4870 upgrade

[agerrard680]

Hi everyone,

I'm thinking it's time to upgrade my old XFX 4870 1GB, but I don't want to over-kill my current system (e.g. introducing a CPU bottleneck) or have to fork out for a totally new rig to get the most out of a modern GPU.

I play a lot of games, but do nothing else CPU demanding (no need for an i7 really). I usually play 1920 x 1080, single 22" monitor. Games like Fallout 3 NV and L4D2 I play maxed out and good performance, but games like BF2BC2 and ME2 I have to play medium/high settings. I understand these are where my GPU lets me down.

Current specs:

AMD 965 @ 4.01GHz
8GB Corsair XM3 DDR3
OCZ ZT Series 650W Modular PSU

I was looking to buy either a 6850 / 6870, as I've heard good things, but I'm not clear if these cards will be held back by the CPU. I've read a number of threads and conflicting OPINIONS generally cloud the information. For example:

http://www.overclock.net/t/973995/at-what-point-will-a-965-limit-gaming
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=152196&page=3

Does anyone know how I can find out if the 965 OC and say, a 6950, are a good match? Perhaps some comparison charts which might reveal bottlenecks?.. I found the two threads below very useful, showing a tier system to distinguish CPU / GPU's from each other, but how should one aim to pair them up most efficiently???

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,3106.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html

Really appreciate any help!

Cheers.

 

[stevetheutilityman]

I guess it really depends on your budget. 6950 is same price as 7850, and 6870 is a slightly better card than 6850. You can calculate price / performance in your comparison chart.

 

[motorneuron]

Here's a good article from Tom's about this kind of issue. They are using a 7970 (I know that's more powerful than you'll have) and then testing a bunch of cheaper/older CPUs:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-fx-pentium-apu-benchmark,3120.html

You can see that it's pretty game-dependent. For example, Starcraft II is CPU-dependent, so the better CPUs do better. But most games the CPU doesn't make much difference--in some virtually no difference (e.g. Dirt 3), and in others only about 20% between the best CPU (2500k) and the worst (athlon II or Llano). Remember, that was with a 7970, and you're talking about several tiers down from that. Conclusion: you'll be fine, just get the best GPU you can afford right now. As for that, I really like the 6870 and 7850 at the moment for value; they're about $100 apart in price. A non-reference of either card is a good OCer too (the 7850 can be a HUGE overclocker--there was just an article I read where they had pushed the core from 860 MHz to 1200 MHz and the memory like 30%).

 

[agerrard680]

Thanks for the advice. I've gone and brought myself a 2GB HIS 7850 (and also a cheeky Crucial M4 128GB SSD)!

Might have to buy BF3 now to see how it gets on...