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which upgrade would you do?

E

ebduncan

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Feb 1, 2008
Messages
2,009
My current system

AMD phenom 9950 @3.1ghz
ATI 4870 512gb, 800mhz core, 1050 mem
4gb DDR2 1066
ThermalTake toughpower 800watt psu
Western Digital Black 1 tb sata 2 7200 drive x 2 raid 0
Gigabyte MA790gp-ds4h mobo
windows 7 64bit

I am looking to update a part of my system. Which upgrade you think i would get the most bang for the buck. I currently play @ 1920x1080 resolution. Looking to get some more eye candy in the games, some of the next gen games are not running to well at the higher settings. I do alot of muti-tasking, photoshop, Cad, office, etc.. etc.. but gaming is what i do most.

ATI 6870 video card
Phenom II 970 processor, or 1075t
New AM3 motherboard such as GA-890GPA-UD3H (890gx chipset, ddr3 mem, and 4200 chipset hybrid crossfire support with my current 4870)

Now ideally all 3 upgrades would be the best, but i don't have that kinda $$ to work with atm. looking for under 250$.
 
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A new CPU and new GPU would be ideal for you. I don't see a need to upgrade to a DDR3 motherboard since the one you have now is already pretty good. I would say upgrade your GPU now and then buy a Phenom II CPU once you can afford it. Within your price range, a 6870 would be the sweet spot, but if you don't want to max out your budget then go for a 6850.
 
Rule of thumb is that the video card will give you the biggest increase in fps if you game at high resolutions or like to use a lot of eye candy. My vote would be to get the ATI 6870. You can upgrade your cpu next year with Sandybridge or Bulldozer.
 
Make sure you check the performance numbers of a 6870. It's not the jump in performance you may think it is. It's actually a slight step down from the current ATI cards.

Your budget may be limiting as well. But you could benefit from a new CPU or video card if it allows. The 460GTX I got recently runs everything very well and I game at 1920x1200. Specs in sig.
 
Archer75 said:
Make sure you check the performance numbers of a 6870. It's not the jump in performance you may think it is. It's actually a slight step down from the current ATI cards.
Click to expand...
It's not as fast as a 5870, but it's certainly faster than his current 4870 and it's also more powerful than anything else within that price range.
 
the 6870 is quite a jump in performance vs a single 4870.

i figured the GPU is where I need to upgrade.

But the other upgrade options are pretty viable as well. The motherboard upgrade would allow me to run hybird crossfire, giving a boost to the GPU performance along with the benefits of DDR 3. another (20% or so)

The Cpu upgrade would net some gains in FPS, as the larger L3, and much higher clock Fequency.

Gpu Upgrade would give me DX 11 support, higher fps, couple other bonus's the 5870 is faster than 4870x2. The 6870 is a tad slower than the 5870. I am betting with a overclock the 6870 will match the 5870s

My current setup doesn't have any problems running all the games i play at 1920x1200. Some games allow me to use AA,and AF. Would be nice to have a bit more performance to be able to run AA, and AF in all games. I can achieve these goals with any of the upgrade i noted. Some of the Next gen games that are coming out is where my system doesn't really perform where'd i want it to. (metro 2033, etc.)

Going to wait a week, before i make my purchase, but will prolly pick up a ati 6870. Then in another week or so, i can sell my 4870, and grab a new cpu.
 
SSD? brings nothing to the terms of performance in games, minus load times. my Current Hard Drive setup is plenty fast.

Now just need to choose which ati 6870 i want to go with. Asus has the voltage tweak, but they seem to all use the referance cooler.
 
Another vote for GPU, then CPU.

I'm not sure where you're getting that 20% increase in performance number for hybrid crossfire, but I'd question that.
 
with the current motherboard you have i would go with a phenom II x4 955 or phenom II x6 1055T. board should handle both processors fine and you will see a HUGE performance increase frame rate wise with that 4870. then wait for the price wars to settle down between nvidia and AMD over the next 3-4 weeks and snag a 6870 when the 6970's come out next month.

but seeing as how you do a lot of multi-tasking id suggest the 1055T or 1090T(if your a newbie to overclocking). overclock either of them to 4ghz along with the NB to 2.8-3ghz and have fun!

seen some people suggesting video card over replacing the CPU and i highly disagree, the phenom I 9950 even at 3.1ghz is a huge bottleneck and a power hungry processor. the 9950 at 3.1ghz is comparable to the athlon II x4 640..

but you have to compare what works best for you. me personally i can sacrifice 10-15 fps in a game compared to spending an extra 30-40 minutes on work waiting for things to render in CAD.

Roman79 said:
Another vote for GPU, then CPU.

I'm not sure where you're getting that 20% increase in performance number for hybrid crossfire, but I'd question that.
Click to expand...

hybrid crossfire only works on the low end cards like the HD4350. doesnt work on the high end cards so you would be correct.
 
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sirmonkey1985 said:
seen some people suggesting video card over replacing the CPU and i highly disagree, the phenom I 9950 even at 3.1ghz is a huge bottleneck and a power hungry processor. the 9950 at 3.1ghz is comparable to the athlon II x4 640..
Click to expand...

Athlon II X4 640 is not a bad CPU. He has a quad core at 3.1, would two more cores really make that much of a difference in his games? I doubt it. If your multitasking is feeling sluggish then maybe get a 6 core.

GPU upgrade now. Sandy Bridge/Bulldozer right around the corner.
 
hmms guess the hybrid cross fire wouldn't work with the 4870 with the new mobo. that throws that upgrade out the window.

I've decided to do both GPU and CPU upgrades.

Cpu is going to be a 1055T (don't plan on leaving it at stock speeds :-D)
Gpu is Asus Ati 6870.

Athlon II X4 640 would be a downgrade almost, it has no L3 cache. I went over my budget, but well couldn't decide on which i wanted to do more, so i decided both. I will put the Cpu in first and run through some benchmarks to see what kind of benefit i get from the cpu only. Then I'll throw in the new graphics card and go back to the old cpu to see what i get. Then well of coarse the final combo will be assembled. Just would like to see what % of performance I gain with the cpu upgrade only, vs the video card upgrade only. Im sure it will help some people with the orginal phenom systems.

The motherboard will just have to wait, and i will be waiting for the bulldozer platform to come out and i'll do another upgrade with cpu/mem/mobo.
 
Shane_c82 said:
Athlon II X4 640 is not a bad CPU. He has a quad core at 3.1, would two more cores really make that much of a difference in his games? I doubt it. If your multitasking is feeling sluggish then maybe get a 6 core.

GPU upgrade now. Sandy Bridge/Bulldozer right around the corner.
Click to expand...

yeah you are right the 640 is not a bad processor. but the phenom II's are still better in gaming with the L3 cache along with the black edition unlocked multiplier processors to choose from which overclock better and are much easier to overclock for the inexperienced.

depends on the game, games like BF:BC2 and GTA4 and most console games it has a huge effect. games like SC2 theres absolutely no effect because the engine they used SUCKS. but the question in the future will be, how many more game developers will go with Havok within the next year or so. if more decide to use Havok then 6 cores will have a big effect in gaming.

but the reason i suggested the 1090T now is the fact that hes gone this long with a phenom I then hes probably not an early hardware adopter like a lot of us, so waiting for the bulldozer or sandy bridge just wouldnt be worth it when a 1090T will easily last him 2-3 years while bulldozer and sandy bridge prices drop to acceptable levels price wise.

other reason i suggested the cpu upgrade is that the 4870 is not a bad card even at 1920x1080 and we can expect prices to drop on the 6870 as nvidia tries to enduce a price war with AMD that nvidia will lose. so id expect to see some rebates/discounts showing up when the 6970's get released.
 
ebduncan said:
hmms guess the hybrid cross fire wouldn't work with the 4870 with the new mobo. that throws that upgrade out the window.

I've decided to do both GPU and CPU upgrades.

Cpu is going to be a 1055T (don't plan on leaving it at stock speeds :-D)
Gpu is Asus Ati 6870.

Athlon II X4 640 would be a downgrade almost, it has no L3 cache. I went over my budget, but well couldn't decide on which i wanted to do more, so i decided both. I will put the Cpu in first and run through some benchmarks to see what kind of benefit i get from the cpu only. Then I'll throw in the new graphics card and go back to the old cpu to see what i get. Then well of coarse the final combo will be assembled. Just would like to see what % of performance I gain with the cpu upgrade only, vs the video card upgrade only. Im sure it will help some people with the orginal phenom systems.

The motherboard will just have to wait, and i will be waiting for the bulldozer platform to come out and i'll do another upgrade with cpu/mem/mobo.
Click to expand...


good choices, and yes i agree wait til the BD comes out before doing a board upgrade. you already own a board that supports the phenom II's theres no reason to go with DDR3. even with the slight improvement on the DDR3 IMC with the thubans(x6's) its still not worth the money.
 
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