The 5870 is here..

[Pidesco]

I still use a CRT, specifically to allow variable resolutions.

 

I'm generally content to play most games at 1024x768, though Call of Duty 4 had me drop down to 800x600 for some small gains in performance (AA and AF were already off for instance).

 

 

How important is the brand? The last card I bought was built by ATI hahaha.

 

 

The brand usually doesn't really matter. Just get whatever is the better deal.

 

 

Anyway, with the performance you are enjoying right now, you'd see a definite visual improvement if you bought the 4870.

[Matthew Rorie]

I still use a CRT, specifically to allow variable resolutions.

 

I'm generally content to play most games at 1024x768, though Call of Duty 4 had me drop down to 800x600 for some small gains in performance (AA and AF were already off for instance).

 

 

How important is the brand? The last card I bought was built by ATI hahaha.

 

A lot of crazy tech people say to get XFX and stay away from Sapphire. At least, that's what I soaked up over on Hardforum.com recently. But in the end they're all based on the reference boards. The main difference usually lies in length of warranty and quality of customer support.

[Humanoid]

XFX's main selling point isn't the card itself (it's identical to any other manufacturer's), but what they call "double lifetime" warranty - that is, lifetime warranty for you, and transferrable should you decide to sell it (which means it has higher resale value than equivalent brands). North America only, so I've never been able to consider it a selling point personally.

 

Nothing wrong with Sapphire as far as I know, of all vendors they've been in the "red team" longer than any - in the old days, the ATi branded cards were actually made by Sapphire (and I suspect Alan's present card would be).

[CoM_Solaufein]

Just read the comments of the buyers if you happen to be at Newegg. I went by their comments and reviews in MaximumPC before I buy any computer hardware.

[alanschu]

I still use a CRT, specifically to allow variable resolutions.

 

I'm generally content to play most games at 1024x768, though Call of Duty 4 had me drop down to 800x600 for some small gains in performance (AA and AF were already off for instance).

 

 

How important is the brand? The last card I bought was built by ATI hahaha.

 

A lot of crazy tech people say to get XFX and stay away from Sapphire. At least, that's what I soaked up over on Hardforum.com recently. But in the end they're all based on the reference boards. The main difference usually lies in length of warranty and quality of customer support.

 

 

I had heard rumours about Sapphire cards way back before ATI was purchased by AMD. I tend to be an AMD (and to a lesser extent ATI) fanboy so that's likely the choice I will go with. This is likely going to be a pretty cheap card though, as I'm definitely not looking for something long term. I'm hoping that when I get my debt situation sorted out, and get more permanent employment, to do a wholesale upgrade of my computer.

 

It looks like pretty much anything is a large upgrade over what I have haha.

Edited October 10, 2009 by alanschu

[Pidesco]

Unless you are going for the

[Morgoth]

I'm quite happy with my 4870. I can still play all games maxed out.

[alanschu]

I don't have a 64 bit OS at the moment. But I am still on XP and not Vista, so that saves me some memory haha.

 

And yeah, I figure any upgrade now will tide me over until I am ready and able to properly upgrade.

 

The only concern is that the CPU is a bit old, but my impression is that it's the graphics cards today that are the biggest bottlenecks.

[Pidesco]

Since the introduction of accelerated graphics, that video cards have almost always been bottleneck. Only with certain specific games is that not true. Your CPU is fine!

[mkreku]

A lot of crazy tech people say to get XFX and stay away from Sapphire. At least, that's what I soaked up over on Hardforum.com recently. But in the end they're all based on the reference boards. The main difference usually lies in length of warranty and quality of customer support.

That's kind of.. humorous to me. The last Nvidia card I bought was a Geforce 7900GS, made by XFX, and it sucked. Since then I've bought only ATI cards, all made by Sapphire, and the 4870 I am currently using (until I get my 5870 grr) was the best purchase I ever made.

 

I will go with Sapphire for my 5870 too, preferably the Vapor-X edition. It rocks.

[CoM_Solaufein]

I just placed my order for the Sapphire 5870 and Windows 7. Sapphire was one of the cheapest of the 5870 cards and had good reviews at Newegg.

[Wrath of Dagon]

Funny, I always bought Sapphire cards before, and this time I got a 4850 from another manufacturer. Had tons of problems with games crashing, Vista and disk getting corrupted, although I think Vista and disk controller had something to do with it also, but perhaps only as effect not cause. Anyway, finally replaced it with an XFX GTS250, no problems so far, although the only game I've been playing is ETW and not that much.

[Pidesco]

I had an XFX card for a couple of years and it never gave me a single problem.

 

Anecdotal evidence is fun!

[Wrath of Dagon]

The card I had problems with wasn't an XFX, in case I didn't make it clear.

[alanschu]

It seems a defrag actually has helped out performance a fair bit. I'm surprised, but COD stutters a lot less now. Must be a confounding variable somewhere, but I'm not going to complain too much

[CoM_Solaufein]

So far I don't see support for Windows XP. That will be a problem since I want to have a hard drive dedicated to Windows XP and another dedicated to Windows 7 on this machine.

Bah internet rumors. I just got my card today and it has drivers that work with WinXP.

[I want teh kotor 3]

The 380 cometh. Epic win. Edited October 14, 2009 by I want teh kotor 3

[Mera]

The 380 cometh. Epic win.

Epic Fail - News Source: fudzilla

FUDzilla

[Matthew Rorie]

Bah, my 5850 still hasn't shipped from Amazon. I really want it before Borderlands/Modern Warfare 2. Maybe I'll go check out a Fry's or something this weekend.

[CoM_Solaufein]

That 5870 is a sexy card. Its nice to play Fallout without having stuttering because of intense animations. This is at 1440*900 at Ultra settings and before with my 3870 at 1024 with low setting it would choke.

[Matthew Rorie]

That 5870 is a sexy card. Its nice to play Fallout without having stuttering because of intense animations. This is at 1440*900 at Ultra settings and before with my 3870 at 1024 with low setting it would choke.

 

Isn't a 5870 a bit of overkill at that resolution? I mean, it's good to upgrade, but since you have a nice card now, you might want to think of getting a bigger monitor. My 4830 can run most games at 1920x1080 without a problem. Get a 24 incher!

[CoM_Solaufein]

Yeah the monitor is my next thing in the future. I only have a 19" wide screen. That will have to wait since I used what free money I have to buy a new motherboard for my other computer since that died.

 

The only problem with the 5870 is its too perfect. It shows imperfections in WAV and MPEG movies. Even so called HD WAV movies.

[CoM_Solaufein]

So far I don't see support for Windows XP. That will be a problem since I want to have a hard drive dedicated to Windows XP and another dedicated to Windows 7 on this machine.

Bah internet rumors. I just got my card today and it has drivers that work with WinXP.

Well works with XP some what. I find glitches in the games from time to time. There is no support at the ATI site in regards to the Catalyst drivers for XP. Well I'll see when I get Windows 7 and if I see these glitches again then it must be a faulty card.

[Matthew Rorie]

There are some 5870's floating around the office, so I'm going to take one home and try it out. Assuming it fits into my case, that is.

[mkreku]

And now an even bigger beast is coming..

 

http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/31/atis-du...the-wilderness/

 

I wonder what that'll cost.