Radeon hd 6850 vs hd 6870

Those games are high end, so I would go with the 6870. Or even better, get a 560 and overclock it. (They can overclock much better than 6870s) and you would get 560ti performance, which is much better than both. Also, I would recommend you get an AMD processor because AMD makes much better budget processors. (You would want 4 cores for bf3, and intel does not offer cheap versions of this.) If you decide to go with Radeon, note that the cpu and gpu are from the same company, so you can get slightly more performance, though not as much as an oc 560 as opposed to an oc 6870.

  I own a XFX 6850 BLACK EDTION 1 GB card and my friend owns a 6870 BLACK EDTION 1 GB card , my suggestion would be save up and get the best a 6870 2GB card you won't regret it ,Believe me.

This should be true, but don't break your budget. If you're not in a hurry, some more Kepler cards may be out soon, which may push some prices down a little.


Too bad you didn't quit while you were ahead, because everything in here is wrong. There is no longer any price point at which Intel does not outperform AMD; sad but true. Here's a lowly Pentium vs. a Phenom II: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/102?vs=404
For productivity, the Phenom II is clearly better. For games, the Pentium wins more than it loses, and by much larger margins. Yes, you can OC the Phenom II; that's why I chose a Pentium; here's a 980BE (oc'ed 965) vs. the slowest i3: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/362?vs=289 - same story. Note how much more power the AMD CPU uses too.
In the old-old days, there may have been some truth to the tale that an AMD CPU + AMD GPU performed a little better, but I wouldn't care to bet on it, because iirc what little difference there was came down to the chipset, not the CPU. Back then, nVidia made chipsets, some known for stability or other problems. Today, I do not believe it matters.

6870 vs 6850 -------- http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/540?vs=539

I'd say go with a 6870 for the fact that your'e playing some very GPU intense games, your going to need all the power you can get.

If you are willing to bump up, I'd say go for a Sapphire HD 7850 like I did a few days ago from an HD 6850 of the same partner.

The 7850 is VERY OC-able due its new 28nm process which allows the card to run cooler, suck less power WHILE running much better than both the 6870 and 560.

7850 vs 6850 - http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/549?vs=539

  WOW! jessterman,he is right buy this and you wont need to upgrade for awhile. nice find jessterman  

Best answer selected by batman211.