Worth upgrading from xfire 5850's?

st3ph3n · May 28, 2013

Hi guys,

I built this system with the help of this forum back in December of 09. I was wondering if it's worth it to upgrade the video card from a pair of 5850's based on my CPU or if it's time to start over. I'm not a huge fan of xfire after using it for the last few years, but I don't want to get an expensive single card if my CPU is just going to bottleneck it.

Any other upgrade path suggestions are very welcome. The box is used solely for gaming.

Currently:
Intel Core i5-750 2.66ghz
Gigabyte P55-UD4P
Corsair 750W
8gb (4x2gb) DDR3 1333
Samsung 256gb 840 SSD
Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 + Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 Xtreme (btw, does it matter which order these are slotted in my box?)

Thanks in advance!

Steve

slomo4sho · May 28, 2013

PNY VCGGTX650TBQXPB GeForce GTX 650 Ti BOOST 2GB is $120 after rebate and would provide slightly better performance. You can sell your existing card on eBay for the same price.

If your motherboard supports SLI, you can pickup 2 for $240 AR and it would provide slightly higher performance than a GTX 680.

swifty_morgan · May 28, 2013

monitor size/resolution/games and other usage. ??

hizodge · May 28, 2013

Get GTX 660 or HD 7870.

The order doesn't matter, the faster card will always automatically downclock to meet the specs of the lower GPU.

st3ph3n · May 28, 2013

swifty_morgan :

23" 1920x1080

I play mostly MMOs and FPSs on it. Don't use it for much else other than browsing.

Thanks everyone

MC_K7 · May 28, 2013

I believe your CPU could bottleneck some newer video cards and games. So it might be better to start over. But it's not too bad either, maybe you can keep it as it is for a while or maybe overclock it, and wait sometimes next year to upgrade. There should be amazing new video cards coming in 2014.

iam2thecrowe · May 28, 2013

I used to have crossfire 6850's, which is pretty similar to 5850's. I went to the gtx660 as a sidegrade, more than an upgrade. The average fps is about the same, but it removed all microstuttering and is better for games that use more than 1gb vram

swifty_morgan · May 28, 2013

thecrow above touches on the vram limitations and mc47 touches on the cpu.................... not enough vram made me put my 5850 aside. that's what I got for being too cheap to buy the 2gig model.

cpu limitations..... forget the gtx660 series. for some reason i found those to be more cpu bound compared to it's rival. ( anything under ther 6-8 series amd and intel Qi5's)
In the price range and for better performance I think a 7870 would be more than enough and will be better for you.

iam2thecrowe · May 28, 2013

swifty_morgan :

how did you find that to be so? Toms did an article not too long ago claiming NVidia cards were less cpu demanding. the 7870 is a fine card, but its also more expensive than the 660.

swifty_morgan · May 28, 2013

good for toms. I just read an article the put together that I disagree with. think it was the latest "best for the money" thing they did.

also, go look at their test system. see if there's any comparison with what the op has............. bet not even close.

st3ph3n · May 30, 2013

Thanks everyone, I appreciate all the feedback. I ended up getting an MSI GTX 660. I don't have any gpu allegiances and was kind of tired of the ATI drivers. I was able to get the 660 for about $30 less than a 7870.

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