Is my Radeon 5870 bottlenecking my system?

[Sphynx91]

Hi guys. I've had my Sapphire 5870 video card for 2-3 years now and I feel an upgrade is needed. My system specs: AMD Phenom II x6 1090t BE @ 3.8 Ghz, 8gb Corsair RAM, Corsair HX850 PSU. I'm wondering if an upgrade is needed really soon or should I wait a bit for new cards to come out or for current cards to get cheaper? I've been looking into the Radeon 7970 and Nvidia GTX 670 and 680 and I'm really impressed with all three. If I were to upgrade my video card; should I buy one of these three or another?

 

[hammerhead2008]

I'd suggest the GTX 670 just blows everything away, especially if budget isn't an issue. Obviously a GTX 680 is nicer, but you can save yourself some money there.

 

[Sphynx91]

Actually I was considering the GTX 670 a little more over the 7970 and 680 because it's cheaper than the others and gives pretty much the same performance when OC'd. Thanks for your quick Reply hammerhead2008

 

[Deemo13]

An upgrade would only be needed if you feel you need an upgrade. If you want to play BF3 on the max settings possible, you might want a better GPU, but the 5870 is still a pretty good card.

What games are you playing and at what resolution?

 

[Kkkk1]

You've just answered your own question. However, how about buying a 680 so you can overclock in the future? Just a thought.

 

[Kkkk1]

I didn't actually answer your original question (oops sorry).

Well your CPU, RAM and PSU are fine so in short you will definitely see better performance by upgrading your GPU.

 

[hammerhead2008]

However, the other point is that the HD7970 can be easily overclocked to speeds of the GTX680 so it's again debatable. You've got to remember that no matter what, all of these cards are going to blow you away