Video card upgrade or not

[veloglider]

i have an Alienware Area 51 pc with x-58 motherboard, intel core I7 processor 6 gigs ram upgrading to 12. I presently have ATI HD 4870 x2 video cards and was thinkming of upgrading to a Radeon HD 6970. Is it worth upgrading or does anone have any better ideas. i was told this upgrade wouldn't make a big differance, also if i did i have a 2.0 x 16 interface and the new card is a 2.1 x 16 will it still work?

 

[AbdullahG]

The 4870x2 are still nice cards. If they just aren't delivering for you, get a 2GB 6950:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102945

The 6950.6970 are overall better cards than 4870x2, not to mention you get Eyefinity, DX11, amazing scaling with XFire, and much more. I say go with the upgrade.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

2.1/2.0, no difference it will work. i do agree you may not see a lot of difference with a 6970. you can see here your card is pretty much on par with a 5870 http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/174?vs=162
there is not a lot in it between a 5870 and a 6970
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/294?vs=292
it is an upgrade but not much, and you will get dx11 support and your power bill will drop.

 

[HugoStiglitz]

id agree with the above posts. its an upgrade yes, but is it worth the money. well only your wallet can tell you that.

I receently had a friend upgrade from a 4870X2 (single card) to a 6990 and was wrapped. but there is a fair diff between a 6970 and a 6990 both in performance and price

 

[veloglider]

Hmmmm not sure what to do. so its an upgrade but not considerable. Any other ideas for doing something that will make a differance, perhaps dual cards? since i am upgrading my memory and hard drive i wanted to upgrade the video card as well and make sure i am good for a few more years. Thanks for the help so far

 

[Emperus]

4870 X2 is already a dual card setup. You should wait until the new crop of video card launches. In the meantime, give us your entire system component details and let us see if any other component requires a critical (or worthwhile) upgrade.

 

[veloglider]

Here is the specs to my PC: I also upgraded Windows to 7 professional

1 | AREA-51 X58 WARTIME EDITION DESKTOP
1 | FULL-TOWER BLACK CASE 2.0B
1 | ASUS X58 MOTHERBOARD P6T DELUXE VER 2
1 | INTEL BLM 2.66GHZ i7-920 A51 X58
3 | ELPIDA 2GB DDR3 1333MHZ JEDEC STANDARD PC3-1066
1 | SEAGATE 750GB 7200RPM SATA HD REV1
1 | LG 20X DUAL-LAYER DVD NON-LIGHT SCRIBE
1 | INTEGRATED ETHERNET NIC P6T DELUXE
1 | CREATIVE SOUND BLASTER X-FI TITANIUM PCIE
1 | ATI HD4870 X2 2GB PCI-E
1 | WINDOWS VISTA HOME PREMIUM SP1 COA
1 | WINDOWS VISTA HOME PREMIUM X64
1 | ALIENRESPAWN V2.0 FACTORY INSTALL
1 | POWERDVD 8.0 + TRUETHEATER
1 | NERO 9 PREINSTALL
1 | ALIENRESPAWN V2.0 MEDIA KIT
1 | ALIENWARE DIGITAL DOWNLOAD STORE
1 | ALIENWARE MAIN BOARD RGB REV 5.1
1 | CONTROL ELC DIP CARD PASSIVE
1 | ASTEK LCS 1366 PROCESSOR BACKPLATE X58
1 | ASTEK LCS 1366 PROCESSOR RETENTION RING X58
1 | ASTEK SINGLE PROCESSOR LIQUID COOLING SYSTEM X58 REV 2
1 | FAN CABLE EXTENSION
1 | CORSIAR 750 WATT ATX PSU
1 | 6 to 8 PIN CONNECTOR
1 | CARDKEEPER FOR ATI GRAPHICS CARDS


thanks, any advice is always highly appreciated. again upgrading RAM to 12gigs and another harddrive Seagate XT 2TB

 

[the fong]

Depending on what games you're running, and if you're running the CPU at stock, you may be getting bottlenecked from that, the i7 920 has great headroom for OC'ing, can get some big jumps in speed even at stock voltage, other than that upgrading the ram to a faster 1600mhz or higher should see a nice speed bump