Upgrading Radeon 4870 during Black Friday - what to get? (esp for BF3)

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Yoma44

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 3, 2008
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First off, here are the specs for my system:
CPU Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz, VID VisionTek Radeon HD 4870 2.0 x16, PSU CORSAIR CMPSU-450VX 450W, MBO Gigabyte GA EP45-DS3LATX Motherboard, RAM 8GB G.SKILL (4 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800, HDD Western Digital Caviar SE16 640GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s, CAS Lian Li PC-A05B Mid Tower, (OS Win7 64 bit)

I want to run BF3 and Skyrim better. Would spending about $200 on a new card be worth it? Should I just wait until January-March?

Requirements:
1. Improves performance for BF3 and Skyrim - especially for 1080p since I'll be sending the signal to my 60" plasma.
2. Has HDMI out so I can connect it to my receiver for surround sound.
3. I was considering upgrading to Nvidia this time, mostly for my work purposes (Unreal Engine uses nVidia drivers better).

I believe I have one PCI-E 16x slot, but I'm not sure what cards would be overkill for my CPU.
 
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I would look into bumping your q6600 up to at least 3ghz if you could. The game only takes advantage of two cores and is very dependent on the clock speed. I seen a pretty decent difference between running 2.8 and 3.5 on my Phenom II. I was running pretty smooth with my 4850 on high with FXAA.

Personally I think you would be happy with anything around a 6870/5870/560ti. I recently got a 5870 for $150 through a thread on HotDeals and Skyrim runs smooth 1920x1080, Ultra, 4xAA, 16xAF. Just don't be surprised when your frame rate isn't a huge difference because I just feel at 2.4ghz, your cpu is holding you back for Skyrim.
 
Yeah, I would up the speed of your CPU first. But I would get a 560 Ti, middle of the road price-wise and in both those games at the moment it outperforms the 6950.
 
If it was my system i would not upgrade it.
Your power supply is only 450 wats and may not be enough for a newer video card worth a damn. :(

I personally would pick up a new power supply first, something like a 750 to 800 wats then think about a video card.

If you over clocked the 6600 to 3 ghz it will do ok in most newer games but your going to want to upgrade it sooner or later, you may as well start with the power supply and start collecting parts for a new build.
 
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Alright, while I'm considering all this so far, there is one more crazy option I want to throw into the bunch.
I happen to have an extra radeon 4870 that I'm not using. My motherboard won't support the crossfire option. But... should I start by getting a new motherboard? If so, then what?
 
No, getting a new motherboard just to CFX a pair of 4870s is not worth it because you would probably need to upgrade your power supply too.

Using newegg's PSU calculator @ http://educations.newegg.com/tool/psucalc/index.html
I inputted your current specs and they recommended ~466W PSU
When I updated it to include another 4870 they recommended ~ 661W PSU
 
Runt. said:
No, getting a new motherboard just to CFX a pair of 4870s is not worth it because you would probably need to upgrade your power supply too.

Using newegg's PSU calculator @ http://educations.newegg.com/tool/psucalc/index.html
I inputted your current specs and they recommended ~466W PSU
When I updated it to include another 4870 they recommended ~ 661W PSU
Click to expand...

but he already has it and could possibly break even if he sells his current board... at most he would have to fork out ~$40 additional or so for a board, and ~$100 or so for a PSU... and that is worst case scenario.

I'd say XFire the 4870 if you have that ability!
 
If its only going to cost ~$150 more or less for some CFX action it doesn't seem so bad especially if you can get the performance of a HD4870x2 ~ HD6970 but I am not sure if that is the case.
 
Runt. said:
If its only going to cost ~$150 more or less for some CFX action it doesn't seem so bad especially if you can get the performance of a HD4870x2 ~ HD6970 but I am not sure if that is the case.
Click to expand...


here is an idea of what 4870 crossfire will give you.

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/...h-quality/Battlefield-Bad-Company-2,2466.html


Mind you if you overclock them to 850mhz core, you can get 4890 Crossfire Performance.

If you check the charts, you'll see that you can trounce a 5870, and you are comparable to GTX 460 performance
 
THANKS for all the help so far!
That sounds like a pretty good option then to try combining those two. Of course, then again it doesn't get the HDMI-out that I wanted for surround sound, so I may still want to pursue a new card.

1. So, if I need to upgrade power supply, is this a good one? It's only 600 W.
PC Power and Cooling Silencer MK III PPCMK3S600 600W
2. Motherboard that would be ideal for my setup? I'm pretty lost at picking those. Any suggestions please?
3. For a new video card: the GTX 560 Ti? Or do those cards still have driver issues?

Note: I've built 2 or 3 of my computers, but I'm no expert. When I put this computer together, it took me about 7 or 8 hours. Should I reconsider changing the mobo in case it could be easily damaged when I try to dismantle it? Changing a video card is easy for me.
 
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What are you trying to do again?

If you are going to upgrade the motherboard for some 4870 CFX action, then a 600W PSU isn't enough from what the newegg PSU calculator indicates .. to play it safe go with at least a 700W PSU.

For a new video card go for either a GTX 560 Ti or HD6950 which may still require a new PSU rated at least 500W or 600W respectively.
 
Yoma44 said:
THANKS for all the help so far!
That sounds like a pretty good option then to try combining those two. Of course, then again it doesn't get the HDMI-out that I wanted for surround sound, so I may still want to pursue a new card.

1. So, if I need to upgrade power supply, is this a good one? It's only 600 W.
PC Power and Cooling Silencer MK III PPCMK3S600 600W
2. Motherboard that would be ideal for my setup? I'm pretty lost at picking those. Any suggestions please?
3. For a new video card: the GTX 560 Ti? Or do those cards still have driver issues?

Note: I've built 2 or 3 of my computers, but I'm no expert. When I put this computer together, it took me about 7 or 8 hours. Should I reconsider changing the mobo in case it could be easily damaged when I try to dismantle it? Changing a video card is easy for me.
Click to expand...

An Antec 650W would be able to handle almost any combination of one graphics card and one CPU.

Don't let these nubs fool you into buying a psu that's way over kill.
 
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I personally would say go for a 6870 or a used 5870. I use my current rig and bf3 is easily playable at 1920x1200
 
CleanSlate said:
An Antec 650W would be able to handle almost any combination of one graphics card and one CPU.

Don't let these nubs fool you into buying a psu that's way over kill.
Click to expand...

Yes 650 wat will handle one video card and CPU just fine but a year or two form now when he gets the itch to upgrade again ?

He seams to hold on to his hardware for a few years and he went cheap on a power supply last time, now he has to get a new one just to be able to use a half decent video card or crosfie the ones he has.:(

I still say get a 750 or 800 wat power supply, the price is really not that much more than a 650 wat if you shop around and find one on sale.
 
5 years from now 650 watts will be plenty for a single GPU video card and CPU in a system. 450 shouldn't be a problem either though it might be pushing it a bit with top end hardware.
 
Thank you! And thanks again to all for the help. :)

I may as well give an update:
So far everything has been great. My only complaint, if I had one, is Windows auto-detects when I turn off my receiver so then it reconfigures the displays on its own. (I have two displays and HDMI surround sound, so I can only keep 2 out of 3 enabled at one time). Drives me a little nuts, but otherwise the hardware is performing like a champ.

If anyone knows how I can disable windows changing displays when the HDMI signal is dropped, I would love to know.
 
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