What card to buy?

[Hallowed_Dragon]

Hi Guys,

I have a pretty good dilemma. I currently own a HD 4870 512 MB. This is paired with a Q6600 OCed to 3GHz and a Corsair 650W PSU and a 27" monitor with 1920x1080 res.
I play WoW, SC2 and the occasional shooter. In the future I plan to play Diablo 3 (when it releases) and maybe Crysis 2.
Now, I like my 4870, but as time goes by I notice the performance not being the best in current games and power consumption is pretty disappointing when reading reviews and getting the power bill. This brings me to my dilemma... I want to upgrade, but cannot decide on any card: 6850, 6870 or when the 6950 is released (hoping for less than 350$).
My criteria is:

- very good performance at 1920x1080 (even if I change the monitor in the future it will be for a LED TV so the same resolution)
- price less than 350$
- power consumption at most as the 4870 at full load, but less at idle
- temperature less than 4870 (mine goes to 100C in SC2)
- preferably AMD card (don't really like nVidia)

So can you help me?

 

[cusideabelincoln]

I'd bet the 6950 will be around the $350. It may be worth it to wait and see what it brings to the table in terms of performance and efficiency.

However the 6850 will likely remain the lowest thermal part. It's quite an efficient video card and would be a decent upgrade over the 4870. The extra VRAM alone should give decent gains, especially for heavy-hitters like Crysis.

But for WoW, SC2, and probably Diablo your processor is going to hold you back a bit. Also it too is probably consuming a lot of power, especially overclocked and especially if you have a non-G0 version.

So maybe you go the cheap route, pick up the HD 6850 now, and then upgrade the rest of the computer to Intel's Sandy Bridge in a few months. You'll get a big upgrade in CPU performance and a big decrease in power consumption.

 

[ScorcherDarkly]

Any of the cards you mention should be fine for your purposes. Crysis 2 will be the most demanding game out of what you've indicated you want to play, and you probably wouldn't want to go below 6870 for that game. If the 6950 is less than $350 though, I'd go with that.

 

[Hallowed_Dragon]

Hmm, you make a pretty good point.
But since I play at a pretty high resolution and I like to have all the details as high as possible is really the CPU the limiting factor? Also I may play other games not only CPU based ones.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

Well that's why you must make up your own decision. We really can't do that for you. We can just give you our best information.

If you really like to crank the details then waiting for the 6950 is your best option right now. This will give you time to think about what to do, too.

I mainly suggested a processor upgrade for the power savings, since you seemed concerned with the heat. A Core i5 750 or 760 (or Sandy Bridge) will consume much less power, at idle and load, than an overclocked Q6600, and give you a performance boost. Alternatively a Core i3 or i5 should give you the same performance but with even lower thermals.

For reference going from an overclocked Q6600 to a Core i3/i5 should provide similar power savings as going from a 4870 to a 6850/6870. Saving 30-80W with each independent upgrade.

 

[Hallowed_Dragon]

You have a point there, but changing CPU also implies changing the motherboard and the RAM and the performance at that resolution remains the same. If I do all that and buy a 6850 I will go over 350$ easily thus getting myself killed by my wife .

 

[RaistlinZ]

I'd echo the others and wait to see how the 6950 performs. You'll want something with that will provide enough muscle for max settings now and into the future. Maybe a GTX 570 will be released in December as well.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

You have a point there, but changing CPU also implies changing the motherboard and the RAM and the performance at that resolution remains the same. If I do all that and buy a 6850 I will go over 350$ easily thus getting myself killed by my wife .

Well that's why I suggest doing the video card first, regardless of which direction you take. You'd have to save up some money and sweet-talk your wife for further upgrades.

 

[Hallowed_Dragon]

I think I will wait for the 6950 to launch and make my decision then. I am very inclined to go with that because I will have almost the best game quality (considering being limited by the CPU in some games), but I can also keep the card even if I upgrade the CPU and still receive a boost.
I just hope it fits my case *fingers crossed*

 

[RussianSensation]

You have a point there, but changing CPU also implies changing the motherboard and the RAM and the performance at that resolution remains the same. If I do all that and buy a 6850 I will go over 350$ easily thus getting myself killed by my wife .

Don't do it. Not with a Q6600 @ 3.0ghz at 1920x1080. For the games you play, you are FAR better off to the $215 HD5870 which is better than both the 470 and the 6870 without breaking the bank! Sell your 4870 for $50 and you are looking at a $155 upgrade. Your wife will be happy and your new card will be 70%-90%+ faster than the 4870 in GPU-limited situations.

Imo, the HD6950 will probably be at least $300+ considering the street price of HD6870 is $249 on Newegg. You will save $100+ towards your next videocard upgrade.

In WOW and SC2 you will be CPU Limited (and even Hard Drive Speed limited in WoW) even with your Q6600 @ 3.0ghz.

"It doesn't matter if you are using a Radeon HD 4890 or a Geforce GTX 285/2G: The Ultra Video Mode cuts the frame rate down to a half or one third even in favor of a slightly increased range of visibility, additional vegetation on more shadows. But apparently it is not the graphics card that limits the results but, because of the more complex geometry and the additional data streaming, the Core i7 running at 3.5 GHz and the Samsung F1 hard drive."
http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,...-Video-Mode-benchmark-review/Practice/?page=2

I don't play WoW myself, but I read some users reported benefits from an SSD in raids. As far as SC2 goes, it only supports 2 cores and benefits from larger cache. Q6600 doesn't have shared cache which means each core only gets 4mb.