Sign in with
Sign up | Sign in
Your question
Solved

6870/5870?

Tags:
  • Graphics Cards
  • Graphics
  • Product
Last response: in Graphics & Displays
Share
March 2, 2011 8:03:23 PM

Hi,

One of my HIS IceQ 3870s just bought it, and I need a replacement video system. Primary use is dual Eve Online clients at 16x10 each.

Was looking at the Saphire Toxic 6870 vs a Diamond 5870 (Cyrpus XT). The 5870's seem a little stronger, despite the clock numbers, but the 6870's scale better. $5 price dif on Newegg. Or something else?

System Spec:
Asus Rampage Forumla (2x PCIe 2.0 x16)
Intel Q9550 2.83
8 GB Ram (I know, but I do VMs sometimes for work)

What do we think?

More about : 6870 5870

March 3, 2011 1:14:40 AM

5870
m
0
l
a c 130 U Graphics card
March 3, 2011 1:48:18 AM

If you were going to jump to the 6970 I'd say go for it. 5870 gets my vote as well. The 68xx cards were meant to be replacements for the 5770s and 5850s. Plus, I saw 2 GB 5870 cards under $200 within the past couple of weeks. 5870s scale fairly well.
m
0
l
a b U Graphics card
March 3, 2011 1:52:33 AM

I am running 2 EAH 1GB 5870's and love them. What resolution? If it is 2560x1600 or greater get the 2GB versions. I am running 4360x1600 and it still runs Crysis at full tilt. It does stress them out though.
m
0
l

Best solution

a c 678 U Graphics card
March 3, 2011 2:08:22 AM

Why are you mentioning that "the 6870's scale better"?

Are you planning to get two for Crossfire? If so, then dual GPU scaling is pretty good for the 6870's, but not a lot better than the 5870's. If there is a reason that the 5870's do not scale as well, it's because they are higher performing cards and run into more CPU bottlenecking in Crossfire than the 6870's.

If, on the other hand, you are referring to scaling when overclocking. The 6870's don't overclock very well, and definitely don't scale very well when overclocking.
Share
a c 678 U Graphics card
March 3, 2011 2:12:06 AM

ubercake said:
I saw 2 GB 5870 cards under $200 within the past couple of weeks. 5870s scale fairly well.

That's pretty funny, because I actually just saw that Bestbuy.com has the 2Gb 5870 listed for $550! The 2Gb 6970 is listed for $400! I guess the lesson is: Don't shop at Best Buy.
m
0
l
a c 130 U Graphics card
March 3, 2011 10:41:00 AM

17seconds said:
That's pretty funny, because I actually just saw that Bestbuy.com has the 2Gb 5870 listed for $550! The 2Gb 6970 is listed for $400! I guess the lesson is: Don't shop at Best Buy.

Yeah. They used to have competitive pricing, but unless there's a Microcenter near, Bestbuy has no competition in the physical retail space.

Every once in a while they have a decent price on one thing or another, but they've generally fallen off the map (my map anyhow) when it comes to supplying me with PC components.

Also, regarding the 5870, no matter how hard they try, they can't push it off the performance charts. Even with all the marketing hype and the release of all the new models, this thing is still viable and still comparable to latest gen higher-end cards.
m
0
l
March 3, 2011 12:36:38 PM

Thanks for the feedback all!

I really didn't want to spring for 6970s at this point, not considering the age of that system. If there's a marked improvement for the money, I'll do it, but I haven't seen that based on the reviews I've read.

And I am talking about getting 2 and setting them up Crossfire, but native res for my monitors is 16x10, so I don't feel I'll get a lot of use out of a 2GB card.

Based on all that, I'm looking at 2x Diamond 5870s, unless anyone has further comment? Not seeing any of the X2 cards or single solutions that'll get me what that will.
m
0
l
March 21, 2011 2:37:38 AM

Best answer selected by cagedskie.
m
0
l
!