5870 or 5970?

[Twiggy1995]

Hello.

So I have a bit older of a gaming system which currently has a Radeon 4870 in it, and it is pretty good. Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 run great with every graphical setting on max, Far Cry 2 plays great on "high", and even Crysis is playable on "medium".

The weakest link, I think is the RAM, being only ddr2 400mhz, so I just ordered 4GB (2X2GB) of Partiot G Series 1066mhz ddr2.

The processor is a core 2 duo 3.0ghz.

I think the much faster RAM should be a great step towards making this machine even more powerful, but I am also thinking that down the road maybe I should upgrade the GPU yet again?

However I am not sure if It'd work, I mean if I got something like a 5870 or 5970 could the processor possibly be a bottle neck and should I upgrade it?

Then I am not quite sure if I could physically fit a 5970 in the case, because it appears it is a pretty long card, and the 4870 already was hard to install in that sense.

From my research the 5970 seems to be the better one, but the 5870 is still pretty damn good, for the time, and both would be a big upgrade over the 4870.

So would a better GPU be worth it, and if so, which one of these would make the most sense, it seems 5970s from my research are going for higher prices than 5870s, would it be worth the higher price?

Last but not least the PCI-E slot on the board is a 1.1 x16 slot, I saw somewhere that the 5870 doesn't max out a PCI-E 2.0 x8 slot, so it should be fine in the 1.1 x16 slot, but I have no idea about the 5970, could it's performance in my system be limited by the 1.1 x16 slot?

Thanks.

[Guest]

Honestly I would not spend money on obsolete hardware that is going to give little to no benefit to your system. Saving up for an entire platform switch in a year or so is a better option than getting a couple more frames out of your current pc. The only thing I could recommend as a long-term investment is buying an SSD with dram cache such as a MX500. This will improve general system responsiveness and isn't a waste of money, as it can be carried over to your next computer.

[jaslion]

14 minutes ago, Twiggy1995 said:

Hello.

So I have a bit older of a gaming system which currently has a Radeon 4870 in it, and it is pretty good. Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 run great with every graphical setting on max, Far Cry 2 plays great on "high", and even Crysis is playable on "medium".

The weakest link, I think is the RAM, being only ddr2 400mhz, so I just ordered 4GB (2X2GB) of Partiot G Series 1066mhz ddr2.

The processor is a core 2 duo 3.0ghz.

I think the much faster RAM should be a great step towards making this machine even more powerful, but I am also thinking that down the road maybe I should upgrade the GPU yet again?

However I am not sure if It'd work, I mean if I got something like a 5870 or 5970 could the processor possibly be a bottle neck and should I upgrade it?

Then I am not quite sure if I could physically fit a 5970 in the case, because it appears it is a pretty long card, and the 4870 already was hard to install in that sense.

From my research the 5970 seems to be the better one, but the 5870 is still pretty damn good, for the time, and both would be a big upgrade over the 4870.

So would a better GPU be worth it, and if so, which one of these would make the most sense, it seems 5970s from my research are going for higher prices than 5870s, would it be worth the higher price?

Last but not least the PCI-E slot on the board is a 1.1 x16 slot, I saw somewhere that the 5870 doesn't max out a PCI-E 2.0 x8 slot, so it should be fine in the 1.1 x16 slot, but I have no idea about the 5970, could it's performance in my system be limited by the 1.1 x16 slot?

Thanks.

I would not invest in this system. You can easily get a used i5 system for under 100 and put like a 1050ti in there and it will be so much better than your current system.

[mbntr]

I think the core 2 duo will bottleneck even th 5870...

The 5970 isn't worth it, it will consume more power and it's just two 5870 in one gpu, if a game doesn't support crossfire it will perform like a 5870.

And performance wise, the 5870 is amazing, i was running it last year in my main pc, then I upgraded to a gtx 1660.

The HD 5870 performs a bit better that a GT 1030, and it is fast enough to play meny games in a cometitive manner, gs:go runs perfectly fine and fortite is ok too, also the 5970 is huge

[Xkillerpn]

Look for a hd7870. Great card for the money, 1050ti performance

[Twiggy1995]

So it seems 5870, it is. And maybe a better processor down the road too.

I do feel the need to state that this is not my main computer, this is one of my older one's, which I am just trying to "max out" for the fun of it.