Radeon 5870(1GB) vs 5970(2GB)

[Phoenixlight]

Hi, so I've been looking at various tests recently for graphics cards and it seems that the 5870 actually beats the 5970 in some applications. I would have thought that the 5970 would be better due to having 2 G.P.U.'s compared to the 5870's single. Could someone tell me overall which one provides the best performance for games?

USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: Real time strategy games like Dawn of War 2 and Starcraft 2, general word processing etc.

OVERCLOCKING: Yes

SLI OR CROSSFIRE: No

MONITOR RESOLUTION: 1920x1200

OTHER COMMENTS: This is purely from a game performance point of view, price efficiency isn't important. Using only 1 monitor.

 

[Helltech]

The 5970 is better for gaming.... But for the games you are playing and the resolution you are playing its overkill....

 

[Phoenixlight]

Well I want to make sure I buy the better out of the 2 cards so that It'll last longer and won't need replacing for quite a few years.

 

[Helltech]

Well the 6000 series is right around corner, the 5000 series is starting to age. If you want an upgrade that will last a long time, I'd wait to see what the 6000 series has to offer.

 

[Maziar]

Hello
Most RTS games benefit more from CPU than VGA. So make sure you have a powerful cpu.
5970 performs better than a 5870 because it has the cores of 2 downclocked 5870s on it.however sc2 doesn't benefit from sli/cf, so if you are only going ton play those games, a 5870 suffices.

 

[gophur]

It never pays to buy top end so it lasts longer because performance between generations often is so dramatic that the next gen middle market is so much faster it makes last gens mid market and high end offerings seem relatively identical.

Buy mid market and plan to replace in 3 years.

Unless you are running a resolution above 1920 x 1080 then you have no need for a 5970 or even a 5870. Get the 5850 or 5830 and you'll never know the difference but as said, I'd wait if I could a month or so and see what comes out for the 6 series. It'll either blow the current ones away so you'll want mid tier 6 series or just be a modest refresh forcing pprices down on the last generation so you'll go for that 5870 you were eying.

 

[jyjjy]

^+1
Buy smart instead of spending gobs of money on something you don't need now. Spend half the money on a GTX 470 or HD5850 then replace it when it is appropriate rather than locking yourself into something you will regret buying a year or two from now when there are better cards that use much less power and don't have crossfire scaling issues while costing much less. The highest end cards are intended for people who are willing to upgrade frequently to stay on the forefront of technology, if that's not you then you are looking at the wrong cards.

 

[Phoenixlight]

Ok thanks for the responses, I was planning to make a new desktop based around an AMD Phenom II x6 1090T but I'll just wait for the 6000 series cards to show up. Hopefully AMD will release a better performing CPU by then as well.