6870 in a older system

That will be just fine providing the PSU can handle it. HP is among the worst for poor PSU's in the desktops. How many watts is the PSU rated for ?

RAM and proccesor are fine. You can upgrade to this model right here. its name brand and got great reviews.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
two things
1.be careful when replcaing a power supply
2.as long as its quad core it should be good for games like BF3. Skyrim will run great.

Yes, you'll need a new power supply. A good quality 500 Watt unit should be sufficient for the 6870. Also, the 6870 is a long card, most models are about 11 inches long, measure your case's interior and make sure it can actually fit the card into your case.

Also, a new case should also be a priority.

I have a 6870, it's a master piece!

Here are some benchmarks on some games:
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheHaloDon?feature=mhee#p/c...

So I was looking into things, and as long as it would fit, would it be worth it to jump to a 2GB 6950? And if I unlocked the shaders (praying that the one I get would be able to) would I run into a lot of heat issues?

This is the card I'm thinking about getting:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
I do realize it will begin to be limited by the CPU, but I'm hoping that in a future build I would be able to use this card, so looking at it as a longer term investment.

Any suggestions on a psu that might be used in a system later down the road for a possible xfire build?

And if it fits, would it be worth throwing in a slot fan to help with cool?

Thanks guys for your help I really appreciate your time and effort on this, I just want to make sure I get the most for my needs. Looking at a budget of around 350 dollars, less would be better haha.

if your looking for a future proof card you must go with 6970+. within a year or so the 6950 will be outdated but will still be a good card. within two years it may be time for an upgrade. remember amd 7000 series is out in jst a month pr 2 if you want to wait till then. those cards will be future proof. but nearly every year or so a new line of GPU's comes out.

Just because a new line of GPUs comes out does not instantly make the previous generation cards obsolete. Right now there are very few games that are really pushing the boundaries when it comes to graphics, and this isn't likely to change until the next generation of consoles comes out, which is probably going to be at least another 2 years away. There are cards 2 generations old that are still pretty good, with the only drawback being the lack of DX11 support. For the most part the 7000 series is going to be a refresh of existing cards by the looks of things, with the 7870 probably being about equal to the 6970 and the 7950 and 7970 being the only cards that are really superior to existing models. You don't really need to buy a flagship card to futureproof unless you want the card you buy now to be able to run at high settings some theoretical Crysis, Battlefield, or Metro sequel that may come out 2+ years from now. If you do want to go that route, you may be best off waiting for the 7000 series to hit, you may be able to get something closer to 6970 performance for a lower price.

I was looking at the 6950 2gb version that is offered by Sapphire, particularly the Dirt3 edition, because there is a chance that I could unlock the shaders to a 6970. But I go back to my original question and issue: Are there going to be heat problems with this in a HP computer case? I'm not looking to get a new case at this time. What PSU would you guys recommend for future xfire setup in a new rig? I'm looking to kind of future proof the GPU and PSU for a possible future build. I don't think I am going to wait for the 7000 series as Supernova1138 mentioned. My main games I am looking at to play right now are WoW, Skyrim, BF3, and Diablo 3 when it comes outs, and possibly some other games in the future. I am hoping to be able to max these games out as far as settings go or get very close to maxing them out, but I am stuck right now working with an HP case. Your thoughts?

the dirt 3 edition by saphire is in fact a dual bios card. The toxic version already has the 6970 bios in place. But the dirt 3 edition has a much quieter cooler.

Am i better to flash it with a bios or use the switch?

These things are not promised to work but will from all the reviews I've seen for the toxic and few here in this forum and hardware canucks.

If you wish to learn something and do a little work the payoff is a better cooler on the dirt 3 edition. Though if I wanted a 6970 I'd likely just buy one instead.

i disagree for BF3 the game already is reccomended at a 6950. also i said in about two years it would be time for an upgrade. in one year it would be slightly outdated as it would have the performance of a 7850/70 which may not suffice for ultra qualtiy settings with a game like BF4 if its anything like its predecesor. he said he wants to max games out and play BF3. a 6950 is good for that now but what about in a year or so? i didnt say not to get the 6950 i just said it wont neccasarly be future proofed solely based on the fact that even now the reccomeneded requirments for a game (BF3) is already the 6950. he also mentioned a 350$ budget and the fact that he wanted the most for his means which is the 6970 (GTX 570). the 6970 is also not technically considered a flagship GPU. a flagship GPU is the GPU that is currently the most expensive with the highest performance in the series which right now is 6990 and GTX 590. you also told me that there are cards that are two generations that are still good. but none of the 4000 series or 300 series will even touch battlefield 3 on high settings at decent resolution.

Battlefield 3 is the exception, not the rule, the only other game to come out this year that really rivals it for GPU horsepower is Crysis 2. I guess my opinion is that it isn't worth spending huge amounts of extra money just to get slightly better performance in a couple of games now, and slightly better performance in a couple of future titles. It might be worthwhile if you plan on sinking hundreds of hours into BF3's multiplayer, but aside from that scenario it just isn't worth it. It's his money, so if he wants to sink an extra 70+ dollars to get slightly better performance on a small handful of titles now, and wind up in the same situation 2 or 3 years from now either way, he can go for that. If one is obsessed with maxing out every single title, there simply is no such thing as futureproof. Spending extra now for a card won't get you much closer to ultra settings in Battlefield 4 or whatever it winds up being called.