A new graphics card for my gfs computer

[PF85]

So my gfs 8800GT is about to rest in peace, and she complains ALOT about it
So I've been given a mission to find a new card for her. Its a relative old machine she got with a ASUS P5N-E SLI motherboard. And as far as I can see, it only got 2 x PCIe x16 slots. Is it then possible to put a PCIe 2.0 card in that slot?
Also I'm having a hard time deciding which card to get. She only play Sims 3 and a little bit of WoW, so she dosent have a for the best card around.

I got offered a 3 year old Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 X2 for around 80$. But I was also thinking about giving her my HD5850 and then get a 6870 myself. What do you think?

I hope that this makes some sense.

 

[Maxx_Power]

Her slots are both 2.0 compatible. ;-). The 6870 is a better idea. 4870 x2 is a big power hog compared to the 5850. With the newer cards, you are also equipped with dx11 capabilities.. Then 6870 will be a tad faster than your 5850, but expect no big gains.

 

[PF85]

Her slots are both 2.0 compatible. ;-). The 6870 is a better idea. 4870 x2 is a big power hog compared to the 5850. With the newer cards, you are also equipped with dx11 capabilities.. Then 6870 will be a tad faster than your 5850, but expect no big gains.

Thanks mate, thats really helpful.
I'm playing in 1920 x 1200, but my 5850 cant really keep up with that. Which card would be able to do that? And if I were to get a card like that, would I then have to pay 4-500$?

Thanks in advance

 

[Sunius]

I'd advice against buying 3 year old hardware - it could fail any day. Also, you really want DX11 for World of Warcraft. HD 5850 sounds better. Also, HD 6870 has similar performance too:

For 1920x1200, I'd thing something like HD 7870 would be great.

 

[PF85]

Thats great, thanks
What about a GeForce GTX 560 2GB? Thats only slightly more expensive than the 6870

 

[Maxx_Power]

yeah, agreed. At 1920x1200, if you can get a good deal on a cayman based card like 6950/6970 for 200 bucks then go for that. If not, newer cards like 7850 will cost you more money.

 

[Maxx_Power]

geforce 560 non-Ti edition, and the Ti edition without the extra cores (non-448 cores) are comparable to the 6850 and 6870. The 448 cores version is a bit faster than a 6870 from memory, but much power hungrier, so it depends on your psu, case cooling, and room air conditioning, it maybe an option for you.

 

[PF85]

Well it sounds like I should look at 6870 and if I feel like spending more, then the 7870.

XFX Radeon HD 6870 (1 GB) price in Denmark is around 195$
ZOTAC GeForce GTX 560 (2 GB) price is around 245$
ZOTAC GeForce GTX 560 Ti (1 GB) is around 275$
Sapphire RADEON HD 7870 GHz Edition OC is around 360$

 

[Merueth]

For 1900x1200 Gaming:

6850/GTX 560/6870- Probably the lowest you want to go for this resolution. These are all in the same general category in relation to the 5850.

6950/6970/7850/GTX 480- A noticeable step up from the 5850, as these can max out all but the most demanding of games.

7870/GTX 570- Probably the most you need to spend. They will max out everything at 45+ FPS.

Well it sounds like I should look at 6870 and if I feel like spending more, then the 7870.

XFX Radeon HD 6870 (1 GB) price in Denmark is around 195$
ZOTAC GeForce GTX 560 (2 GB) price is around 245$
ZOTAC GeForce GTX 560 Ti (1 GB) is around 275$
Sapphire RADEON HD 7870 GHz Edition OC is around 360$

7870 isn't worth $165 more in my eyes. The GTX 560 is the same, if not worse than the 6870, so no contest there. I would just get the 6870.

 

[Maxx_Power]

I agree with Merueth on the 7870 but will add that even the 7850 is a bit of a rip off monetary wise. If you spot some good prices on the 6950/6970's, take those. Although I don't know what the selection is like in Denmark. I know there has been occasional deals on the internet for 6950 for 200 $ like this one:

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=61903&vpn=HD695XCDFC&manufacture=XFX&promoid=1261

 

[PF85]

These are the prices for 6950/6970 in Denmark:

Sapphire RADEON HD 6950 (1GB) around 230$
XFX Radeon HD 6950 XXX (2 GB) around 250$
MSI R6970 Lightning (2 GB) around 330$

 

[Maxx_Power]

That XFX looks good (check that it still has the old XFX lifetime warranty). That sapphire looks decent also.

 

[PF85]

I've just asked on a used XFX 6950 HD 2 GB for around 165$. Depends on how old it is I guess

 

[Maxx_Power]

That would be an awesome deal.

 

[PF85]

I also just got offered a Sapphire HD 5970 for around 245$. Its almost 2 years old

 

[Maxx_Power]

Hmm, I'd take the 69xx over the 59xx. With crossfire/SLI/Virtu based setups, you never really know if the dual GPU setup will benefit a particular game due to scaling, or if you will have microstutter issues that ruins the game experience. Also, the 5970 may or may not be 2x underclocked 5870's (from memory), and when crossfire scaling is not optimal, you may actually lose a bit of performance.

 

[PF85]

I have no idea what you just wrote dude I'm not gonna run it in CF/SLI, only a single GPU. And from what I can tell regarding both 6950 and 5970 then they´re both single GPUs with 2 GB

 

[Maxx_Power]

5970 is 2x5870 GPUs on one board. It is a single board crossfire solution. That's why I said what I said.

 

[Mousemonkey]

I have no idea what you just wrote dude I'm not gonna run it in CF/SLI, only a single GPU. And from what I can tell regarding both 6950 and 5970 then they´re both single GPUs with 2 GB

The HD5970 is a dual GPU card.

 

[Maxx_Power]

And that 2GB frame buffer is really 1GB x2 for each of the 2 GPU's on board. So your largest texture storage in the VRAM is still limited to 1GB, since it is 1GB per GPU core.

 

[PF85]

Ahh okay. Thanks for clearing that up. But according to some benchmarks the 5950 clearly outperforms a 6950. Like http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/battlefield-3-graphics-performance,3063-8.html

But I also read something about unlocking a 6950 into a 6970 somewhere. God its hard to choose, but I think that I might be able to get the 6950 for around 130$

 

[Maxx_Power]

You are right, sometimes, the crossfire solutions are indeed faster. My experience with crossfire is that the microstutter was very annoying, and I needed frequent driver updates to either keep up with the games, or wait for updates so that it ran with the newest games (this can take a while). A faster single GPU is usually always faster, a dual GPU setup can be faster, or slower than a given single faster GPU, depending on the scaling, driver releases, game optimization, etc.

I would say, that given that 5970 is an older GPU, it will be less and less likely for AMD to release drivers with proper crossfire support, and now with AMD not committed to regular release schedules of driver updates, you MAY find yourself running that GPU in non-crossfire modes very often. Then you would have spent 245$ for a single, but slightly slower (from memory again, don't quote me on this) 5870.

 

[PF85]

I see, thats really helpful. I'll def. Try to snatch that 6950 at 130$ then. Are there any direct competitors to the 6950 I should keep an eye on?

 

[Maxx_Power]

Well, the 570 from Nvidia is a potent solution. I can't remember which one was slightly faster, but they are on average, within hairs distance from each other across games and benchmarks. I wouldn't hesitate on the 6950 for that much money, that seems like a no-brainer. Just make sure to test the GPU on a full load for a couple of hours if it is second hand. Unless you know the previous owner well, I wouldn't want you to end up with a damaged card (from OC, or mods).

 

[PF85]

I'll do that then. Which program can I use for testing it? I've never tried that before