XFX 6870 is it worthwhile?

[osiris2k8]

Hello there

First of all I would like to thank you for taking the time to read my post. I am in the process of buying a new graphics card for my system. I had a Palit GTX 460 which died on me after only 7 months of purchase. Happily Amazon UK dealt with my query and under certain conditions I was offered a full refund.

First Question:

Now I was thinking of just purchasing a new GTX 460 with a different manufacturer but now I know that every few months the top dog for value for money gets replaced by another and from my research it seems that the ATI 6870 walks all over my old GTX 460 and the price is almost the same (£140 for the 6870 and £130 for the 460). Is this worth me buying or should I just buy a cheap 5770 and keep the rest of my money? Bearing in mind that I could in a few months upgrade my cpu, ram and mobo.

Second Question:

The 6870 that I found is made by XFX
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/244474
and sold by Ebuyer UK. I have heard that the XFX warranty in EU sucks badly and you should not go with them and then I heard the same about Sapphire so I am so confused of what to go for, can you help?

My setup:
Intel Core2Duo 2.13 GHZ
4GB DDr2 667 MHZ Ram
ASUS P5NSLI Mobo
32" Toshiba LCD TV (resolution is 1920x1080)

Thank you

Osiris

 

[osiris2k8]

Sorry I forgot to add the PSU to my setup (Corsair 550W)

 

[mosox]

Get a 6870. This one is nice
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-msi-hd-6870-hawk-with-twin-frozr-iii-fan-4200mhz-gddr5-gpu-930mhz-1120-streams

 

[osiris2k8]

Thanks for the quick replies, @ greghome well tbh mate I am gonna get a refund of £130 so that is the amount that I would be willing to pay and also in regards to the system upgrade when the time comes I will most probably go for something like Core i5 or higher but thats in the near future and i dont wanna spend 100 quid now and then after 4 months get it replaced rather than just spend 150 or so and never worry till a couple of years

@mosox thanks for the recommendation, is scan.co.uk a trustable site mate? have you had experience with them?

 

[osiris2k8]

P.S @ mosox I just measured the inside of my case and it is around 27 CM and that card is like 27.3 so it could fit but it would be extremely tight mate.

 

[osiris2k8]

actually the XFX 6870 is 10" so it can fit but do you think that the gtx 560 is better than the 6870? which would you get if I gave you the option and not considering sli or xfire.

And what do you think of XFX in the UK?

 

[mosox]

The MSI is 255 mm long
http://uk.msi.com/product/vga/R6870-Hawk.html#?div=Specification

 

[osiris2k8]

I think those sepcs are for the normal 6870 mate, which is like the xfx version but this seems a lot longer I've seen it ona website that said it's 10.75". I wanna make sure because your choice is actually the best so far I really like the MSI one.

 

[mosox]

It the Hawk. Hawk is anything but a normal card, it has custom cooling and it's factory overclocked.

 

[purple stain]

The 6870 is defnitly worth the extra $20.I have that specific XFX 6870 and it works great.But I would put your money twards a new CPU.That Core2Duo was most likely bottlenecking your old GTX460 you had and it will bottleneck the 6870.Your resoultion is large enough to not bottlenck it to much but with a new processor you should see a huge gain.

 

[osiris2k8]

oh ok great so do you recommend the MSI (£20 more) over the XFX as it is overclocked and has a new cooler? or do you recommend the XFX, because I am guessing you are from the states and they have great service there but I heard XFX EU really is bad so I don't know which choose?

 

[purple stain]

I didn't choose the XFX 6870 just for the warranty.Honestly the only reason I got it was because I got it back in December and it was the cheapest 6870 I could find($220 after MIR).I would glady take the Twin Frozr II or Hawk over the XFX.The XFX version is a reference design so the heatsink isn't that great and makes terrible noies under loads.

The MSI 6870 is a great card but I would strongly suggest ugprading or O.C.ing your CPU because your going to limit it's performance.

 

[osiris2k8]

I would gladly overclock my CPU if i had the skill to do so, I only ever clocked GPU's using software never messed around with voltages and what not and I still have a stock cooler

 

[purple stain]

Well the $30 you pay for an aftermarket cooler is well worth it in my opinoin.Instead of buying a whole new processor and mobo and RAM.Although the results of O.C.ing are unknown for each CPU.You will never know unless you try.

Here's a guide to O.C.ing your CPU.The guide is based on the quad core version of your CPU but it's the same process for O.C.ing your CPU.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/259899-29-core-overclocking-guide

 

[osiris2k8]

thanks for this reference mate no I am really stuck, the hawk edition might aswell be longer than the reference and therefore might not fit in my case and also now I donot know if I should get the 560 NON-TI also there is a Hawk edition that I saw or get a HAWK 6870 and risk the size of it.


I guess im gonna change the question to
HAWK 560 non TI vs HAWK 6870

OR save £25 and get this

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Graphics+Cards/ATI/ATI+6800+Series+/XFX+ATI+Radeon+HD+6870+1024MB+GDDR5+PCI-Express+Graphics+Card+with+FREE+S.T.A.L.K.E.R%3A+Call+of+Pripyat+%26+Shogun+2+Games+?productId=44909

 

[purple stain]

The GTX560 is 9 inches long while the 6870 is 10 inches.Both cards have very good SLI/Crossfire scaling compared to the GTX460.

I'd go with that XFX 6870 dual fan.$170 is really cheap for a 6870 espically when it comes with 2 free games.

 

[purple stain]

What case do you have?

Doesn't matter if it's a tight fit,as long as the card is getting air their shouldn't be a problem with a small case.

 

[bytor46]

My XFX 6870 Black edition ran fine - for four months. Then my system started throwing video errors. I worked with tech support and the long story short - I have been over a month trying to get this sorted out. My advice - stay away from XFX. Tech support is not very supportive.