1. #1

    Video Card upgrade from an HD4870

    I currently have a Sapphire Toxic HD 4870 that I've been meaning to replace for quite a while but never got around to it due to various other components failing but now that I have a little bit of money to toss at the system for an actual performance boost I think I'm ready to go through with it.

    I was looking at the HD6850 line of cards and have it narrowed down to three selections:

    The Sapphire Vaper-X
    MSI Cyclone PE(Also linked in the news post as Chauds choice for the Dolphin build)
    or the ASUS EAH6850.

    The Sapphire one seems to have a higher core and memory clock(800/1100 compared to 775(790)/1000 on the other two) and the ASUS one is about 13$ cheaper(free shipping+5$ less by default).

    My PSU is the PCPnC S61EPS 610W unit so I'm certain it's large enough to accommodate any of those without issue, I'm familiar with both Sapphire and MSI's products so I'm leaning a bit to those two, more so to the Sapphire due to the clock speeds though I can't imagine that little of a clock increase changing much over the other two.

    Any preference between the three? Should they all be close enough in performance for it to be a non-issue regardless of the one I choose?

  2. #2
    It's pretty bad upgrade to be honest. Radeon 4870 is still very well performing card, and only about 20-30% behind R6850. Only thing that would really benefit from it are the latest games that are heavily stacked with DX11 effects.

    Would recommend going for R6950 at least to get your money's worth, or the Nvidia equivalent GTX560ti.
    Never going to log into this garbage forum again as long as calling obvious troll obvious troll is the easiest way to get banned.
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  3. #3
    Think of 4870 as an equal to 6770 but without DX11.

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by vesseblah View Post
    It's pretty bad upgrade to be honest. Radeon 4870 is still very well performing card, and only about 20-30% behind R6850. Only thing that would really benefit from it are the latest games that are heavily stacked with DX11 effects.

    Would recommend going for R6950 at least to get your money's worth, or the Nvidia equivalent GTX560ti.
    Yeah I realize it won't be a major upgrade and would prefer something in the 6900 series cards but I know I won't have 200$ to spare for a while to go that route, I do have a few games I play often that would take advantage of DX11 and would love to enjoy those benefits which is part of the reason behind the upgrade. I might be able to hold out till the 7000 series cards release and see if there's a drop in price for the 6900 series. I'd just love to gain the benefits of a DX11 capable card.

  5. #5
    If you can wait there will be new AMD cards in Q1 next year, likely the best option. Will be a bigger upgrade than going to the 6XXX series.

  6. #6
    High Overlord
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    I just upgraded my 4870 with the 6970 2gb. It was well worth it. Go for the 6970, you wont regret it!

  7. #7
    Stood in the Fire Halabash's Avatar
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    i would wait, only because windows 8 has relatively been recently announced, which heralds the new dx iteration in this case dx12. The great thing about this is ,usually games are about a year behind the dx release for support so techically speaking, your 4870 will stay competitive for about another 18mos approx, given whenever the 1st dx12 cards drop. At that point you'd see a decrease in the price of the current dx11 cards. I don't know if there is such a huge disparity between dx10 and 11 maybe some slight things. If you've got disposable cash I recommend to go with a nice big hd monitor, you'll see and feel the difference if you don't have one already =). Otherwise the 6950's are a clear stepping stone up from the 4870, since the 5770 is a sidegrade (same card with dx11) and the 6850 is the same performance just efficient architecture to keep it cooler, if you have high airflow box, I don't think the net benefit would be appreciable. but hey what do i know, I'm living happily with a radeon 4850 which is worlds behind your 4870! good luck and good shopping! ps Sapphire is the one I'd go with of your choices above

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Halabash View Post
    I don't know if there is such a huge disparity between dx10 and 11 maybe some slight things.
    Main things going up from DX9 to DX10 is hardware accelerated particle effects (more realistic fire, sparks, smoke, water streams etc) and from DX10 to DX11 tesselation (mathematically increasing polygon count of objects to make smoother curves).
    Never going to log into this garbage forum again as long as calling obvious troll obvious troll is the easiest way to get banned.
    Trolling should be.

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