I’ve been lucky enough to have a spare £300 after a bit of luck at the casino and wanted to know what would give me the best upgrade. I did consider buying a vertex when it originally came out but decided I would wait till the price dropped also did this with the 5870's hoping Fermi would cause a price drop and was sorely disappointed. So enough of the sad tale what one would give me the best upgrade as I play left4dead2, dawn of war 2, empire total war, and just bought some of the game packs off steam that where on the summer sale. I would say that I spend a lot of time gaming and have a 23" widescreen monitor. Currently have 2 4870 512mb in crossfire and water cooled. How much of an increase in performance would I see changing to a 5870. I would be buying a water block too and adding it in to the loop. For an ssd I simply want it for the fast boot times and quick loading of games. I also use photo shop to edit photos and have seen that they increase performance in this program. Was looking at one of the new SandForce controller ssd like the one below. http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/120G...-Read-275MB-s-Write-includes-25-to-35-bracket So over to you which one would you buy ?
From CF HD4870 i think you will be ok with games for the next while. Get a ssd and upgrade to a DX11 gpu next year maybe Would look at the new crucial drives.
SSDs are overrated. I know mine is. Sure windows boot like twice as fast but we are only talking about a 20 second difference here. Programs launch noticably faster but you are going to win any races for meager seconds gained. Now a 5870 would bring you stunning visuals and higher FPS, something you will notice after the game has loaded.
if the money's burning a hole in your pocket then definitely the SSDs... i had high hopes for the 5870, but the difference in games is so minimal over my 4870x2 that, in exactly the same position, i bought my first SSDs (a pair of Vertex Turbos) & haven't looked back. Well, similarly have my gfx card water cooled (for that extra bit of OCing), so to maintain that you're also looking at £80 (ish) for a new block... Okay, you could then sell your old cards on (roughly valued at £50-70 a piece 2nd hand without the water blocks) to cover the new block & have a decent night in the pub, but is it worth the hassle for so little gain? There's also comparatively so little that actually uses DX11 & with the 6870, etc rumoured to be out in Q4 2010 (so properly properly in the shops for Q1 2011), at this point imho you'd need to find a very good deal to even half consider that option. Anyway, if i suddenly won £300 i'd buy another pair of 50GB Vertex 2s to add to the ones i just bought for a new R0 array, but maybe that's just me...(?)
Hi thanks for the replies thinking im leaning towards a ssd. been googling 4870cf vs 5870 to try and find benchmarks but no luck so far. If anyone has a link please add it. Here is what I have found so far 4870 Crossfire pros Fast if driver support Cost about £80 for another card (not an issue already have) Cons A single 5870 is comparable in performance Power consumption, the 5870 will use half the amount under load and alot less at idle No DX11 No Eyefinity Less reliant on driver support Heat (not an issue as water cooling) ssd on the other hand seems only to have the price against them which isn't an issue at the moment. Rofl_Waffle what ssd do you have ?
A quick check & Tom's Hardware has the 4870CF listed in their comparison charts (the link's to the sum of all the fps benchmarks)... ...yeah, obviously it depends upon the game but, overall, they're showing both your CF setup & my x2 as being faster than the 5870. & do you actually *need* Eyefinity?
I would get the SSD. 2x HD 4870s are going to be comparable, if not better than the HD 5870. You probably won't notice the difference. Plus you need to go through the hassle of adding it to your loop. An SSD on the other hand will be noticeable. I am waiting for my SSD to get delivered, so I can't give you an account of how good they are though.
This isn't the time to buy am SSD though, I'd want till the other side of the summer when Sandforce has fully released and more info on the Intel 25nm chips is released
SSD if you really need to fulfill that upgrade itch. A HD5870 isn't going to give you that big of an edge.
I had forgot about the new 25nm chips how much of a price drop do you think there would be on the intel ssd when they are released ? Hi thanks for the link had been looking on the forums on tomshardware never looked at the charts . Eyefinity is a no go dont have the room for anymore monitors not got the biggest desk. +1 rep for the help So 99% sure that its an ssd upgrade but should I wait till the new 25nm chips come out and hope for a price drop and get a higher capacity drive or bite the bullet and get one now ?
Personally I'd either keep the money or get a cheap SSD such as the new 64GB Crucial RealSSD C300 & then pocket the rest of the money so you can get one of the top cards for the next ATI refresh.
I don't. LOL ! My C: drive is 180GB I don't get the SSD thing. Someone like me would need a 250GB SSD if I was put Windows on it, and have my games on the same drive, and have room for a decent sized swap file. If I didn't put games on it, or use it for a swap file, then the only advantage is it would boot 30% faster. So what? Upgrade the graphics.
I wouldn't suggest upgrading tha graphics card as the 5870 offers the same level performance (worse in some cases) compared to the 4870s & so is definitely not worth a £300 upgrade. However in my opinion I don't think SSDs are worth it either: startup only take about a minute whereas gaming lasts for hours. I can see which bit i'd rather upgrade. So instead it would be better to save his money for the next card refresh when it probably would be worth upgrading.
new cards really a dissapointment with sli and xfire offering a massively cheaper upgrade path. ssd still to expensive.. have you thought about an ips monitor
I just suggested "Upgrade the graphics".. not necessarily that card. Others in here have already covered that quite well. I just don't see a SSD in that price range being a great upgrade.
there isnt another card he could upgrade to thats the problem 5770 in crossfire is not an upgrade. Perhaps 5830 in crossfire not sure on performance figures for it
