Radeon 6870 upgrading to a ?

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cappster

cappster

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Jan 24, 2007
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I have a 6870 that I was thinking about upgrading to something else. I was thinking either a 7870 (they are really cheap and give a nice performance boost), an R9 270 or an R9 280x. My only concern is my somewhat dated system: Q9400 @ 3.2, 6GB RAM. I am not sure when I want to upgrade the CPU, RAM, Mobo, but I would like to turn up the graphics a bit with what I already have. I usually game @ 1680x1050 on my Samsung 2232bw 22" monitor. Should I keep what I have, spring for a mid range card or go for the upper mid-range 280x?

Thanks

Cappster
 
Solution
ingtar33
well i don't think anyone would call a 280x an "upper mid ranged" gpu. That's at the top end of the spectrum... upper midranged at 1440p maybe... but top end for 1080p.

that q9400 is a solid cpu... you'll see a nice bump going to either the 7870/270x or 7970/280x; though you will still get a bit of bottle-necking due to the older cpu. I would say get the 270x/7870, its more then enough gpu for the resolution you're playing at, and save your cash for the cpu/mb upgrade down the road. There are some amazing deals on ghz ed 7870s right now... they can be had for $129 today at newegg... crazy good deal right there.
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chumly

chumly

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Get the nicest card you can afford. Your PC has almost hit its end-of-the-line, so if you get the nicest graphics card possible, when it does get time to replace everything, you don't have to worry about the GPU.
 
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ingtar33

ingtar33

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Dec 17, 2012
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well i don't think anyone would call a 280x an "upper mid ranged" gpu. That's at the top end of the spectrum... upper midranged at 1440p maybe... but top end for 1080p.

that q9400 is a solid cpu... you'll see a nice bump going to either the 7870/270x or 7970/280x; though you will still get a bit of bottle-necking due to the older cpu. I would say get the 270x/7870, its more then enough gpu for the resolution you're playing at, and save your cash for the cpu/mb upgrade down the road. There are some amazing deals on ghz ed 7870s right now... they can be had for $129 today at newegg... crazy good deal right there.
 
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Solution
cappster

cappster

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Two for getting a 280x and another for getting a 7870. I like the deal on the 7870's as I was looking at them on newegg today, too. I am more of a person who like the biggest bang for the buck and that is why I am struggling with this decision. I was looking at some of the 270's and 280's that had BF4 as a game that is included with the card itself so I consider that a $50 discount. FYI, my birthday is on Saturday so I will be getting gift money to help ease the cost of the purchase. It's just in my mind I have never paid $300 for a videocard before, but I do want 2-3 years of service out of my card.
 
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Frank Esguerra

Frank Esguerra

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i recently upgraded my sapphire 6870 to sapphire r9 280x and its great! played at 1920x1080 crysis 3 on very high-60fps, played bf4 on ultra-60fps. i would say best price-to-performance ratio card.
 
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cappster

cappster

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Thanks for all of the feedback guys. I decided to go with the R9 280x videocard. This one in particular:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125490

I have been debating the pros and cons of all cards that I was thinking about purchasing and this seemed to make the most sense in my mind. It's the one I wanted and now I can have it (with a free copy of BF4). We shall see how it performs on my aging system and see how it stacks up against the newer Corei5/i7 systems.
 
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cappster

cappster

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Update: My motherboard fried so I had to upgrade sooner than I wanted to. I did my best to stay on a budget so I purchased an AMD FX-8350, Asus motherboard, 8GB of RAM. Nothing is overclocked, but I saw a significant jump in FPS. I do, however, have a problem with my card (I believe it is a driver issue) where I cannot use the HDMI port to run my 1080 monitor. It keep corrupting the screen, but if I uninstall the drivers, I can run 1080 through basic windows drivers. Other than that, I am happy with my fully refreshed computer.
 
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C

cdbcjb

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Cappster - did you figure out the no HMDI yet? I am having the same issue,
 
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cappster

cappster

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In a sense, yes, I discovered that through CCC I can adjust the overscan to fit my monitor; however, I still cannot play games on my 1920x1080 monitor without the screen corruption. Very irritating!
 
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