How much better is the Radeon 6870 than the GTX 550Ti?

[Pandacoot]

I just completed my first gaming build. I was gifted a video card, a 2GB EVGA GTX 550Ti, and I've been using it for the past week or so. I've done enough research to know that it's easily overpowered by the 1GB XFX Radeon 6870 I was planning on buying initially, which makes sense, as the 6870 is about $30-$40 more expensive. I'm not interested in running insanely needy games like Crysis 2, Rage, and Battlefield 3 on ultra settings at 60FPS, but I would be able to run most AAA games, stuff like Borderlands 2, Skyrim, BioShock, Assassin's Creed, etc., on high-ultra settings at an easily acceptable FPS (like 30FPS minimum). So, for games like those, how big is the difference between the 550 and the 6870? Is it worth me upgrading to the 6870 in the near future? Or will the 550Ti serve me fine for my intended purposes until I've got enough cash to make a bigger leap to something in the Radeon 7000 series in the more distant future?

Thanks for any help you can offer!

 

[esrever]

the 6870 will be about 40% faster. It should be a good upgrade to the 550ti.

 

[luciferano]

How much do you plan on spending on this 6870? You might be able to get a 7850 instead of a 6870 because they can be priced very similarly and that's a similarly great upgrade over the 6870 compared to the 6870 over the GTX 550 Ti.

 

[Pandacoot]

http://tpucdn.com/reviews/Palit/GeForce_GTX_550_Ti_Sonic/images/perfrel_1920.gif

the 6870 will be about 40% faster. It should be a good upgrade to the 550ti.

Thanks for the graph. My question is, though, more specifically, will the 6870 be worth the upgrade from the 550Ti even though I've only had the 550Ti for about a week? Will the 550Ti serve my specific purposes OK? Or will I soon find it to be inferior to what I want to run? As I said before, I'd like to be able to run AAA games at high-max settings, but that doesn't include stuff like Crysis 2 and Rage that would require much more horsepower to run at max.

 

[Pandacoot]

How much do you plan on spending on this 6870? You might be able to get a 7850 instead of a 6870 because they can be priced very similarly and that's a similarly great upgrade over the 6870 compared to the 6870 over the GTX 550 Ti.

I'd be willing to consider that. However, do you think that, for my current specific purposes, the 550Ti will serve me, at least respectably, or will I soon find its performance to be unacceptable?

 

[JJ1217]

Well cards of that calibre shouldn't be restricted by video ram, as you won't have the ability to run games fast enough to utilise more than the video ram given.

A 7850 is a fantastic upgrade, take it from me, who upgraded from a 9500gt DDR2 1GB to a Sapphire 7850. Then I also have the card clocked at 1400 mhz core, and 1500 mhz memory, which sails past a 660ti, and bites the twice as expensive 670's heels.

 

[luciferano]

1.4GHz on a 7850 GPU
I'd be worried about killing that card at that frequency. What voltage do you have, like 1.4V!? 1.2GHz is normal and 1.25GHz to 1.3GHz is excellent for a 7850's GPU. 1.4GHz stable is incredible.

 

[luciferano]

I'd be willing to consider that. However, do you think that, for my current specific purposes, the 550Ti will serve me, at least respectably, or will I soon find its performance to be unacceptable?

That's completely up to you. What your needs/desires are is a very subjective thing and I can only guess at what you'd find inadequate. What resolution do you play at?


The 7870 competes well with the GTX 580 in performance. The 6950 competes with the GTX 560 Ti and a fully unlocked 6950 (assuming that it works) is effectively a 6970 and competes with the GTX 570. The 7850, at stock, is about on-par with the 6970, but can overclock to noticeably better than a stock 580. The 7870 can overclock even further. If you can get a 7870 around $200, then that'd be the card to get because it is worth the price hike over that 6950.

Your answer to my above question will help me to see if you'd really use the performance that any of these cards.

 

[Ironslice]

I suggest you try using the GTX 550 ti first since it was gifted to you. If you don't like the performance, then upgrade.

 

[Pandacoot]

That's completely up to you. What your needs/desires are is a very subjective thing and I can only guess at what you'd find inadequate. What resolution do you play at?


The 7870 competes well with the GTX 580 in performance. The 6950 competes with the GTX 560 Ti and a fully unlocked 6950 (assuming that it works) is effectively a 6970 and competes with the GTX 570. The 7850, at stock, is about on-par with the 6970, but can overclock to noticeably better than a stock 580. The 7870 can overclock even further. If you can get a 7870 around $200, then that'd be the card to get because it is worth the price hike over that 6950.

Your answer to my above question will help me to see if you'd really use the performance that any of these cards.

Great, thanks for the comparison. I think I'll plan on using mt 550 for at least a half a year to a year, then think about upgrading to a 7870. And to answer your question, I'm playing at 1920x1080.

 

[amuffin]

I suggest you try using the GTX 550 ti first since it was gifted to you. If you don't like the performance, then upgrade.

Exactly.