Worth the upgrade?

M

MGDMN

2[H]4U
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Right now I am running a 512 meg version of the 4870 but I was wondering if stepping up to this would be worth it? Seems like a good deal to me.
 
It's great deal and you will see a difference, but how much of one really depends on the resolution you game at.
 
A 4870 512MB versus a GTX 260 192 at 1680x1050? No, you won't see much difference at all. I would not do it.
 
What about a 260 216? Or will I not really benefit at all with my current res going with a higher end card?
 
MGDMN said:
What about a 260 216? Or will I not really benefit at all with my current res going with a higher end card?
Click to expand...

You will not see any major improvements in FPS at that resolution.
 
JaYp146, BAC4D00R SP1D0R, and evilsofa is correct: No significant improvement at your resolution that will justify that $190 with that GTX 260.
 
Well I dont want to limit my options to only the 260. Is there any card that will be faster at this same resolution or should I look to upgrade my monitor first?
 
Faster? yes. hd4890, gtx 295, 285, 280, 275, etc.

Few games will use 512mb @ 1680x1050 though, I would save the $
 
MGDMN said:
Well I dont want to limit my options to only the 260. Is there any card that will be faster at this same resolution or should I look to upgrade my monitor first?
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Upgrade your monitor first. While the GTX280/285, GTX275, and HD4890 are faster than the HD4870 512MB, you'll probably won't notice the difference at that resolution to justify the costs ($250 +)
 
Danny Bui said:
Upgrade your monitor first. While the GTX280/285, GTX275, and HD4890 are faster than the HD4870 512MB, you'll probably won't notice the difference at that resolution to justify the costs ($250 +)
Click to expand...

this, your card is fine for a 22", even a 2.3mp monitor for 95% of games
 
hossdaddy said:
I would suggest a hardware upgrade first. For the same $200 you could do this upgrade and significantly improve your performance,

AMD Athlon 64 X2 7750 Kuma 2.7GHz Socket AM2+ 95W Dual-Core black edition $64.99 + fs
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 $42.99 + fs
GIGABYTE GA-MA770-UD3 AM2+/AM2 AMD 770 ATX $74.99 - $10 mir
Total: $182.97

This will keep up with your 4870.
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not as cost effective as yours but better long term
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103649 $145 Phenom II X3 720 2.8GHz
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131363R open box ASUS M4A79T Deluxe AM3 DDR3 AMD 790FX $137
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227293 OCZ Reaper 4GB DDR3 1333 $65

350 plus shipping, sure you can do better if you look around
 
i made the switch from sapphire 4850 to evga 260gtx 192 and could not be happier, main reason was that CRAP reference stock cooler (buying aftermarket ones gets old and i don't want to leave any traces in case my card goes bad and i have to rma it )

I even managed to do a mild overclock ( 671/1404/1154 ) without any stability issues @ 65% fan setting and the max core after 20 minutes was just 75C, my 4850 could get up to 110C pretty easily, resulting in many crashes while gaming, anything over 105C enables throttle mode mind you

My only gripe is that i still have to go vista/win7 in order to enable ambient occlusion in my older games, http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,...eta-Ambient-Occlusion-in-comparison/Practice/ and that dx9 lighting problem in CSS still remains unsolved http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview.cfm?catid=227&threadid=98286&enterthread=y

I also notice much less texture shimmering when AF is enabled, and i think supersampling + 16x Q AA looks better than detect + quality adaptive AA, too bad that ATI stopped supporting that EATM mode it had a lot of potential if you ask me.

Other reasons to make the switch is that most of the games in the market are nvidia optimized wether you like it or not, with a very exceptions like GRID and call of juarez.

But if you're happy with your framerates and cooling i would say don't bother until DX11 cards come out
 
I am running an i7 920 with 6 gigs of ram. If you were going by the system in my sig, its way outdated. My other hardware is fine.

hossdaddy said:
I would suggest a hardware upgrade first. For the same $200 you could do this upgrade and significantly improve your performance,

AMD Athlon 64 X2 7750 Kuma 2.7GHz Socket AM2+ 95W Dual-Core black edition $64.99 + fs
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 $42.99 + fs
GIGABYTE GA-MA770-UD3 AM2+/AM2 AMD 770 ATX $74.99 - $10 mir
Total: $182.97

This will keep up with your 4870.
Click to expand...
 
Danny Bui said:
Upgrade your monitor first. While the GTX280/285, GTX275, and HD4890 are faster than the HD4870 512MB, you'll probably won't notice the difference at that resolution to justify the costs ($250 +)
Click to expand...

I can understand this thought process, but it doesn't make sense in some aspects. There are a few games I can't run like I would want to at 1680x1050 on my 260 GTX (192). Company of Heroes in DX10 with AA/AF for example. Or Crysis, but no one expects to run that game. I wouldn't say the resolution is holding these cards back. I'm thinking about pairing a couple 4890s at 1680x1050 just to make the games I have more playable at settings I want to run them at. Sure I could get a new monitor with a higher res but then I'm having the same problem I am now at 1680x1050 with games running with sub-par performance.

At 1680x1050 I'll take all the performance I can get, I wouldn't even dream about 19XX or 25XX. Plus, I love my monitor. And quite frankly, 1680x1050 is the perfect resolution for me right now. My next upgrade will probably go from 22" 1680 to a 24" 1920, but for now I'm more than happy at the lower resolution.
 
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I can still make use of my extra gpu horse power, even in "low" resolutions like 1280*960 and 1600*1200 in my 19" CRT, gaming in 1920+ resolutions is SO overrated, there are many things to do in order to improve image quality instead of just upping the resolution, too bad most ppl are ignorant of this.
 
the upgrade, as has been posted is marginal, so unless the total amount of money being put out islike 20-30, not worth it.

However if you go to a gtx 275/280/285/295 or hd4870x2 or hd4890, those are bigger/better step ups.
 
pls update that sig MGDMN as a courtesy to those that are trying to help you. Yes ultimately it was an assumption on my part but 99.9% of the time when a question is asked like your did its based on the sys sig you are running.
 
MGDMN said:
I am running an i7 920 with 6 gigs of ram. If you were going by the system in my sig, its way outdated. My other hardware is fine.
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in that case this is easy, just drop another 4870b 512mb. I still don't think it worthwhile to upgrade just for the memory
 
Alright so I updated my rig in my sig. Adding another 4870 and running crossfire would give me the best benefit?
 
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