Currently I have had no need to upgrade my ATI XFX Radeon HD 5770, I know its not a high-end card and more of a high-end of the middle end graphics cards but it serves me well on all my games at very acceptable FPS (especially as I overclock as I have a big cooling system with water cooling and 5 120MM fans)..
Recently however I have seen some very resonable offers for other 5770's on various websites so I have been considering buying another so I can crossfire it and hopefully extend my card/s lifetime another year or so..
However I can't decide whether it would be better simply to buy a newer card and replacing my old one rather than get another of the one I already have.
So I was wondering what people think,
Should I buy another HD 5770 and use ATI Crossfire or wait a while and replace it with a newer more powerfull card?
Personally I wouldnt bother with crossfire at all to be honest. It is a lot more hassle and requires a lot more power which in turn produces a lot more heat. I would just go with a newer model of card such as the HD 6850 if you can afford the £125. You could then also sell your 5770 and use that money to pay towards the better card.
The cards offer the following benchmark ratings;
5770 - 1657
6850 - 2843
Adding another 5770 card will not get you double the performance. Usually you will gain around another 40% if you are lucky so a whole new card is the way to go in my opinion.
Personally I wouldnt bother with crossfire at all to be honest. It is a lot more hassle and requires a lot more power which in turn produces a lot more heat. I would just go with a newer model of card such as the HD 6850 if you can afford the £125. You could then also sell your 5770 and use that money to pay towards the better card.
The cards offer the following benchmark ratings;
5770 - 1657
6850 - 2843
Adding another 5770 card will not get you double the performance. Usually you will gain around another 40% if you are lucky so a whole new card is the way to go in my opinion.
Ok thanks, thats what I was wondering..If it doesn't get you double the performance there doesn't seem like much point in crossfire unless you want about 6 displays to game on which is out of most peoples budget range...
Can your System run with both a 5770 and a 6850 without crossfire and simply keep the 5770 to run the desktop and basic every-day stuff with the 6850 purely for gaming?
I agree, crossfire or sli is really a gimmick to sell more video cards. The technology is not new; in fact it dates from the late 90s when xf put multiple gpus on one card.
If you want a 6850, then buy one and install just that card.
FWIW if your current card serves you well, I would just keep it. In a year or so when you really do need to replace it, there will be newer and faster cards to choose from.
Also, if the Radeon 5770 is working good for your needs now than buying another card at this time is very pointless as video card prices drop continuously as new ones come out on the market; new ones that offer faster performance, more features, maybe use less power, etc. Not only would another 5770 be cheaper down the road but there may be a card out that equals or excels the performance of two 5770's in Crossfire for the price of another 5770 now.
There's no value or necessity to run both the 5770 and 6850 or another similar pairing, Windows only uses the primary graphics cards for both desktop tasks and gaming unless you use CrossFire/SLI. You'd also be using more power to run both cards with zero benefit.
i dont think there is going to be something new for a couple of years, gtx 590 and hd 6990 are out, Asus Mars II is in the making by asus at this moment in time <Ridiculously expensive when it comes out> http://techinstyle.tv/video/computex-2011-asus-rog-mars-ii-graphics-card/
most of the latest games are not optimized for pc, they've becoming console oriented...£25 pc game + free updates[DLC] vs poorer quality xbox game at £40 propriety updates [DLC]
seen a few faulty xfx cards on ebay... Sapphire have vapor X, it their cards come slightly factory overclocked because of the vapor chamber used in gtx 580, 590, HD 6990, 6970.
DX11 seems too much effort if only PC's can utilize it [hence why we have to wait for a DX11 patch for crysis 2]
crossfire depends mostly on software, it determines the scalability factor of how much more your getting
if you have a limited board which does 1 slot x16 and 2 slot x8 x8, then its not going to be beneficial at all...
Radeon HD 7xxx series cards are expected to be released in the second half of 2011, and new sub-versions of cards are released all the time. I'm sure NVIDIA has new cards in the works too,based on the new Kepler design. There's never a couple years of years between something new is out in the graphics card industry.
There's also many DX11 games, and all new cards support DX11 so its really irrelevant - and the user already has a DX11 card, plus there are many more games than just Crysis out that do support DX11.
i dont see much that has favored the pc, call of duty, crysis 2, brink, bulletstorm, DiRT 2, test drive unlimited 2, battlefield bad company 2, most of these game's multiplayer is a console port, which seems to make up for most part of the continuity to play the game, except dirt 2, dirt 2's DX11 contribution was a little surprising, took me a while to figure out the difference...
for AMD there is a lot of focus on putting out bulldozer processors out this year, not herd anything on the 7xxx series, the next time they could announce something is CES? computex is already gone.
nvidia are working with ARM to make something new and there is something going on between nvidia and microsoft since mincrosoft said no-one is to take over nvidia. i think it might have to do with the graphics architecture job they had opened a while back... http://www.itproportal.com/2011/06/04/microsoft-doesnt-want-anyone-acquire-nvidia/ http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/microsoft_news/229900137
i've tried sapphire's 5850 toxic and 5870 vapor X, they were really good and surprisingly quiet....amazingly quiet..., equivalents would be 6850 and 6870. [toxic and vapor X versions have the same cooler, one is overclocked more than the other]
Ok there seems to be overwelming support for buying a newer card...
THANKYOU ALL FOR THE ADVICE!! (Sorry for the slow reply)
I recently tried running Crysis 2 on Hardcore Graphics mode (1280x1024) and it runs perfectly with no lag, although I've never seen my graphics card hit 70 Degrees before!!!
70c isn't that bad for a graphics card. I have seen some that have been consistently running at 98c sometimes higher. I wouldn't ever recommend that you let it get that high though.
70c isn't that bad for a graphics card. I have seen some that have been consistently running at 98c sometimes higher. I wouldn't ever recommend that you let it get that high though.
Compared to my CPU temp which maxes out at around 38/40 degrees on a hot day...
I suppose the Card has quite a nice temperature as well considering I overclock... 98 degrees is immense!!! I hope that wasn't the idle temp??? How in the world did you get it to that temperature???
Well I personally didn't get it to that temperature it was in my friends computer. It was after playing a lot of HD youtube videos on an old AGP Nvidia 5200 without a fan it was supposed to be a silently cooled graphics card but I don't think that idea worked out well for them to be honest. It was this card. Poorly designed I think to be honest.
Well I personally didn't get it to that temperature it was in my friends computer. It was after playing a lot of HD youtube videos on an old AGP Nvidia 5200 without a fan it was supposed to be a silently cooled graphics card but I don't think that idea worked out well for them to be honest. It was this card. Poorly designed I think to be honest.
Agree with you there, must have been of very poor design, also your friend must have had little to no airflow through the case...
Hard to believe he got to that watching Youtube as well!!
Thanks
DoctorZeus
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