Suggestion. 5750 crossfire or 5770 crossfire

[onusofstrife]

Running at a resolution of 1920x1080 what would be recommended. I'm going to buy one of the cards at the end of the week. I have a phenom II 920. I previously had a 4870.

 

[jyjjy]

Get an HD5770 for now, it performs similarly to the HD4870 and is pretty good for that resolution. When you feel the need for something more get another. Two in crossfire perform similarly to an HD5870.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

You will experience lower performance with this "upgrade". I'd buy a 2nd 4870.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3658&p=14

But we don’t have that luxury with the Radeon HD 5700 series. The value of the 5770 in particular is clearly not going to be in its performance. Compared to AMD’s 4870, it loses well more than it wins, and if we throw out Far Cry 2, it’s around 10% slower overall. It also spends most of its time losing to NVIDIA’s GTX 260, which unfortunately the 4870 didn’t have so much trouble with. AMD clearly has put themselves in to a hole with memory bandwidth, and the 5770 doesn’t have enough of it to reach the performance it needs to be at.

So here’s the bottom line for the 5770: Unless you absolutely need to take advantage of the lower power requirements of the 40nm process (e.g. you pay a ton for power) or you strongly believe that DirectX 11 will have a developer adoption rate faster than anything we’ve seen before for DirectX, the 1GB 4870 or GTX 260 is still the way to go. Or to put things another way, outside of those two circumstances we’re still at status quo. A 1GB 4870 will continue to be a better choice until the price difference between one of those on sale and a 5770 drops below $10-$15, at which point we could justify rolling the dice and paying a bit more for the 5770. AMD is their own enemy here, which means we aren’t going to be very surprised if we see the 4870 go away very quickly once the 5770 is plentiful.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-310-5970,2491.html

I don’t recommend upgrading your graphics card unless the replacement card is at least three tiers higher. Otherwise, the upgrade is somewhat parallel and you may not notice a worthwhile difference in performance.

To get those three tiers .... , you're looking at either a GTX 295 or HD 4870 X2 ... 4 tiers would be a HD 5970. Given those choices, a 2nd 4870 seems obvious if improvements are needed.....but at 1690 x 1050, the 4870 is already more than enough as according to THG's tests the 4870 provides "Great 1920x1200 performance in most games". And laying down $180 to experience a drop in performance doesn't seem logical.

 

[onusofstrife]

Thanks. I just don't want to overkill it with 2. I know the 4870 1gb i had ran perfect with everything at 1680 x 1050. I'll go with the 5770 then. Prices do seem to be dropping on all the 5 series card which is very nice. Looks like when i look to get another they will be had for cheap. .

 

[jyjjy]

Jack, keep in mind the HD4870 vs HD5770 comparisons are based on fully mature drivers for one and initial drivers for the other. The performance difference has likely already started to disappear.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Jack, keep in mind the HD4870 vs HD5770 comparisons are based on fully mature drivers for one and initial drivers for the other. The performance difference has likely already started to disappear.

The bandwidth limitations won't / can't be solved by a drive update....and even if it "catches up" to the 4870.....why spend $180 to equal what you already have.....I gotta agree w/ THG's 3 tier thing....after spending time and money, I wanna be wowed.

A lowly 9800 GT or 4830 provides "exceptional performance" that resolution at half the price.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-310-5970,2491-3.html

Another thing I'm not strong on is that many 5770 designs exhaust heat into the case, not outside the case.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Thanks. I just don't want to overkill it with 2. I know the 4870 1gb i had ran perfect with everything at 1680 x 1050. I'll go with the 5770 then. Prices do seem to be dropping on all the 5 series card which is very nice. Looks like when i look to get another they will be had for cheap. .

Don't be so sure .... the 295 is about a year old .... prices are going up and up and they are difficult to find.

Another thing to consider....read the DX11 article here on THG about Dirt 2 ?

Now we will use the DirectX 11 option on the Radeon HD 5000-series cards. We've seen a subtle increase in visual fidelity from the DirectX 11 code path, so will this be accompanied by an appropriately low performance?

Enabling DirectX 11 has a massive impact on performance. The Radeon HD 5750 and 5770 can easily handle the high 2560x1600 resolution in DirectX 9 mode, but in DirectX 11 mode things become very choppy.....With DirectX 11 taking a colossal performance toll....Only the Radeon HD 5750 and 5770 really suffer.....

Here's my take....DX11 is new and is sparsely incorporated into the 1st games appearing but yet it has a huge performance hit. Is it worth the "subtle increase in visual fidelity" for the "colossal hit on performance" ? I'd recommend taking your $180 and putting it in the piggy bank....better yet, one that provides interest. Since you won't see any increase in performance until you woulda got that 2nd 5770, why not get BOTH new cards at that time ? You should be then be able to choose between a very cheap 5770, it's successor (6770 ?) or something with even more oomph.

 

[jyjjy]

why spend $180 to equal what you already have.....

The HD4870 was spoken of in the past tense. I was assuming the card is no longer on hand. If he still has it then yeah, an HD5770 doesn't make sense.

 

[onusofstrife]

Ya i don't have it anymore. I would much rather buy two at once but i'm just a highschool student with a part time job i'm sure i could wait a couple weeks. I'm also getting new case as my other one had cooling issues with the 4870. I'd have to wait a good month to get all of that.

 

[puntacana1]

Sorry for raising an old thread, but I did find this helpful a little today. I started out with a 5750 Sapphire, and just added a second today. I spent a lot of time debating on whether to get the second, or try to sell it and buy two 5770's. I was going to crossfire a 5750/5770 combo, but I did some quick research and read that the faster card will clock itself down to match the slower... or something. So that would have been a waste of coin.

But, since I had the existing one, and I have a limited budget, let me just say the two 5750's are'a simply rockin'. I am not all that technically savy, I only know just enough to build a system and do some minor tweaking, so I can't go into a lot of detail. But I can give a couple of examples of performance. Crysis/Crysis Warhead both run on 1920x1080 on Enthusiast settings at around45-60 FPS on load bearing maps, and liquid smooth on Gamer settings. Aion, although not as demanding, runs full resolution and 8x anti aliasing with all settings maxed with a minimum of 70 and a max as high as 200+.

The only cons I would mention, with the sapphire card anyway, is the fans circulate exhaust inside the case. The 5770 would vent it. I live in Canada, and I've seen some stores selling this card as low as 135. Anyone on a budget, I would def suggest two 5750's.

Some people say (i have read) it performs along the lines of a 5850? I am still curious to know what others thoughts on that are.

Thanks to all for input above, gotta love this site, even though the thread is buried, it still helps!