Is my system worthy of 5870/5850?

Hi.

I currently have an 8800 GTS on a Gigabyte GA-965P-S3 with an Intel Q6600 and 3Gb RAM running Windows XP, powered by a Thermaltake Toughpower 750W.

My monitor is a 21 inch CRT, but it's getting old and the image is definitely starting to fade, so I think a move to a 24inch LCD (probably the Dell UltraSharp U2410) is now inevitable. This means I need a card that can deliver games at 1920 resolution.

Having read about the new ATI cards my preferred solution would be to just get one of these, possibly replacing my 3GB of RAM (in two pairs) with 2x2GB DDR2 PC2-6400 800MHz. Is there any reason why I would not see the benefit of a 5870 or 5850 in this system or any real need for me to also change the motherboard and CPU?

Also, do I need to look at replacing XP, for example to take advantage of any forthcoming DX11 goodness?

Cheers!

i would suggest a bit of overclocking on that q6600

Thank you for the quick responses people.

If I'm going to install a new OS I suppose I may as well sit tight till the Windows 7 release on 22 October and then do it all together. The 5850s should presumably be out by then and I can agonize about whether to get one of those or a 5870

Going a bit off topic, presumably the 64 bit version of Windows Home Premium Edition 7 is the way to go? Would it then also be worth my chucking in even more than 4GB of RAM?

Cheers.

This is my current monitor. Quite frankly unless you can get one for less than 450 dollars taxed/shipped, I wouldn't bother. You can find monitors that are 85% as good for a third of the price.

http://www.jayceooi.com/2009/09/07 [...] 10-review/

eh that setup will pwn...
try to oc that 6600 to some 3.2 having a heatsink..

Well we don't know the requirements for newer DX11 titles, for all we known they could be higher then before in which case you would of wished you got the HD 5870.

Honestly the question of HD 5850 and HD 5870 is dependent on future proofing. 5870 is a far better buy, simply because of it will remain at the top of the Single GPU line for months to come. While the 5850 is drastically less powerful, it won't hold out so well against the GT 300 series. I will list the specs that are different, everything else not listed here is the same! This is straight from ATI's page.

HD 5870 Specs
Stream Processors: 1600
Memory Bandwidth: 153.6 gb/s
Engine clock speed: 850 MHz
Processing power (single precision): 2.72 TeraFLOPS
Processing power (double precision): 544 GigaFLOPS
Polygon throughput: 850M polygons/sec
Data fetch rate (32-bit): 272 billion fetches/sec
Texel fill rate (bilinear filtered): 68 Gigatexels/sec
Pixel fill rate: 27.2 Gigapixels/sec
Anti-aliased pixel fill rate: 108.8 Gigasamples/sec
Memory clock speed: 1.2 GHz
Memory data rate: 4.8 Gbps

HD 5850 Specs
Stream processors: 1440
Memory Bandwidth: 128 gb/s
Engine clock speed: 725 MHz
Processing power (single precision): 2.09 TeraFLOPS
Processing power (double precision): 418 GigaFLOPS
Polygon throughput: 725M polygons/sec
Data fetch rate (32-bit): 209 billion fetches/sec
Texel fill rate (bilinear filtered): 52.2 Gigatexels/sec
Pixel fill rate: 23.2 Gigapixels/sec
Anti-aliased pixel fill rate: 92.8 Gigasamples/sec
Memory clock speed: 1 GHz
Memory data rate: 4.0 Gbps

By the specs alone you can already notice major differences in speed and capability. While yes the price margin is extremely large, it is worth it if you want to future proof your setup (instead of getting 1 5850 now, then regretting it and purchasing another GPU later on the line)..

You do have a point power wise. is the 5850 a crippled 5870.

We need to see some one really put 2 cards H2H and see what the show up, and see what over clocking capabilities are. I mean if there good enough perhaps the 5850 will be a better choice. I suppose it is to early to REALLY decide.