Radeon HD 6870 upgrade over 460se?

tiandrad

Distinguished
Aug 11, 2011
1
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18,510
I'm using a nvidia 460 GTX se, and would like to know if getting a Radeon HD 6870 would be a worthly upgrade. Since getting the 460se my performance has been very lack luster it most games.

btw my other pc specs

Intel Quad core Q9550 @2.88Ghz
4gb of ram
500W powersupply
.
 

wintermint

Distinguished
Sep 30, 2009
1,150
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19,460
You be the judge: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/290?vs=313
I don't think the difference in performance will justify spending $155-170 on HD 6870. I would recommend getting an additional GTX 460 to get the best out of your money. Here's the benchmark: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/290?vs=314 Full system load with Crysis will be 427W but furmark will push it to 510W. Your 500W is pretty much cutting it close.

Edit: If possible, just go for something higher end like the 560 ti or 6950. You can look up how to flash the 6950 into a 6970 and save around $100. Pretty sweet right? :)
 

4745454b

Titan
Moderator
The 6870 is faster. AMDs answer to the NORMAL GTX460 was the 6850, so the 6870 will be faster. You have the SE version, which is slower then even the 768MB GTX460. This is a better chart.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/290?vs=315

I do agree however that the difference probably isn't worth the $$$ you would pay. Going through those scores STALKER shows the best gains where you used to get 28FPS (less then 30/playable.) and you could have 40FPS. Up to you however if you want to go for it.

What 500W PSU?