6870 upgrade!

M

MarshalCooler

New member
Hello, for my friends computer He wants to upgrade for more power, he is wondering if its worth getting another one of his card and crossfire, or buying a whole new one, He does not want to spend over £200 on a new card.

Specs:
PSU: 750W corsair

CPU: i5-3570k @ 4.20ghz

RAM: 8gb

Motherboard: MSI: Z77A-G45
 
A 7870 would be the best card you can get under £200. This Powercolor model would be a good choice for £180. It would be a VERY solid upgrade from a 6870 as shown here in this AnandTech bench.

Adding a second 6870 would be a huge jump in performance as well but honestly, the AMD Crossfire drivers are riddled with issues as are the complaints on the forums about them. Better to go with a single card as AMD single card drivers seem to be solid.

If he could come up with 8 quid more he could step up to this Sapphire 7950 which would be an even better upgrade and would be enough to play anything at max or damn near max settings at 1920x1080 or even 2560x1600.
 
MacLeod said:
A 7870 would be the best card you can get under £200. This Powercolor model would be a good choice for £180. It would be a VERY solid upgrade from a 6870 as shown here in this AnandTech bench.

Adding a second 6870 would be a huge jump in performance as well but honestly, the AMD Crossfire drivers are riddled with issues as are the complaints on the forums about them. Better to go with a single card as AMD single card drivers seem to be solid.

If he could come up with 8 quid more he could step up to this Sapphire 7950 which would be an even better upgrade and would be enough to play anything at max or damn near max settings at 1920x1080 or even 2560x1600.
Click to expand...


this man speak'th the truth.
 
The 6870 is kinda an old card. But to upgrade within that price range, you could go for a 7870. Adding a second 6870 doesn't seem a great option to go for, because its always best to have a single powerful card rather than two.
 
I just upgraded from my 6870 to a msi gtx580, was £140 from aria. Cant decide whether it was a good buy or not :/
 
i'm wanting to upgrade my 6870. I was pretty settled on the idea of getting another and using crossfire. Got to the point where i nearly bought another and my friend told me to check if my PSU had the additional connectors for the additional card...and...it didn't (Yes i am that much of a newbie). So by the time i've bought a compatible PSU and a second card i might as well have just bought one decent card. So seeing as the 6870 still runs all my current games on medium settings with no issues i figured i'd spend some time to save up a bit and invest in very good card.
 
I thought about cross firing my xfx 6870BE, and her indoors said I could have £150 to upgrade my PC this Xmas. But considering a new 6870 would cost £115 or so I sold my old card on fleabay (for a little over £90), put it with my allowance and bought a nice shiney new xfx7950BE.
Just a thought that maybe your mate could do this and have more funds to play with
 
Just goes to show good plans don't last the test of time, got the asus 6870 DCU in January 2011 with the intention of CF when it started to wain now is the time, but everywhere I look the consensus is to get a 7870 then CF that in the future but chances are by the time you would need to CF when playing at 1080p it will be the next gen oh well that's the life of pc hardware.
This is tempting
http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials/Other+products/VTX3D+Black+Edition+Radeon+HD+7870+%28Tahiti+LE%29+OC+2048MB+GDDR5+PCI-Express+Graphics+Card+%2B+5+FREE+GAMES%21+?productId=53474
 
7870 tahiti LE done. don't go crossfire, all it does is increase the electricity bill and the problems.
/edit
just went l33t
 
Mathius said:
Not gojng to mention the whole 1 card better than 2 malarky, as its covered already. :)

http://www.forum.overclock3d.net/showthread.php?t=52077

nuff said!

Steal of a deal.
Click to expand...

Yeah I posted that on the previous page.

Not sure if to keep my 6870 for another year as it still plays most games fine, only the newest 1's I have had to turn settings down a bit in another year the upgrade will be even better. And as I only paid £150 for the 6870 getting 3 years out of it wont be bad
 
Greenback said:
Yeah I posted that on the previous page.

............
Click to expand...

My bad, in mobile at the moment and a few links don't display as they should....

Can't remember if you've oc'd the 6870 or not, or even if its worth it.....
In the meantime though if frames is an issue, maybe drop a screen resolution

My 4870 is still powering on, and run my games through a lowered screen resolution of 1440*900 (1680*1050 native)
 
Mathius said:
My bad, in mobile at the moment and a few links don't display as they should....

Can't remember if you've oc'd the 6870 or not, or even if its worth it.....
In the meantime though if frames is an issue, maybe drop a screen resolution

My 4870 is still powering on, and run my games through a lowered screen resolution of 1440*900 (1680*1050 native)
Click to expand...

Dropping tomb raider from ultimate to ultra gives me an average of 35fps on the benchmark so lowering the resolution as well should make it run fine, I can live with doing that on a few games for a year which confirms my idea of keeping the 6870 and not bother with an upgrade for now. :)

Edit: dropping resolution and detail down 1 level I get an average of 54fps so well playable
 
Last edited:
Greenback said:
Dropping tomb raider from ultimate to ultra gives me an average of 35fps on the benchmark so lowering the resolution as well should make it run fine, I can live with doing that on a few games for a year which confirms my idea of keeping the 6870 and not bother with an upgrade for now. :)

Edit: dropping resolution and detail down 1 level I get an average of 54fps so well playable
Click to expand...

i had a 6870 as well and i had the same idea, waiting for the next generation until i upgrade. but tbh, nobody wins the waiting game and i don't regret getting the 670.
i personally don't care much about graphics, but i need a high framerate/resolution to be happy. if i can't play it in 1080p with 60+fps i'm not happy. with some games i'm not even happy with that, 120+ fps is so much better.
 
SeekaX said:
i had a 6870 as well and i had the same idea, waiting for the next generation until i upgrade. but tbh, nobody wins the waiting game and i don't regret getting the 670.
i personally don't care much about graphics, but i need a high framerate/resolution to be happy. if i can't play it in 1080p with 60+fps i'm not happy. with some games i'm not even happy with that, 120+ fps is so much better.
Click to expand...

Well if graphics isn't the issue then dropping tomb raider to normal I get 70 fps in 1080p
 
Just to agree with every one else, get the Tahiti card.

In the perfect world there would be single cards that were affordable that could 'do it all' so to speak. The fact that Crossfire or SLI is needed just to run some games is pretty bad.

My opinion is you should get a powerful card first, then Crossfire or SLI it so that you can fall back onto one card when you need to (and you will need to at times).

Crossfire or SLI should be decadence and nothing else IMO. Relying on it solely to run games properly is a recipe for disaster (been there done that) as you often end up turning down settings.
 
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