5870 - where to next?

stevecamp09

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 27, 2009
Messages
172
Posting in the general forum too since it's kind of a general GPU question and i'm not tied to a brand or architecture.

Hello

Haven't really been keeping up to date with all the latest GPU offerings from AMD or Nvidia for that matter in the past year or so. Been running a single 1GB 5870 in my PC for 2 years without too many issues. Curious - if I were to upgrade today or in the near future, what would be the most obvious GPU to buy? 6870? 7000 series?

Bearing in mind i'm only gaming at 1920x1200 on a 24in monitor...is it worth upgrading right now? My budget is up to $500 but if there's not much improvement to be had for PC gaming at the resolution i'm at, would be good to know that.

Edit to add...the 5870 in my PC is making some odd noises so even if I don't need to upgrade soon, I might want a card to replace it. So in that case, what would be the choice? would something like the 7000 series or 580/680 from Nvidia be complete overkill?

Thanks for any guidance
 
7870 has to be the best (frames per dollar) card out right now @ your res.

They could drop in price a few bucks soon, but I doubt it. Sell the 5xxx and get a 7870 is my advice.
 
I've got a 5870, and plan on just sitting out of this generation of video cards.
 
I've got a 5870, and plan on just sitting out of this generation of video cards.

This.

OC it to 950 or overvolt to 1ghz and you can probably stretch it out to next gen at your res.

I'm waiting on the 6GB 7970 or maybe just go next gen.
 
Are you playing BF3? If so then I suggest dual gpu card......
And from the looks of it they are harder to find now they the holy grail, whether it be the greens or the reds.
7990 is due soon, I would recommend that. But they will fly of shelves at realease so try and be quick.
 
Posting in the general forum too since it's kind of a general GPU question and i'm not tied to a brand or architecture.

Hello

Haven't really been keeping up to date with all the latest GPU offerings from AMD or Nvidia for that matter in the past year or so. Been running a single 1GB 5870 in my PC for 2 years without too many issues. Curious - if I were to upgrade today or in the near future, what would be the most obvious GPU to buy? 6870? 7000 series?

Bearing in mind i'm only gaming at 1920x1200 on a 24in monitor...is it worth upgrading right now? My budget is up to $500 but if there's not much improvement to be had for PC gaming at the resolution i'm at, would be good to know that.

Edit to add...the 5870 in my PC is making some odd noises so even if I don't need to upgrade soon, I might want a card to replace it. So in that case, what would be the choice? would something like the 7000 series or 580/680 from Nvidia be complete overkill?

Thanks for any guidance

If your going to upgrade go big. 5870 is faster than a 6870. I don't think a 6970 or gtx570 would be enough for me to justify upgrading.
7870,gtx580,7950,7970 or gtx680 I would consider.

I am going to stick with my 5870 for a while. It still runs games really good at 1920 +1200.
Maybe try cleaning the dust out of it to see if the noise goes away or there are fans for reference 5870 cards for sale on ebay. Make sure the noise is the video card.
 
Wow, thanks for all the excellent advice everyone. Reminds me why I used to spend a lot of time on here and why i'm going to again! Appreciate all your replies.
 
If I were you, keep a look out for used GTX 580's

there is a ton of them flooding ebay and messagbeoards, going for late $200 & early $300

Great bang for your buck.
 
7970's are dropping in price on the FS/FT section. I'm moving to it from my 5870. Maybe you'd like to purchase my 5870 and crossfire ?
 
If I were you, keep a look out for used GTX 580's

there is a ton of them flooding ebay and messagbeoards, going for late $200 & early $300

Great bang for your buck.

+1. Solid upgrade, best bang for the buck!
 
I run a 5870 and still have not even had a reason to overclock it yet and i have played most of the games out there, always 1920x1080 and always completely maxed out and highest DX level selectable in-game. I personally feel that until we start seeing truely next gen games come out such as unreal engine 4 stuff, there is almost no point. Those games probably wont be coming out until sony and microsoft come out with there next-gens meaning at least another year of usefulness to the 5870 ;)
 
I would wait a week or two just to see if AMD readjusts their pricing line up. If you wanted a 7870 due to its current price maybe you can get a 7950 instead due to it droping $50 or more.

7950 is almost the odd ball out due to the 7870 having nearly the same performance less money and the GTX 680 being slightly more expensive but offering a lot better performance.
 
I've got a 5870, and plan on just sitting out of this generation of video cards.

GTX 680 is about double the performance of 5870. When performance gets doubled I always consider that a worthy time to upgrade.
 
GTX 680 is about double the performance of 5870. When performance gets doubled I always consider that a worthy time to upgrade.

On a single x1200 monitor? :/

The only game I've come across that *maybe* makes a statement for an upgrade would be BF3, but even there you don't need a 680/7970 to run a single medium-res monitor. My 5870 has been an awesome buy and I won't be needing an upgrade until IPS monitors are cheaper or the games become more taxing. The likelihood of either of those happening very soon is near nil. I'd guess this 5870 will serve me another 2 years
 
Yes, on a single 1920x1200 monitor. I found even a GTX 580 an OK upgrade from 5870 so 680 is definitely worth it.
 
Yes, on a single 1920x1200 monitor. I found even a GTX 580 an OK upgrade from 5870 so 680 is definitely worth it.

But if that's the case then wouldn't it have been a better upgrade in splitting the $$ between monitor(s) and GPU? I'm not questioning the performance boost from a 5870>GTX680 but whether you need the 680 for a single x1200 monitor, and quite frankly unless you demand an absolute 60+FPS at all times then it just doesn't make sense to me.

My 5870 has been nothing short of fantastic for the $$ I've paid and hasn't shown any signs of slowing down at all

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The 5870 wouldn't be that far behind the GTX580 (10fps?) and I'd wager that's the worst case scenario as far as popular modern titles go.

From my standpoint I've been able to play every game at highest settings minus AA on every single title I've played on the 5870 and it's given me great performance and hasn't lost a step yet. Unless I added more pixels along with that beefier GPU then I don't see the point.
 
7970's are dropping in price on the FS/FT section. I'm moving to it from my 5870. Maybe you'd like to purchase my 5870 and crossfire ?

Thanks for the offer but already crossfired initially with 2 5870's on my early build and didn't care for it. Ended up selling the second 5870 and just keeping 1.
 
I still have a 5870 Toxic card that is 2gb. It runs games well, with a lot of good settings but definitely not all the eye candy. It also is capable of running my AutoCad 2010LT.

I had been thinking of upgrading to the 680gtx in 2 months. I'm not sure what to do with the 5870 when I'm done, not sure if I can get anyone to bite on it here since I have no heatware and don't typically sell my used stuff. Not a big deal a guess one of my many unemployed friends will get a free gift.
 
I still have a 5870 Toxic card that is 2gb. It runs games well, with a lot of good settings but definitely not all the eye candy. It also is capable of running my AutoCad 2010LT.

I had been thinking of upgrading to the 680gtx in 2 months. I'm not sure what to do with the 5870 when I'm done, not sure if I can get anyone to bite on it here since I have no heatware and don't typically sell my used stuff. Not a big deal a guess one of my many unemployed friends will get a free gift.

If you are willing to ship first to someone here that will help you sell your card. However if you go this route I highly suggest making sure they have a good amount of heatware plus a long history on this forum.

A 5870 is still no slouch for gaming in my opinion. Should last easily until next gen consoles come and we see more of a need to upgrade.
 
I too am running a 5870 and while its all I need for the vast majority of games, it does run out of steam every once in a while. With max settings, Crysis 2 can get into the 30's and Batman AC is in the mid 40's most of the time. Id like to patch both of them to DX11 but think theyll drop down too low in frame rates. Metro and Crysis 1 and Warhead are also in the mid 30's most of the time at max settings. I dont play BF3 but judging by the benchmarks Ive seen, a 5870 would be ok for max settings but youd never be 60+.

So Ive been thinking about upgrading myself because I want as much eye candy as I can get and it bugs me to have to lower settings. Problem is, youll have to drop $350 minimum to get an upgrade. The 6950 and GTX560 Ti are upgrades over the 5870 but only marginally and definitely not enough to warrant the price tag. The GTX570 and 6970 would be a good size upgrade but again, not more than 10% maybe and Im not sure thats worth $350.

The GTX580 is the point where I think its starts becoming worth it. It is much faster than the 5870 in most games and will handle any game at max settings at 1920x1080 or 1200. Theyre getting below $400 now that the 680's are out and thats a pretty good deal.

However, if you can swing $500, Id jump on a GTX680 in a second without hesitation. Itll simply shred any game on the market right now at your resolution with full tilt settings. In fact, itll be nearly twice as fast as your 5870 in a lot of games.

So I do think upgrading from a 5870 isnt a bad idea right now and the GTX680 is definitely the way to go if you can swing its $500 price tag. If not, the $380 GTX580 is also a very significant upgrade. I wouldnt mess with anything below those cards because while they may be faster, itll only be by a little and not enough to justify the $300 price tag.
 
I'm running a 5870 and it's been great but I think it's time to finally upgrade to the gtx 680. only reason is that I have a 30" high res monitor. if i was running at 1920x1080 i would keep my 5870.

when i can only run SC2 around 35fps at my native res it's time to upgrade, lol =)
 
680

I too have a 5870 and I'm moving up to a 680 just as soon as I can get my hands on IB

It's a worthy upgrade for sure. I've looked at multiple reviews and paid particular attention to 1920x1080 or 1200. (I'm running 19x12) and double the performance isn't uncommon.
 
It does seem like I would need to move to at least a 580 (on the nvidia side of things) to get a significant bump at my current res. Would I need to worry about being CPU bottle-necked if I moved to a 580 or 680? I am running an i7 930 at 3.4Ghz.
 
there is no cpu bottleneck to worry about until you hit some crossfire scaling. Anything at 1920+ resolutions simply becomes GPU limited. You can see the scaling in many articles. Any present duel core runs almost the same fps over 1920x resolutions. from a 120$ amd to a 900$ intel chip you will get the same framerate short of threaded games at 2560x1600. Just dump the money into a 680 and turn on 4x SSAA in all your favorite games they will look like new!
 
B

From my standpoint I've been able to play every game at highest settings minus AA on every single title I've played on the 5870 and it's given me great performance and hasn't lost a step yet. Unless I added more pixels along with that beefier GPU then I don't see the point.

Why does everyone make this mistake. You basically are saying "I dont see a need for a higher end GPU and x1200 unless you want to run at a smooth fps or turn up your graphics"


A lot of us like to run 60fps or more solid and like to turn up the AA and in game options. I went from a 580 to a 680 and let me tell you the difference is huge at 1080p on my monitor. My BF3 performance is smoother and I was even able to go from MXAA of to 4xMXAA while maintaining a smooth framerate. Top it off with some fantastic power management (the card clocks itself down to 600mhz when playing Wow) and this is probably the single best GPU upgrade I've made.


To the OP. If you can afford the $500 asking price, the 680gtx is an incredible card. It provides tangable performance increases and great power management. It also runs 11C cooler in my case than my 580 did.
 
If you're concerned with BF3 performance which seems to be what most people are basing the need to upgrade on then I would recommend this article.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/battlefield-3-graphics-performance,3063.html

You can see that at high quality running 1920x1080 the 5870 was able to achieve 59.12 FPS
Under the same settings and the same resolution the 580 was able to achieve 68.96FPS

This discussion intrigues me as well since I have a 5870 currently. IMO I would probably not bother upgrading for anything less than the 680 at this point. The 580 is an upgrade, but unless you are getting a steal of a deal on one I don't know that it's worth an extra $$$$.

For instance in Canada you can get about $150 for your old 5870, and a used 580 still runs you about $320. If you are like me and your 5870 is still faring well at your resolution then I would wait and see what the next generation brings rather than a relatively minor upgrade that will just have you wanting the next generation when it comes out anyways.

If you really do need an upgrade then do it right and get a 680 if your budget is $500 anyways.

Personally I think I will ride out my 5870 until the next gen is out then decide if I want a reduced price 680 or the latest and greatest based on the price/performance.

My 2 cents.
 
My son uses a 2GB 5850. Absolutely zero issues at 1080p. He plays everything.

My daughter and I uses 2GB 6950s same deal, but im at 19x12 like you.

I think texture and frame buffer is too low on a 1GB card is your issue.
 
7870 is the best card AMD makes for you. Sure it's not as fast as 7970 but not that much slower uses way less power and $200 cheaper. Best performance per watt of any video card. It is also newer tech. I think 7970 is overkill at that res. It will be about 75% faster than what you have and use half the power. The high end cards everyone else is suggesting will be 100% faster and use same power. Meh.
 
7870 is the best card AMD makes for you. Sure it's not as fast as 7970 but not that much slower uses way less power and $200 cheaper. Best performance per watt of any video card. It is also newer tech. I think 7970 is overkill at that res. It will be about 75% faster than what you have and use half the power. The high end cards everyone else is suggesting will be 100% faster and use same power. Meh.

at that price point you are better off getting a 580 over the 7870... why overclock a 7870 when a stock 580 is better for barely any more money.

newer tech newer tech what what? it doesnt really matter.. unless you have a bestbuy 500w power supply power consumption is irrelevant.
 
at that price point you are better off getting a 580 over the 7870... why overclock a 7870 when a stock 580 is better for barely any more money.

newer tech newer tech what what? it doesnt really matter.. unless you have a bestbuy 500w power supply power consumption is irrelevant.

I don't agree. 133W power difference will cost you $60 a year more to run it if you pay just 4 hours a day. Are you going to send him $60 a year? No? Then the 7870 is a better deal.
 
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