Differences between two Radeons 7860

[Matt123123]

Hello,
I'll be looking to replace my ancient Geforce 8600 graphics card soon and was doing a bit of research and found a reasonably priced Radeon 7860. I'll use it just for gaming on my 24" monitor. Now, there's a much more expensive 7860 thats pretty much the same card but seems to have all these additional "supported technologies" like OpenCL ,DDMA ,GCN and DirectX11.1 where support for the latter isn't in the listed supported tech for the more affordable card. Also the more expensive card the Club 3D AMD Radeon 7870 memory type is DDR5 while my chosen card MSI AMD Radeon 7870 HAWK Graphics Card (MS-R7870-HAWK) is GDDR5.

I'd just like to know if any of those features make a crucial difference going forward and what the key differences are between the two cards? Also please comment on how the card will sit with the rest of my rig.
Core2QuadQ9550@2.83 GHZ
DQ45CB Motherboard
4 gb DDR 2 RAM
Huntkey Power-supply Output 600 watts, Output max 700 watts (Hawk requires 550 minimum)
Any bottlenecks or concerns especially with regard to the motherboard. So two big questions and apologies for the lengthy post.

 

[Matt123123]

Oops, thats Radeon 7870, sorry.

 

[rene13cross]

First off, in the context of graphics cards, DDR5 is GDDR5. Some vendors simply drop the G for no reason. So the Club 3D and the MSI 7870 you listed are pretty much the same. One might have better cooling than the other.

I reckon your system will do pretty well with the 7870. Although the system is relatively old, it should be quite capable and shouldn't bottleneck you that bad. Wattage wise, your PSU is also fine.

What resolution do you play at?

 

[Matt123123]

1920 x 1080, just bought a cool LED screen recently.
Yeah I think the Club 3d AMD Radeon has an active heat-sink too, the Hawk just a dual fan. Quite a significant price difference between the two though.

 

[rene13cross]

Get the cheaper one then. The difference between them definitely does not merit a higher price for either so just get the cheapest one. Performance wise they'll be both the same.

 

[Matt123123]

Best answer selected by Matt123123.

 

[Matt123123]

Thanks for your replies mate, will go for the cheaper one. Definitely looking forward to seeing how the card performs, it seems like quite a beast !