Two ATI HD 5850 or One GTX 970?

[pinaklonkar]

Repeating my question I asked in another thread here. I really appreciate your help. Question is simple. I already have two HD 5850 in crossfire mode. My CPU is AMD Phenom II X4 965 and 16GB HyperX DDR3 RAM, and ASRock 895 deluxe5 motherboard. 

 

Will I gain a significant performance upgrade if I get a single GTX 970 4GB card (Zotac AMP! Extreme)? Also, will that performance be significantly boosted if I upgrade my CPU to AMD Vishera FX-8370? 

 

Thank you. 

[Katsu-K1L]

yes

[Shroomster]

Yeah and yeah, a bit. The CPU will depend on the usage as for how big of an upgrade will it be, but an upgrade anyways.

[Soplias]

Yes I would say go for the 970, You will also have future options for SLI for example. (If you ever want to)

[eelnico09]

Your cpu might bottleneck the 970, but i'm not sure, it's a pretty awesome cpu.

 

I'd go with the 970. And i guess it'd improve if you get the fx, i'm not sure about that ethier, i know that with other fx the phenom was still better in games, idk with that one u mention.

[s3ns3]

yes and your cpu will bottleneck

[KamiKatze]

@pinaklonkar

Where do you live, i want that X4 CPU! Seriously, i am building a 2nd PC with old-ish hardware.

 

To your question: You should upgrade to a 970 first and a CPU aswell if that's in your budget or do that later.

[CostcoSamples]

Should be a decent upgrade, as long as the CPU doesn't bottleneck your rig.  Most likely any AMD cpu will bottleneck in games.  I myself purchased a GTX 970 in my FX-8320 rig.  my cpu was bottlenecking big time! I upgraded to an i5 4690k and kept the extra parts for a second rig (for my wife).

 

I love AMD, but the sad truth is that their CPU's have fallen way behind intel in the gaming department.

[91wow]

@pinaklonkar

Where do you live, i want that X4 CPU! Seriously, i am building a 2nd PC with old-ish hardware.

 

To your question: You should upgrade to a 970 first and a CPU aswell if that's in your budget or do that later.

Damnit im still using a core 2 quad, I NEED THAT CPU MORE!! D:

[pinaklonkar]

Should be a decent upgrade, as long as the CPU doesn't bottleneck your rig.  Most likely any AMD cpu will bottleneck in games.  I myself purchased a GTX 970 in my FX-8320 rig.  my cpu was bottlenecking big time! I upgraded to an i5 4690k and kept the extra parts for a second rig (for my wife).

 

I love AMD, but the sad truth is that their CPU's have fallen way behind intel in the gaming department.

 

Well that's the question. Is it THAT much of a bottleneck that I rip out my motherboard and CPU for an intel build? 

 

Most games I play even today work just fine on my current build except that nasty Call of Duty Advanced Warfare. But again I do think it is a pretty horrible PC release. I don't want to spend too much money because that motherboard and CPU and two cards will just collect dust and may not sell (few care about desktops where we live these days, I know, right?). 

 

The CPU (FX-8370), GTX 970 = 600 US dollars, still VERY expensive to make just one game work today, and I don't like upgrading my desktop every now and then. That's why I am asking if just these two components would significantly move me up the ranks.

 

EDIT: You guys are awesome. I have never seen a graphics card forum so active and helpful. 

[KamiKatze]

Damnit im still using a core 2 quad, I NEED THAT CPU MORE!! D:

 

Which one? A Q6600 can hold up pretty equally to the X4 965 once overclocked. But if that's your primary CPU then yes... you need something new. Maybe the ne 5000 series Intel hold something apealing for you.

[pinaklonkar]

By all means, whatever I decide to rip out, you can have (at) it!  

[CostcoSamples]

Just a guess, but I would think you'd get better value from a CPU upgrade, and hang on to your dual 5850s for now.

[Aniallation]

The CPU (FX-8370), GTX 970 = 600 US dollars, still VERY expensive to make just one game work today, and I don't like upgrading my desktop every now and then. That's why I am asking if just these two components would significantly move me up the ranks.

Don't waste money upgrading your CPU. Phenom II has better single core performance compared to FX at the same clock speeds, which is more important in games then having more cores that are individually weaker

 

A 970 will only give a significant performance increase if VRAM is an issue with the two 5850s. If you have the 1GB versions in CF then upgrade. If the 2GB versions then don't, wait till the next generation of GPUs from AMD or Nvidia

[Fatelinha]

Damnit im still using a core 2 quad, I NEED THAT CPU MORE!! D:

I use core2 Duo, so.... I fu*king deserve it

[-rascal-]

I stuck with my Crossfire HD 5850 for a few years. Then I upgraded to a single HD 7970. The performance increase was quite significant.

Then you compare a single HD 7970 to a single GTX 970. Huge increase.

[pinaklonkar]

Don't waste money upgrading your CPU. Phenom II has better single core performance compared to FX at the same clock speeds, which is more important in games then having more cores that are individually weaker

 

A 970 will only give a significant performance increase if VRAM is an issue with the two 5850s. If you have the 1GB versions in CF then upgrade. If the 2GB versions then don't, wait till the next generation of GPUs from AMD or Nvidia

 

Great. I appreciate your response. I have one last question at the end of this post and this should be solved then. 

 

I did read that Phenom II is a better single core performer. I will stick to the current CPU and possibly overclock it. I know overclocking is the thing, but never had a chance to seriously read about it and actually do it, beyond just trying the BIOS options to overclock in percentage steps purely for fun. 

 

Yes, each of my two video cards is 1 GB. I went to HD 5850 crossfire configuration after hearing all sorts of great things about putting two cards in a case, but I don't think I derived a noticeable performance gain from it. Instead, the whole experience was often ruined by image stutter, v-sync issues, etc. and I think that I should just change to nVidia and use a single card. If you think GTX 980 is a better investment and leaps ahead of 970 by years, I'd rather put another 150 or so dollars toward GTX 980, or just get the 970 which is surprisingly quite affordable. Oh and by the way, my screen and desire are stil set at 1080p. 

[91wow]

Which one? A Q6600 can hold up pretty equally to the X4 965 once overclocked. But if that's your primary CPU then yes... you need something new. Maybe the ne 5000 series Intel hold something apealing for you.

I have a q8200 and since it has a low base clock and a really high multi it's damn near impossible to get past 2.6GHz lol

[Aniallation]

Yes, each of my two video cards is 1 GB. I went to HD 5850 crossfire configuration after hearing all sorts of great things about putting two cards in a case, but I don't think I derived a noticeable performance gain from it. Instead, the whole experience was often ruined by image stutter, v-sync issues, etc. and I think that I should just change to nVidia and use a single card. If you think GTX 980 is a better investment and leaps ahead of 970 by years, I'd rather put another 150 or so dollars toward GTX 980, or just get the 970 which is surprisingly quite affordable. Oh and by the way, my screen and desire are stil set at 1080p. 

IMO 980 is not a great investment. It's around 20-30% faster then a 970 and costs a lot more money. If you're just playing at 1080p, I'd actually get an R9 290/290X, since there's quite good deals that you can get on them now. Given you already have the power and airflow to run two 5850s, a 290/290X shouldn't be a problem to run.

[Mush Brain]

5850's are complete utter crap at this point, they lack the Vram/tesselation power.

 

Grab the 970 and save up for an intel platform, even Sandy Bridge would blow you away.

[pinaklonkar]

IMO 980 is not a great investment. It's around 20-30% faster then a 970 and costs a lot more money. If you're just playing at 1080p, I'd actually get an R9 290/290X, since there's quite good deals that you can get on them now. Given you already have the power and airflow to run two 5850s, a 290/290X shouldn't be a problem to run.

 

The thing is, I somehow think (or made to think) that many games we play are optimized for nVidia cards. It could be a very ignorant opinion but I have experienced issues with the cards I have, not saying it is not because of cross fire so can't really blame AMD cards. I agree that R-series may save me some money compared to GTX 970 and may even perform a bit better coupled with my AMD CPU, but it is just my perception. 

 

Techspot website says this: 

 

"The final head to head battle takes place at ~$370 between the R9 290X and GTX 970 (the GTX 780 can also be found in this price range but is pointless with the GTX 970 around). With the same price as the R9 290X, the GTX 970 is 4% slower but consumes 16% less power, so it could be the better choice.

Due to AMD's aggressive price cuts, the battle between the R9 290X and GTX 970 is closely fought, but we think Nvidia wins this one. However, it's hard to ignore the R9 290 from a value perspective as it is 24% cheaper. Given that the GTX 970 costs 32% more and delivers just 16% more performance, we have to question if you should buy either the R9 290X or GTX 970 over the much cheaper and not significantly slower R9 290."

[Aniallation]

The thing is, I somehow think (or made to think) that many games we play are optimized for nVidia cards. It could be a very ignorant opinion but I have experienced issues with the cards I have, not saying it is not because of cross fire so can't really blame AMD cards. I agree that R-series may save me some money compared to GTX 970 and may even perform a bit better coupled with my AMD CPU, but it is just my perception. 

Nope, GPUs perform in games respective to each other, some games may be slightly better with an Nvidia card then and AMD card while AMD might perform better against the same Nvidia card in another game, but it's not a huge margin. 

 

290s are still great performing cards, they're not as good as 970s but are close behind of course they cost a lot less. It's just that people like the low heat output and power consumption of the 970 allowing for use in low-airflow cases with cheaper power supplies, but if you have the case and PSU to crossfire 5850s then one 290 will be no problem.

[Mush Brain]

Here is the latest game i tried on my spare 5850 overclocked as far as it would go, as well as BF3..

 

720p and no AA, but all Ultra, high FPS, but as soon as AA is applied, it cut's FPS in half, 1080p is unplayable.

 

Lowest settings with medium view distance (forgot the name for it)

High textures.

 

 

There is almost zero impact from recording as i ran a separate RAID-0 array.

 

 

For comparisons sake, a same era GPU with proper tesselation power and a bit more Vram, AKA GTX 480, these are not comparable GPU's i know this, but the 480 would whoop even 5850's in crossfire in these games.

 

Both 1920x1080 with AA applied, BF3 was at 2xMSAA.

 

 

[pinaklonkar]

Great. Going with GTX 970 and keeping my Phenom II. But I keep coming up with questions.

 

ZOTAC (some coil whine reviews) or EVGA (some heat dissipation design issues AND coil whine but higher rating and more reviews on newegg)? Which one has more warranty? 

[Mush Brain]

I run Zotac AMP! 980's, neither coil whine, but i am unsure for the 970, so EVGA may be your best bet, their warranty is epic.