Suggestions on what to upgrade in my computer

[Wilchen558]

Hi, i would like your help/suggestions on what i can do, to make my computer more up to date. I do not have much Knowledge in this area and would like someone with more Knowledge than i have, to come with some suggestions.

Games i play:
Battlefield 3
Skyrim
and mostly new games.

Spec:
Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-790xta-UD4
Graphic interface - 2x Radeon HD 5770
Memory - 4 gb DDR3 (1333 MHz i think)
CPU - AMD Phenom II X4 945
CPU Speed - 3013,4 MHz
Power Supply Make/Model - Corsair TX850W
Watt output/Amperage - +12V 70A 850W

I'm not so satisfied with my 2x Radeon HD 5770 so I'm thinking about changing them to a 6870 or 6950. also considering getting 8 gb in total.
My budget is about 350$.

I'm looking forward to hear your suggestions.

 

[DKRON]

$350 isn't really enough for both dual cards and more memory, i would spend $450 and get atleast dual 6870's and ram and also put in a new X6 proccessor

 

[cliffordcooley]

I'm not so satisfied with my 2x Radeon HD 5770 so I'm thinking about changing them to a 6870 or 6950. also considering getting 8 gb in total.

You have a nice build already and before reading the quoted bit, I came to the same conclusion you did.

The AMD Radeon HD 7000 series is just around the corner if you think you can wait for it.

 

[herpaderp]

Is Sattlefield 3 the new cowboy simulator? :V
Anyways, for your budget, you could go for dual 6870s which will provide a healthy performance boost. The 6800 series cards scale much better in CF than the 5000 cards, so you'll be seeing better than 6970 performance with 2 6870s.

 

[DKRON]

The 6800 series cards scale much better in CF than the 5000 cards

not this is helping but actually the 5850 CFX is actually faster than the 6870 CFX, the 6000 serious cards were just designed to use alot less power but actually loose some performance, but you can't really buy HD5000 cards anymore anyway so thats why i said get the 6870's

 

[red1776]

not this is helping but actually the 5850 CFX is actually faster than the 6870 CFX, the 6000 serious cards were just designed to use alot less power but actually loose some performance, but you can't really buy HD5000 cards anymore anyway so thats why i said get the 6870's

That is just simply not true...or even close. The CFX 6870 is faster (and by a significant margin) than the CFX 5850's. a single 6870 is faster than a single 5850 as well. the 6000 series also had much improved crossfire scaling in addition to being more energy efficient.
In fact, as a result of the much improved CF scaling, a pair of 6870's in CF is faster than a pair of 5870's in CF.
I have crossfired both of them, and had the same results as guru3D did here, as well as the other sites who have benched this configuration.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-6850-6870-crossfirex-review/1

 

[Wilchen558]

Crossfire

When i play battlefield 3 using only 1 GPU its plays fine, but when i turn on crossfire, it doesn't feel like im getting any extra performance and it gets a bit more laggy.

Anyone knows why?

 

[Arris]

That is just simply not true...or even close. The CFX 6870 is faster (and by a significant margin) than the CFX 5850's. a single 6870 is faster than a single 5850 as well. the 6000 series also had much improved crossfire scaling in addition to being more energy efficient.
In fact, as a result of the much improved CF scaling, a pair of 6870's in CF is faster than a pair of 5870's in CF.
I have crossfired both of them, and had the same results as guru3D did here, as well as the other sites who have benched this configuration.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-6850-6870-crossfirex-review/1

I've almost sure that I've seen benchmarks for some titles where a single 5850 beats the 6870. I'll try and look them out, but certainly the CF scaling cannot be denied. But with that said in most of the benchmarks from Guru3d the 6850 CF and 5850 CF are within 8-10 FPS of each other, sometimes with the 5850 CF winning, only one or two benchmarks seemed to show a large win for the 6850 CF. Certainly not an upgrade path I'd consider. 5770 CF to 6870 CF would be a much more significant upgrade, but just need to make sure you have a big enough PSU to support it. With the costs involved I'd be tempted to wait until the 7xxx series at the start of 2012. I'm seriously going to consider an upgrade myself when they come out.

 

[Arris]

Accidental double post...

 

[herpaderp]

not this is helping but actually the 5850 CFX is actually faster than the 6870 CFX, the 6000 serious cards were just designed to use alot less power but actually loose some performance, but you can't really buy HD5000 cards anymore anyway so thats why i said get the 6870's

Well if only you ever bothered to actually check CF benchmarks and not just single card benchmarks you would see that you're wrong. See the link in red's post for proof, or look them up yourself.

 

[DKRON]

actually no http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-6850-6870-crossfirex-review/8 the 5850 is exactly the same as the 6870, but that website isn't always accurate

 

[herpaderp]

lol, you found ONE benchmark of an old DX9 title and think that's it? If you continue on to the next page, where they bench Dirt 2 w/DX11, you can see how the CF6870s hit 124fps while the CF5850s only get 102fps, and on the next page with Far Cry 2, even the 6850s beat the 5870s.

Another thing you need to take into account is the fact that the 6000 series is a whole lot more efficient, not just with power consumption, but with its architecture. The HD6870 makes do with 1120 sps, while the 5850 has 1440 and the 5870 has 1600. The 6000 series is an improvement no matter how you look at it. Only in raw compute power in things like OpenCL do they fall behind the HD5000s.

 

[red1776]

actually no http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-6850-6870-crossfirex-review/8 the 5850 is exactly the same as the 6870, but that website isn't always accurate

not this is helping but actually the 5850 CFX is actually faster than the 6870 CFX, the 6000 serious cards were just designed to use alot less power but actually loose some performance,

where did you get that Idea?. actually believe that AMD designed cards to "loose some performance?" I think you misunderstood. they gave back a shader cluster or two , but got better efficiency from them. The 6850 and 6870 were not the next gen replacements for the 5850 and 5870. The 6970 and the 6950 were.
Geezus guy, now thats some cherry picking. In every other of the other 8 game benches the 6870 CF handily beats the 5850's in CF. and for the record, Guru 3D is a good site for benches. I do extensive work with CF and their numbers are very close to the numbers I get for the 5850's/6870's in my own testing. If you want to cherry pick like that, hell i bet i could find a picture that actually makes that Justin Beiber kid look like a male!
as for the rest, what Herp said.

 

[lipe123]

I know you are mostly asking grpahics related advice but the awesome performance boost a SSD gives can not be over stated.

Even on a older mobo with sata 3gbs you could buy 2 smallish drives like 2x vertex2 60gb drives and stripe them for a very fast 120gb drive that will get you the same performance as a new sata 6gbs drive. At the moment with hard drive prices crazy high SSD's are looking more attractive by the minute.

I wouldnt touch the CPU, the 6core variant offers VERY little extra performance, instead a 965 black would do better.

Defenitely get 8gb ram, 4gb sticks are DIRT cheap now. I bought 8gb DDR3 1600 for 60$ just the other day.

Not sure how hung up you are on AMD, I'm running two Nvidia 560 Ti's in SLI on BF3 and I'm doing 70-100 fps. The 560's should keep going down in price as the newer cards keep coming out.

 

[Mizzou]

Given your budget I'd opt for a GTX 570 or HD 6970 as either card will deliver very playable frame rates. I'd also experiment with overclocking the Phenom II X4 945, if you don't have an after market cooler you would need one to get a stable higher clock speed.

 

[DKRON]

Read this #3 http://www.techradar.com/news/compu...ics-cards-in-the-world-today-654141?artc_pg=4 it explains how the 5000 cards differ to the 6000 cards

 

[ViPeRMiMiS]

No need to upgrade. wait for the radeon hd 7000 series/nV kepler series (if you want) or if you want to buy now (350€ budget) AMD FX-8150 (CPU) OR GeForce GTX 570 (GPU). I am not sure if the CPU will make a big difference, but I am sure that the nV GTX 570 won't dissappoint you.