Looking to upgrade Radeon HD 5870 soon but need some advice

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
T

Trey Mitchell

Honorable
Jun 26, 2013
4
0
10,510
So, I am getting to the point where I am needing to tone down the graphics settings in many of the games I play to the point of it being visually frustrating. Just for some background, I play MMO's and RTS games primarily. MMO's more as of late.

Here is my current setup:

CPU:
Intel Core i7-860 (Lynnfield, B1)
Motherboard:
Alienware 0RV30W
Chipset:
Intel P55 (IbexPeak)
Memory:
8192 MBytes @ 801 MHz, 9.0-9-9-24
4096 MB PC12800 DDR3 SDRAM - G Skill F3-12800CL9-4GBRL
4096 MB PC12800 DDR3 SDRAM - G Skill F3-12800CL9-4GBRL
Graphics:
ATI/AMD Radeon HD 5870 (CYPRESS XT), 1024 MB GDDR5 SDRAM
Drives:
OCZ-AGILITY3, 117.2 GB, Serial ATA 6Gb/s
ST31000528AS, 976.8 GB, Serial ATA 3Gb/s
ST1000DM003-9YN162, 976.8 GB, Serial ATA 6Gb/s
OS:
Microsoft Windows 8 Professional (x64) Build 9200

My first thought was to upgrade my graphics card to a GTX 660ti (would love to go back to Nvidia card) but the more I read, the more I think that may not increase my FPS much in the games I play.

So the point of this question...should I upgrade card or is there a more apparent bottleneck?

Thanks!
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
jokyteddy

jokyteddy

Honorable
Jan 17, 2013
160
0
10,710
What sort of MMOs and RTS games are we talking about here? If it's just some WoW or LoL then your CPU will be fine. Games like Shogun 2 is really CPU/ GPU demanding so your CPU setup might bootleneck your new graphics card.
But anyways, GTX 760 just got released and it's only priced at $250 so I would get that over the 660 Ti
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
T

Trey Mitchell

Honorable
Jun 26, 2013
4
0
10,510


At the moment, Guild Wars 2 and Tera. RTS wise, Sins of Solar Empire, etc.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
jokyteddy

jokyteddy

Honorable
Jan 17, 2013
160
0
10,710
i7 860 is only 10-15% slower than the ivy bridge CPUs so don't worry about your CPU bottlenecking. HD 5870 is relatively old (2 generations ago) so get a GTX 760 and you'll see improvement for sure.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
T

Trey Mitchell

Honorable
Jun 26, 2013
4
0
10,510


Nice, thank you for the tip! One more quick question, do you see any issues with the GTX 760 working with my Motherboard? It does not feature PCI E 3.0 and I am not super familiar with the backwards compatibility of it.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
jokyteddy

jokyteddy

Honorable
Jan 17, 2013
160
0
10,710
I couldn't find much information about your motherboard Alienware 0RV30W. But as long as it has PCIE 2.0 x 16 slot then it won't bottleneck the GTX 760. PCIE 3.0 cards are backward to all versions of PCIE slots.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
coozie7

coozie7

Champion
Jun 2, 2007
10,015
10
59,215
This has not been updated to include the GTX760 yet but that card fits in around the GTX670/HD7950 class in the chart at the end:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/gaming-graphics-card-review,review-32693-7.html

I'll stick my neck out and say that the CPU is a restriction and your first job would be to get a better CPU cooler and give it a good working over with the overclocking stick (you do n't say if it's already overclocked).
Given the extremely aggressive pricing of the GTX760 it's hard not to recommend it but I think you should go for an overclock first and wait a few weeks to see how prices realign-AMD have yet to announce their response to Nvidias pricing so some drops may be in the offing.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
T

Trey Mitchell

Honorable
Jun 26, 2013
4
0
10,510


It is slightly overclocked (up to 3.1 from 2.8) and has a liquid CPU cooler. My attempts at clocking it higher (through the BIOS) has resulted in unstable boots. Good points on the pricing, I will likely give myself a 3-4 week window.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
coozie7

coozie7

Champion
Jun 2, 2007
10,015
10
59,215
Just as a suggestion, drop a post into the Overclocking Forum and read the stickies there, I'm sure that chip is capable of a good deal more but I know not everyone is happy wielding the overclocking stick so if you are not happy, then do n't do it I'm not here to push you into something you do n't want to do!
This Devil on the other hand is...
Go on.
Go ON.
GO ON! ;).
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom