Two 5770's or one 5870??

[sirbuster223]

So, I've been wondering, will my two 5770s beat one 5870?
Both my 5770'a are overlcocked (Core= 960 Mem= 1300)
I'm thinking about getting one of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121382&cm_re=5870-_-14-121-382-_-Product

Here are my current specs for my PC:
AMD Phenom x4 II 925 quad core cpu 95w
ATI 5770 (Crossfired)
2 gigs G-SKILL 1600 RAM
ASUS M4A79XTD EVO AM3 AMD 790X Mobo
Western Digital 1 TB HDD 7200 rpm
Asus DVD Drive
Corsair 650 WATT psu

i know im gonna needa bigger psu if I do get a 5870
So what do you guys think??

Thanks!

 

[Maziar]

First of all your PSU suffices.
As for the cards,well 2 5770s perform like a 5870 in most games,(they even outperform it in some titles)so there is no reason to change your cards.
If you are looking to upgrade anything in your rig,then get 2GB RAM,because some games benefit from more than 2GB of RAM

 

[Timop]

There no need, you'll actually see a drop in performance like Maizar said above.

You really need 4GB of RAM, as well as an OC to your CPU however, them both are limiting your performance much more than your GPU. Besides, with the HD6000 coming out in a month, waiting for them would be the smartest choice.

 

[wolfram23]

^ Agreed.

The performance will be really close. 2 extra gigs of RAM will help in a lot of areas. That and/or an SSD

 

[deweycd]

Usually it is best to have one card rather then two in crossfire/sli, but if you already have crossfire and your upgrade would provide you with similar performance then it is best to wait until an upgrade would give you far better performance. In this case it would be best to wait and upgrade your memory instead as Maziar stated.

 

[sirbuster223]

Alright, memory upgrade it is. Plus, when I bought my computer a few months ago, I wasn't to picky about my cpu power, and now I start to notice why you need it so much. My cpu is oced but not that much, since I don't know how to overclock well is BIOS. (EX. My only options when overclocking is from 2%-10% and thats it).


I also have another question. When I bought my motherboard, I didn't know there was such a thing as compatability when it comes to RAM except when it comes to speed. I DO have 4 gigs of ram, but whenever I put the second 2gig G-SKILL stick in, my computer blue screens about 4 times before it becomes stable. But when I take it out, the whole computer runs smoothly with no hangs or blue screens. I went on the ASUS website and checked out my motherboards memory compatability. And the G-SKILLS that i bought (the RIPJAWS) werent on the support list. You think that is whats causing my blue screens?? Or is the stick just dead?


I know this is off topic but since were talking about upgrades I thought I might as well list some issues i have been having for the past 5 months or so.

Thanks guys!

 

[Timop]

Alright, memory upgrade it is. Plus, when I bought my computer a few months ago, I wasn't to picky about my cpu power, and now I start to notice why you need it so much. My cpu is oced but not that much, since I don't know how to overclock well is BIOS. (EX. My only options when overclocking is from 2%-10% and thats it).


I also have another question. When I bought my motherboard, I didn't know there was such a thing as compatability when it comes to RAM except when it comes to speed. I DO have 4 gigs of ram, but whenever I put the second 2gig G-SKILL stick in, my computer blue screens about 4 times before it becomes stable. But when I take it out, the whole computer runs smoothly with no hangs or blue screens. I went on the ASUS website and checked out my motherboards memory compatability. And the G-SKILLS that i bought (the RIPJAWS) werent on the support list. You think that is whats causing my blue screens?? Or is the stick just dead?


I know this is off topic but since were talking about upgrades I thought I might as well list some issues i have been having for the past 5 months or so.

Thanks guys!

AMD chipsets arnt that picky on RAM. Try the using only the other stick and see if it BSODS, if so get an RMA.

Also, OCing on your board is pretty simple, go in the BIOS and raise the base clock.

 

[Atotalnoob]

can you try taking the other stick out?

 

[175422561]

maybe you should first check to see whether it's ram's or MB's problem. put the stick that's working now into the other slots to see if that would cause a problem.

 

[sirbuster223]

I wish there was someway I could take a picture on what I'm talking about when it comes to overclocking the cpu. I open up the jumper free configuration and it when I try to manually overclock it only gives me a few options.

It does overclock, since my system detects it, but its not enough for me.
The few options I get is overclocking it from 2% to 10%. And thats it -_-.

Kindah lame aha

As for the memory situation, would you think it would be dangerous to just get one 4gb ram stick?? Because thats a option i've been thinking about trying..

 

[wolfram23]

^ that (try the working stick in other slots) and also, try using the other stick as a stand alone.

Sounds like a dead stick to me, but you won't know till you try it. If it seems to be the case, return/exchange it. No point shelling out when they owe you a good product.

EDIT: 1 stick is worse than two because two can run in dual channel mode, allowing for a lot faster data access.

 

[Timop]

Cant you? Just use a camera.

What options do you get though? You should be able to push it to at east 3.2Ghz easily.

 

[sirbuster223]

When I get home from school.. then work.. I will then take a picture and show you what I mean .