just fine for games. a 5770 is a pretty nice card and I like it. bang for the buck its the shit. if you want higher performance go for a 5850. you can get one cheaper then a pair of GTX260 (they run around 200 new). now if you want to pick up a pair of used ones that is not at all a bad option. I just can't see spending that for a new one given that you can get a 5770 for buck fifty if you look around and a 4890 for the same price but faster then the GTX260. If your worried about the future I would go with a 5850 and an AM heat sink for you CPU if you don't have one.

edit esp given that your planning on upgrading your monitor. a 5770 does alright at 2.3mp but a 5850 will pretty well max everything at that rez.
 
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DarkSaturn said:
Both 8800 GT's were 512's (XFX Alpha Dogs: one was new the other was used), I've been running single setup at least 8 months.
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If you registered the 8800's with XFX there's always the option of RMA with the double lifetime warranty...
 
DarkSaturn said:
One of my 8800 GT's failed a while back, the second looks to be on last legs. Looking for a recommendation on something that won't be too bottle-necked by my processor.

E8400 (3 ghz wolfdale core 2 duo)
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Given a dated system I think the goal would be to buy a video card that IS bottlenecked by your processor. Otherwise your buying a Video card that your dated CPU can outrun..

The 5770 would be a good card, but I just get an icky feeling whenever I think about running ATI cards on an nVidia chipset.
 
bastage said:
Given a dated system I think the goal would be to buy a video card that IS bottlenecked by your processor. Otherwise your buying a Video card that your dated CPU can outrun..

The 5770 would be a good card, but I just get an icky feeling whenever I think about running ATI cards on an nVidia chipset.
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could you provide some backup on both those statements? and you meant that the video card would out run the cpu? I don't know of any games that an E8400 fail to run. and could quantify what the "icky" feeling is about running both?
 
kniah said:
If you registered the 8800's with XFX there's always the option of RMA with the double lifetime warranty...
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The one that died was the used version, got it very cheap from a friend who had gone a little overclock crazy and thought he'd done it in. I was able to get a few good months out of it by cleaning and re-applying fresh thermal paste.

The other has more or less been holding steady, but the fan is starting to get noisier and I've been encountering frequent artifacting lately (looks like the screen is split into approx. 8x24 pixel blocks that end up lined up incorrectly). Might not be the video card at all, but it's getting a little dated at any rate.
 
Valset said:
could you provide some backup on both those statements? and you meant that the video card would out run the cpu? I don't know of any games that an E8400 fail to run. and could quantify what the "icky" feeling is about running both?
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When buying a new part you want it to be the fastest in your system. It should no longer be the bottleneck. After replacing the CPU, Ram & motherboard then your video card could be the bottleneck again. But for the time being you should be looking whats going to give you the best performance for price that you can keep through the upgrade of the rest.

& The icky feeling is just that. I just don't like it. Damn ATI & nVidia both have finicky drivers & then trying to get there shit to play nice makes me queasy.
 
bastage said:
When buying a new part you want it to be the fastest in your system. It should no longer be the bottleneck. After replacing the CPU, Ram & motherboard then your video card could be the bottleneck again. But for the time being you should be looking whats going to give you the best performance for price that you can keep through the upgrade of the rest.

& The icky feeling is just that. I just don't like it. Damn ATI & nVidia both have finicky drivers & then trying to get there shit to play nice makes me queasy.
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Yeah, my CPU is SO much faster than my hard drive it's crazy. My video cards leave my case in the dust..... ;)
 
ordovician said:
Yeah, my CPU is SO much faster than my hard drive it's crazy. My video cards leave my case in the dust..... ;)
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your sarcasm confuses me.. Good thing you added the wink or I would have almost thought you were serious..
 
DarkSaturn said:
OCZ GameXStream 600W

Looking at the specs online it apparently has a 6 pin and a 6+2.
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Hmm, then the highest card I'd recommend is the HD 5770. The other cards you mentioned uses a bit too much power for a PSU of that low quality.
 
bastage said:
When buying a new part you want it to be the fastest in your system. It should no longer be the bottleneck. After replacing the CPU, Ram & motherboard then your video card could be the bottleneck again. But for the time being you should be looking whats going to give you the best performance for price that you can keep through the upgrade of the rest.

& The icky feeling is just that. I just don't like it. Damn ATI & nVidia both have finicky drivers & then trying to get there shit to play nice makes me queasy.
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I can understand why you would be worried of driver conflicts but I have not had that issue with mother boards and video cards, rather just with video cards.

outside of that I do not understand your logic at all. the OP has a mid ranged cpu, mother board and ram. this in no way limits him to a mid range graphics card. for a single card setup all the system has to do is provide the frames and effects support need to keep the video card supplied with something to do. outside of a handful of games his E8400 will provide him with the same gaming experience as an i7 system given the same video card. (dual gpu setups do perform better using an i7 system)

given that the OP is looking at future proofing and moving to a 2.3mp monitor there is no reason not to recommend a 5850. bang for the buck that is the best single upgrade that he can make. a 5770 would probably work fine for what he plays but if he is wanting his investment to last a while he certainly should consider going the next step up (I don't even count the 5830)

not to mention that an AM cooler and some bios tweaks should put up around 4ghz should he need / want it.
 
in the OPs case the 5770 makes the most sense. a 5850 is about twice the price of 5770 and he may not even get a new monitor for many months. and its very likely that we will see an ATI refresh within a few months anyway. plus I doubt he wants to buy an aftermarket cpu cooler and oc that cpu which he would need to do to come close to fully pushing that 5850 especially at 1680x1050. also with an overclocked cpu and 5850 that lower quality psu will be not exactly be something to trust for long term use. all things considered just popping in a 5770 and leaving everything else alone for now seems the most sensible to me.
 
Valset said:
given that the OP is looking at future proofing and moving to a 2.3mp monitor there is no reason not to recommend a 5850. bang for the buck that is the best single upgrade that he can make. a 5770 would probably work fine for what he plays but if he is wanting his investment to last a while he certainly should consider going the next step up (I don't even count the 5830).
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That is the point I have been trying to make.. Buying a 5770 if it is foreseeable that he will need faster is pointless.. Yes with a 58x0 the CPU may be a much larger bottleneck so he wouldn't see the full performance of the card. but when the rest is upgraded he will then get it then whereas with a 5770 the Video card would be the bottle neck then. & I Wouldnt discount the 5830. If watching for deals on it & especially the open box deals on newegg they can be had sub 200. I have a MSI hawk 5830 on order for 196.99. Its 179.99 for the 5770 version of the card. So it was a 17 dollar difference to get the 5830 over a 5770. At that price its well worth it.
 
bastage said:
That is the point I have been trying to make.. Buying a 5770 if it is foreseeable that he will need faster is pointless.. Yes with a 58x0 the CPU may be a much larger bottleneck so he wouldn't see the full performance of the card. but when the rest is upgraded he will then get it then whereas with a 5770 the Video card would be the bottle neck then. & I Wouldnt discount the 5830. If watching for deals on it & especially the open box deals on newegg they can be had sub 200. I have a MSI hawk 5830 on order for 196.99. Its 179.99 for the 5770 version of the card. So it was a 17 dollar difference to get the 5830 over a 5770. At that price its well worth it.
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if there are no concrete plans to upgrade the other parts then that is an ignorant way of doing things. paying $150 more for a card that he cant even fully use or that may stress his psu too much makes very little sense. by the time he decides to upgrade there will already be a better performing part for the same amount of money. in other words a 5770 will meet his needs NOW and then a 6770 will be out before he even decides to upgrade the rest of his pc anyway.
 
I honestly think that my 5770 is better in BF BC2 than my 4890 (due to DX11), if that makes a difference. It's not like the 5770 is a bad card at all!
 
I play almost exclusively SC2 at 1920x1080 with a 5770. The 5770 is enough to play SC2 at all maxed/ultra settings at that resolution with a steady ~40 FPS; it gets way over 200 FPS on the low settings that I prefer to play on.
 
ordovician said:
I honestly think that my 5770 is better in BF BC2 than my 4890 (due to DX11), if that makes a difference. It's not like the 5770 is a bad card at all!
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you think that one 5770 is better, or your 2x 5770's are better than a single 4890? also i haven't tested for myself, but it is my understanding that running BC2 in DX11 reduces performance. in your experience did you see an increase?
 
cannondale06 said:
if there are no concrete plans to upgrade the other parts then that is an ignorant way of doing things. paying $150 more for a card that he cant even fully use or that may stress his psu too much makes very little sense. by the time he decides to upgrade there will already be a better performing part for the same amount of money. in other words a 5770 will meet his needs NOW and then a 6770 will be out before he even decides to upgrade the rest of his pc anyway.
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your the only one talking about spending 150 dollars more.. Well unless someone mentioned a 50 dollar card. Because I definitely wasn't talking about getting a 325 dollar card being as I was talking about the 200 dollar range.
 
bastage said:
your the only one talking about spending 150 dollars more.. Well unless someone mentioned a 50 dollar card. Because I definitely wasn't talking about getting a 325 dollar card being as I was talking about the 200 dollar range.
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I have seen the 5850 go for 265 ABCB. is this within range here?

also I just saw a GTX260 go for 120 used (shipped) on ebay. at that price getting a pair of them used is within your price range (well over but not that much)
 
In general, how does the 5770 do on a 1080p monitor? I'm going back and forth between the 5850 and the 5770 for my setup.
 
llmercll said:
In general, how does the 5770 do on a 1080p monitor? I'm going back and forth between the 5850 and the 5770 for my setup.
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have you not looked at the tons of reviews? if you have a system worthy enough to put a 5850 in then certainly go with that.
 
llmercll said:
In general, how does the 5770 do on a 1080p monitor? I'm going back and forth between the 5850 and the 5770 for my setup.
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1st hand I couldnt tell you.. But I game on 1920x1200 & I Wasnt happy with how hard my 5750 had to work to play at high settings so when I upgraded I skipped the 57x0 series to teh 58x0 series (5830 that I got for 197 to be exact). So I paid 17 dollars more then I would have for the 5770 version of the card (MSI Hawk). But now have the peace of mind that it will OC to a 5850 performance level if I decide I need it.
 
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