[Solved] Radeon 4870 $120 Budget

Forum Graphics & Displays : AMD Radeon [Solved] Radeon 4870 $120 Budget

APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: Beginning of January 2012

USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: BF3 medium-High, performance should be better than my current 4870.

CURRENT GPU AND POWER SUPPLY: ATI Radeon HD 4870 512 MB, PSU Antec EarthWatts EA-650 GREEN 650W ATX12V v2.3 SLI Ready CrossFire Certified 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply

OTHER RELEVANT SYSTEM SPECS: CPU: Core 2 Quad Q6400 4gig ddr2 mobo: p5g41-m le

PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: newegg.com

PARTS PREFERENCES:

OVERCLOCKING: Yes SLI OR CROSSFIRE: Maybe

MONITOR RESOLUTION: 1440:900

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: If possible budget 270 dollars with a HDMI monitor at least (1680:1050)

Message edited by ultra619 on 12-04-2011 at 05:54:04 AM

Reply to ultra619

In January the prices might look different but a little better than you HD4870 HD6790 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814150564
Look for deals though on HD6850 or GTX460 1GB they sometimes have a price around $120 after MIR.

Reply to rolli59

GIGABYTE Ultra Durable VGA Series GV-R685OC-1GD Radeon HD 6850 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity $149.99, $129.99 with Rebate
XFX HD-685X-ZCFC Radeon HD 6850 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card $159.99, $129.99 with Rebate, $7.56 Shipping
Free Dirt3 game coupon w/ purchase, limited offer SAPPHIRE 100315L Radeon HD 6850 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity $144.99, $129.99 with Rebate, $6.98 Shipping
these are the current prices. like rolli59 said, prices might vary in january.
all recommendations are based on current price.

Message edited by De5_roy on 12-04-2011 at 02:50:44 PM

Reply to De5_roy

but is it worth the upgrade from a 4870?

Reply to ultra619

HD6850 is 6790 only in newer tech only slightly in performance.

Reply to rolli59

you could also hold out till next year when new hardware - 22 nm ivb, 28 nm amd and nvidia cards come out and see what happens with them. imo, right now, the 6850 and higher are better than the 4870, and at your res. the 512 mb of vram is a bit low.

Reply to De5_roy

Best answer

The HD6850 is roughly 30-35% faster than the HD4870 on average at high resolutions. It will also give you DX11 and much improved power efficiency. Whether it is worth the money you need to decide I guess. Personally I would recommend at least saving up slightly more for an HD6870 which would be closer to a 60% increase in performance. Here is one for $140 after rebate with a free game you could ebay to get closer to the $120 you were talking about;
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814131378
FYI your processor runs at 2.13ghz which is quite low these days even for a quad core. Many games still just use 2 cores and especially in those it is going to restrict the performance of any card you might buy(probably already an issue if you are running an HD4870 at 1440x900.) I would overclock that processor as much as you can. A decent cooler is $20-30 if you are still on the stock one. With good cooling you should be able to get it up somewhere in the 3-3.5ghz range which would help a lot.
For the monitor this is a good page to keep an eye on;
http://www.logicbuy.com/categoryde [...] d-monitors

Reply to jyjjy

Or here is a very nice deal on an HD5850 for $120;
http://www.bensoutlet.com/products/ati-radeon-hd-5850
The HD5850 would be a 45-50% increase in performance over your HD4870. It is the reference model pictured which has voltage control and that is good thing. The HD5850s with voltage control can often overclock a huge amount, up to 1ghz, which is close to 40%. It's what I would recommend.

Reply to jyjjy