AMD HD6870 - good for an average gamer?

[robcalcroft]

Hi there
Getting a new dell Xps 8300 and just wondering how an HD6870 will perform gaming wise, I am not am extreme gamer so won't have settings on super high.
Thanks

 

[jryan388]

What resolution?
The 6870 is a very solid mid-range card. It will play anything you want, if not maxed. I have a 5750 (significantly less powerful) running at 1080p, and I max the majority of the games that I play with 4x msaa. It will work beautifully.

 

[robcalcroft]

I'm getting a 1080p monitor with a 3.4ghz intel i7 so I'm assuming it will play well?

 

[Timop]

It will max out most games while play other at least on high. How much is the i7 upgrade at dell? It really not worth the $150 they usually charge.

 

[Overclocked Toaster]

it is great even at 1080p. it does not make snse to pair it with i7 though, you are better off getting a cheaper cpu and better gpu. maybe an i5-2500 and a radeon 6950. also make sure you have a sufficient power supply.

 

[Supernova1138]

It is an excellent card for 1080p. The vast majority of the games out there can be maxed out at 1080p with no problem. Only really demanding titles like Crysis, Metro 2033, The Witcher 2, GTA IV will give it any trouble at your resolution. As said above, if your most CPU intensive activity is gaming, go for the i5, the i7's slightly larger cache and hyperthreading are not going to give any benefits in terms of game performance.

 

[robcalcroft]

okay any particular i5 in the series?

 

[robcalcroft]

also is 6gb ram enough or should i pay £70 and go for 8gb?

 

[robcalcroft]

to choose from there are the intel i5 2300, i52400 and i52500, clocked at 2.8, 3.1, 3.4 respectively

 

[clarkjd]

I would recommend either 4 or 8 GB with any of the I5's They only support dual channel ram not triple channel. Going with 6 GB would kick you out of dual channel mode and decrease your performance. Since you will not be able to overclock, I recommend the 2500.

 

[guavasauce]

my wife uses a 6870 on a 22" screen (1680x1050) and she plays bfbc2 and aion maxed out. she also has a i7 920, with 6gb mem.

your memory question has more to do with the cpu you choose. if you get a socket 1366 cpu, your get tri channel (sets of 3,6,12,24) or if you get a socket 1156, 1155 you get dual channel (2,4,8). now the amount you need really depends on what you plan on doing with your pc. originally we started my wifes rig with 3gb mem, and everything worked awsome till she started in with aion, and that game would require quite a bit more for the lager battles, so we upgraded her to 6gb and havent had a problem at all. 4gb will most likely be enough, 8gb is more than enough and i doubt youll ever use past 5gb even with 2 games running tabbing back and forth like my wife does.

your cpu is a bit simpler i think. the socket 1156 and 1155 cpus have shown better gaming numbers than the 1366, and is probably still cheaper to build. i havent looked in a while but i think the only think the benches the 1366 still wins in the multi threaded encoding/decoding apps, so if youre just gonna surf the web, play games and other odd tasks then there is no real reason not to get a i7/i5 socket 1155 setup. proven work horse and great oc potential, cause higher clocks mean more performance in games over more cores (4cores vs 6).

so lets say i was in your possition, i would probably get a i7 2600k, 4gb mem (can always add another 4gb kit if you need it), and for a gpu i would get the strongest single card setup possible. this will keep you up to date for a minimum of 2 years, and if you have money left over i would look into a cm hyper 212+, different cases, mouse/keyboard, or any other personal perks.

 

[clarkjd]

so lets say i was in your possition, i would probably get a i7 2600k, 4gb mem (can always add another 4gb kit if you need it), and for a gpu i would get the strongest single card setup possible. this will keep you up to date for a minimum of 2 years, and if you have money left over i would look into a cm hyper 212+, different cases, mouse/keyboard, or any other personal perks.

Since he is getting a Dell, overclocking wont be possible(Dell locks the BIOS), and the 2600K would be wasted, as would the 2500K.

 

[robcalcroft]

Cheers guys, im going with the i5 2500, 8gb mem and the hd6870

 

[robcalcroft]

@clarkjd on the dell website it says that the 6gb memory is dual channel? you said before that triple channel would limit performance does this still apply, here is the link just scroll through to memory
http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=d00x8303&c=uk&l=en&s=dhs&cs=ukdhs1&model_id=xps-8300

 

[clarkjd]

@clarkjd on the dell website it says that the 6gb memory is dual channel? you said before that triple channel would limit performance does this still apply, here is the link just scroll through to memory
http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=d00x8303&c=uk&l=en&s=dhs&cs=ukdhs1&model_id=xps-8300

What Dell is doing is using 2X2GB & 2X1GB modules or a total of 4 modules. This will indeed give you 6GB of Dual channel memory, but it also uses up all of your available memory slots. If you need to upgrade your memory, you would have to remove one of the sets of ram. I would recommend the 8GB option where it uses 2X4GB sticks, which will leave you with 2 empty memory slots in case you need to add more memory later. Do not take the 4X2GB option as that uses up all of your slots.

Usually, when a manufacturer says 6GB they are talking about 3X2GB sticks, or three modules for triple channel. for dual channel, you use memory modules in multiples of two, for triple channel, you need multiples of three.

 

[robcalcroft]

Okay thanks for the help