I am gearing up to buy a new rig, and the only bit that is really swaying my decisions about motherboards is what I am going to do about graphics. I currently have a 5770 1GB which I am pretty happy with and it plays everything I play at 1680x1050, and surprisingly it has coped very well with a recent 1920x1080 monitor upgrade. So my question is this, stick with my 5770 for a little while then pick up another one for crossfire if I feel I need it. Or should I sell the 5770, pick up a GTX 460 1gb and then leave myself the option of another one of those further down the line? Providing I get a motherboard that will support SLI, I might not bother and stick with a single card. Any opinions are welcome.
At the moment I am just playing TF2 and mafia 2 demo. TF2 obviously will run on pretty much anything, but I am looking at all the new games coming out soon and wondering if my 5770 can cut it at 1080p. My current plan is to get new Cpu, Ram and Motherboard and hold off of the Gpu for a while until the 460 drops a bit in price. But then I considered that as the 460 drops in price, my 5770 is losing value. I cannot really be bothered to play the waiting game and try and hit the sweet spot of resale value/lowest 460 cost, unless someone knows something I don't
5770 won't do 1080p at decent settings, if you can sell your 5770, and if you can stand fiddling with settings until you find something good that works the 1GB 460 would be good.. Though a 5870 would be ideal.
I am currently playing tf2 at 1080p and it runs no different from 1680x1050. I had to knock textures down to medium to get mafia 2 demo to play just as well. But in most other games I have not noticed a difference. I am expecting to see the card get destroyed with games coming out soon/start of 2011 though. A 5870 would be ideal, but the cost is far higher than I am willing to pay. To be honest the idle clock crashes and what appears to be just generally flaky drivers has put me off ATI cards for the second time. My 3850 was a constant pain with always having to fight to get games working correctly, the 5770 has only been marginally better. I am bloody glad I won it and didn't buy it . My 8800GT was just flawless, which is why a GTX 460 seemed so tempting, but now I have heard about people have issues with it.
Source games are no problem, too bad about the ATI experience though.. My 9600 still works fine, my 1GB 4870 gave me no problems at all. Every card has some issues, but the 1GB GTX460 has gotten mostly sparkling reviews, unless if you want to wait a bit and stick it out with your 5770, that's the card I'd recommend.
Cheers for the input and general chat. I really needed someone to tell me what I already know/am thinking. None of my friends are really that into PC hardware so I am usually talking at them about it rather than with them. Now to see how much I can get for my 5770...
I've heard so many good things about the GTX460 especially in SLI and only a few issues with them. I know mine are the 480's but the drivers work flawlessly.
I'd keep the 5770 for now, if you don't have any major problems with the games you currently play I would wait till the point where you do.
