Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Upgrading GPU questions
Hi all, hope I can ask a question here. I´ve been wanting to upgrade to a DX11 card for a while, and now seems a good time. I have pretty much set my eyes on a GFX570, but I have come to wonder if the rest of my machine will bottleneck or cap performance.
I have a Q9550 Yorkfield, it doesnt like overclocking so it will most likely remain on stock for it's lifetime. And 4gb of DDR2 RAM.
I was pretty set on the GFX570, but now I'm starting to wonder if I should save some cash and get a 6870 instead, do you think I can get some lasting performance out of the GFX570 (2 years lifetime more or less)?
Will there be problems mixing Intel CPU and AMD GPU?
Also, I have Vista 64, I can run DX 11 on that right?
What would you do?
Comments
get a 6950 and unlock it.
http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/159
Any particular reason why you're comparing cards from different performance levels? The nearest AMD equivalent to the GTX 570 in both price and performance is the Radeon HD 6970.
The Radeon HD 6870 offers better performance per dollar and performance per watt than either the GeForce GTX 570 or the Radeon HD 6970. The 6870 offers perhaps 3/4 of the performance of either for 2/3 of the price tag.
What video card do you have now? The 6870 would be a huge upgrade for some people, but not much of an upgrade at all for others.
Also, what power supply do you have? The 6870 uses significantly less power than than the higher performance cards, and may well be the best performance per watt of any card on the market right now.
Yes, DirectX 11 will run just fine on Vista. You can buy video cards and processors independently, and there's no real synergy from getting both from the same company unless the GPU is built into the same chip as the CPU--which isn't what you have, and you really don't want Intel integrated graphics anyway.
It's largely a question of budget and performance expectations. Both the Radeon HD 6870 and the GeForce GTX 570 are nice cards. The Radeon HD 6950 and 6970 probably will be nice cards, too, but I wouldn't trust the drivers just yet--though they'll probably gain a lot more future performance from driver updates than the GTX 570, because it's a new architecture.
Yes the different performance level was the reason to ask the queston. Basically I'm wondering if I only will get 3/4 of the potential out of the 570, and thus making a batter match by taking it down a notch and getting a 6870. Given my CPU and RAM (800mhz)
No use considering a 6970 if both the topcards are bottlenecked by the rest of the machine.
I have atm 9800GTX in SLI, with a Corsair 750TX PSU, so all singlecard upgrades would fit in. My plan so far have been infact to buy 2 GTX460 (768)mb (yeah I know you don't liike them, but in 2's I think they work) and put them in SLI). But then the GTX570 came out and it looked like at could be a solid single-card alternative.
So I hope you understand my question: A single GTX460 card just seems to small of an upgrade to me, it won't do what I want (run CIv 5 highest settings,huge maps so on, flawlessly). A 6870 seems a tad better, maybe I'm wrong. As you sai it is a "nice card". The weapon of choice in the league below the GTX570. Maybe the perfect match for the rest of the specs.
And thus the question, can I get the potential out of a big card like a 570?
A Radeon HD 6870 won't be that much better than what you have except in situations where SLI doesn't work. Theoretically, it should be slightly faster in average frame rates if one assumes perfect SLI scaling, and then have a little bit further advantage because SLI doesn't scale perfectly, but that doesn't add up to a big enough upgrade to have much of a point, unless it's features you're after, such as DirectX 11 compatibility.
If Civilization V is anything like Civilization IV, then it's probably just a badly coded game that won't run well no matter what hardware you have. The time graphs of frame rates on Hard OCP sure make it look that way, unless I'm misreading them.
In your situation, I'd say keep what you have until Southern islands and/or Kepler launch.
Allright, thanks for the headsup. I've gone and bought the GTX570, assuming it will last me a couple of years. And by then I will be looking to build a whole new setup.
It had always been my plan to upgrade the card(s) after 2 years, which is now. And then keeping the rig for another 2. So I decided not to wait it out, since I will be needing to upgrade more and more parts under those circumstances.
Who knows, maybe I can build a GTX570 SLI rig at some time.