Another 4870 or 5870?

I'd say wait. If anything the 4870 price should come down and waiting gives you a chance to check out the benchies and make a better decision.

depends on how badly you need it. If you can survive on one 4870, then definitely wait. The worst case scenario is that the 4870's will become a lot cheaper once the new generation cards are out. And if the benchmarks are really impressive, then you still have the option of upgrading to a 5870. But if you can't wait, then get another 4870. the performance would still be very good.

If you can run everything you want with a single 4870, then you may as well wait for the 5870. If you want performance now, then get another 4870 and that should hold you over till the 5870 gets updated to the 5890 or whatever.

It is unlikely the prices will fall much more since they have already been slashed in anticipation of the new cards. The new cards will cost substantially more than this generations at least on release and for a few months after...so unless you think one 5870 will outperform 2 4870s you have very little to gain by waiting. Not only that, you will probably spend a lot more money for less performance if you go with a 5870.

personally, I'm waiting for the new cards... that's only b/c I'm married. If I weren't, I'd buy the best vid card and proc every time a new one came out. Unfortunately if I buy new stuff, you know what she's gonna do, so I have to wait

+1

Unless you you really need dx11, you'll get higher performance for a cheaper price by adding a second hd4870. They currently go for $130 or less. They may drop to about $100 when the 5870 comes out, but probably not lower. But it'll still be while till that happens. Supposedly the 5870 is 1.5 TFLOPS and the 4870 is 1TFLOP. http://news.softpedia.com/news/Leaked-40nm-Radeon-HD-58...

I would agree to wait. It seems the next generation cards almost always outperform the previous gen cards even in SLI. I have been the SLI route and have decided never to waste my money that way again. Unless you are running really high resolutions it's not worth the extra money. The single card is generally cheaper and gives overall better performance. I have found 2 cards also create more problems than they solve.

That would be true if you are starting from scratch, but if you already have one card, there is no way he can hope to get the same performance as crossfire at better price with the new generation cards, in fact, if the pricing structure stays consistent with the new releases, he would spend about twice as much to get that performance.

The next gen nvidia cards are supposed to be expensive..... I'd wait and see what the pricing is going to be. I have aspirations of cross firing a couple of ATI's next cards but price will dictate that.

WAAAIIIIIITTTTT!!! How gutted would you be if the new cards are LOADS better??? Ive read articles claiming the new NVIDIA cards to be anywhere between 6-15x better than previous cards due to the new 'cGPU' architecture. But this is just rumor obvoiously. But surely ATI will have to have something as good to compete??

lol...DON'T DRINK THE KOOL AID!! Do you really think any new card will give better performance than adding another card for less money?? Never wait for the next big thing, because it is never as big as it is claimed to be, and the next next big thing is always right around the corner.

Thanks for the thoughts guys. I think i'll go ahead and wait till the new one comes out to make my final decision. As all my games run fine, but get a bit slow/laggy when everythings on high.

Once again, thanks for the help!

Only game i have problems in is crysis and i have a 4850 1 gig

I've gotta agree on waiting.

For people running last-gen cards considering upgrading to a 4800 series card I give encouragement. They're pretty affordable and very powerful.

If you've already got a current-gen card though, you don't have as much to gain from adding another, unless you game at very high resolutions, and even still it's not a total 100% gain.

Well its obvious you inhaled some serious smog. 6-15x is just far beyond miracle. I hardly can remember even 2x with the 6000 series over the 5000 series of nvida (taking account that 5000 was a dud).

new nVidia chip wont me much more than 2x faster. This is just how physics work.

I was googling about on the internet and came across the possible specifications of the 5000 series: http://www.tweaktown.com/news/12014/radeon_hd_5870_spec...

if that is true, then my 3870s are about to be retired  

If those numbers are true the 5000 series will be a beast. I myself am at least thinking the clock speeds are close because I was thinking they would likely be around 875-900 do to the 40nm allowing better head room.

Anyone want to take a stab and say when we might see the Radeon 5870? I waiting all year for this damn card to come out, I've heard early September and officially ATI have said it will be out before Windows 7.

My only gripe is that you start to leaked performance benchmarks from Chinese sites about 3-4 weeks before the official launch like we have with the new Intel Core i7 and Core i5 but so far I've seen zip. So either ATI are still having production issues with the 40nm process or they are being tight laced about the launch of the new card.

....and expect to pay about $300 for a single card and $599 for a x2 at launch.

hah, yep you got that one right on m8. but really, at the time when the 4870 came out, it was worth it at 300 dollars. i mean, who in their right mind would pick a $600 GTX280 over a 500ish dollar 4870x2 card?
yep, this card will be crysis pwnage i beleive n.n

anyone wanna buy a pair of 3870s? idk where to sell them other than craigslist, ebay is a pain in the ass

As we have seen in the past though the price of ATI cards drops very quickly so you have to take that into account as well. Should be fun to see what nvidia's prices will be like as ATI built up a lot of steam with the 4000 series because of that fact.

Well I gotta hand it to ATI as far as the price to performance dept.... Why doesnt Nvidia do the same? The 295 is not worth 450.00$+ ATM..... IMO it makes no sense at all.....

^ compare the GTX 295 to the GTX 285 performance wise.

then you get why it's priced at $500.

the GTX 285 is a waste of money in the first place..... the 4870x2 is priced almost 150.00$ cheaper that the 295... When the 4870x2 came out it was over 400.00$ if ATI was able to lower the price on thier flagship card why didn't nvidia do the same? The 295 has been out for quite a while, there is no excuse to not lower the price ATM.....

because nvidia is evil   ATI actually thinks about our economic situation and lowers the prices accordingly. hah, i dont know why really, just thats how it works i guess. nvidia likes to bleed everyone dry with higher (sometimes) performing parts when ati brings us high performance parts (sometimes better than nvidia) for much less.

Yea well Nvidia better get thier act together cause if the next 300 series comes out to be overpriced like everyone is saying... then im done with them and it will be time for a fresh new start with ATI

nVidias philosophy is old, like Intels. Their top chips will just be "bracket" priced, regardless.
AMD/ATI has veered away from this approach, even when they had the top card, like the x2, and its subsequent price drops even while on top

Well double the power of previous generations, now give multiple (say 3)instructions per stream processor instead of single = 2x3 = 6x the processing power

If i understood correctly its like hyperthreading for GPUs.

And explain this is how just physics work with regards to graphx cards...if u make it 6x more powerful its going to be 6x more powerful! not 2x ???...doesnt make sense??

I believe if Nivdia doesn't lower the price of the 300's (At least after a few months) we will see ATI getting a lot more shares in the market. They are getting a foothold with the 4000's and got back on the map as a match for Nvidia, weather or not the cards matched up one on one Crossfire is a far far cheaper way to go when talking about high end cards like the 4870 x2. You can quad fire for just about $100 more then a single GTX 295.

While the 295 might beat the 4870 one on one when I can quad fire for nearly the same price it is a whole new ball game.

Exactly..............

OK, heres the problem with this. I'll try hard to not sound like some on here that believe DX11 and its changes wont have any impact, but theres been plenty of references by the game devs themselves, its all up to them as to whether theyll be able to use this, in whats the best way to etc, or in other words, can it be applied?

Then we enter in, these are all hypothetical increases from a perfect world. Having double the HW,BW etc never amounts to doubling the perf, and the same holds true for DX11. Itll be better, but will vary, game to game, dev to dev, engine to engine, and arch to arch HW wise

Also you have to think about the fact that even if the cards really were to double in performance unless you have an overclocked cpu you would likely never get that full performance due to bottlenecking.

You got that right, but I do indeed have an overclocked CPU: 3Ghz q6600 (not the best OC but i'm not pusing it right now).

@jaydee, yeah it is completely up to the devs. No matter how good DX11 may be, if they dont utilize it correctly it wont see many gains. You'll most likely see parts of DX11 work better in ATI cards than Nvidia and vice versa as well. Actually for some reason I never thought about the fact that a new version of DX is coming out...I'm almost positive i'll be getting the new one now.

I really hope the Hydra chip turns out well, we might not have to think about this stuff as much haha.

In prep for the new cards coming out, where do you guys suggest selling used computer parts?

yeah that is why I am not getting more then one card right now, because I am waiting on the DX11 ones. But I NEED one now so can't wait until then.


I am not sure where to sell parts because I usually rebox them and put them in the closet to use in case I need a back up plus I am one of the only one of my group of friends that does hardcore PC building so I am the go to guy and need up using them in friends builds or selling to them.