My 6870 getting old??

So I have been contemplating a new card. The 6870 I have is starting to get some chop on newer games (BL2, Arkham City) but overall frame rates are still good. I have max video settings except I had to turn shading down somewhat on Arkham City.

I have been looking at specs for newer card (HD7870, GT660, etc), their specs don't seem much better than the 6870. I have been trying to keep the cost under $300. Is there any point at this time? My MB only runs PCI-E 2.1 so newer cards may not benefit. Should I just wait for the next gen of cards to arrive? Maybe upgrade motherboard again?

I would crossfire a second 6870, then upgrade to an 8xxx card in 6 months to a year. That'll give you the most bang for your buck.

ninjacore said:

I would crossfire a second 6870, then upgrade to an 8xxx card in 6 months to a year. That'll give you the most bang for your buck.

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Yes I have been researching xfire for a 6870. Test results for this card are very good in crossfire. Though the card is getting hard to find. I am not sure if waiting for a newer card or cross firing the 6870 is the better choice. Seems kind of a waste to xfire now and then upgrade again soon.

vanibanez said:

So I have been contemplating a new card. The 6870 I have is starting to get some chop on newer games (BL2, Arkham City) but overall frame rates are still good. I have max video settings except I had to turn shading down somewhat on Arkham City.

I have been looking at specs for newer card (HD7870, GT660, etc), their specs don't seem much better than the 6870. I have been trying to keep the cost under $300. Is there any point at this time? My MB only runs PCI-E 2.1 so newer cards may not benefit. Should I just wait for the next gen of cards to arrive? Maybe upgrade motherboard again?

Click to expand...

You will not see a difference with a newer board as far as Pci-e lanes go.
Just because the specs are the same does not mean that the new card perform the same.

6870 vs 7850 7850 is faster by at least 10%.
gtx 660 vs 7850 660 is slightly faster in most cases.

vanibanez said:

Yes I have been researching xfire for a 6870. Test results for this card are very good in crossfire. Though the card is getting hard to find. I am not sure if waiting for a newer card or cross firing the 6870 is the better choice. Seems kind of a waste to xfire now and then upgrade again soon.

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Good discussion here regarding what I consider to be the best "bang for your buck" upgrade path with GPUs.

There seem to be a decent number of 6870 on eBay around $100.

Agreed, if I can get a 6870 for $100 i'll do it. Benchmarks have been good for crossfire 6870's so it seems the better option.

Benchmarks have been good for crossfire 6870's so it seems the better option.

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As long as your PSU can handle it and the cards play nicely together.

The power supply should be ok. Crossfire playability looks good for the 6870. From what I've read it almost doubles performance. The killer though, is you still only get 1 gb of memory with two xfire cards but two gpu's.

If you can't get another 6870 for cheap, I would consider selling your single 6870 for whatever you can get for it. Then use the sale money and $300 to grab yourself a 7950 or 7970 if the latter is on sale. Especially with AMD handing out $150 worth of free games with any Radeon 7900 series card purchase.

Infinite66 said:

If you can't get another 6870 for cheap, I would consider selling your single 6870 for whatever you can get for it. Then use the sale money and $300 to grab yourself a 7950 or 7970 if the latter is on sale. Especially with AMD handing out $150 worth of free games with any Radeon 7900 series card purchase.

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Hmm good point....

I think the current deal is just Bioshock Infinite and Crysis 3.

Ok, so I borrowed a XFX6870 from a friend and tried some benchmarks in Xfire and single. Numbers were not great (using catalyst 13.1 drivers):

Clock speeds 975MHz/1220MHz

Heaven Benchmark (default with moderate tessellation @1600x1200): SCORE and avg/min/max fps

6870 single............... 951 37.8/22.7/83.1

6870 x2....................1744 69.2/20.2/157.5


3D MARK (default setup):Ice Storm Score/Cloud Gate Score/Fire Strike

6870 Single...........111566/14528/3204

6870 x2................114863/17634/2470


Batman Arkham City (max settings):min/max/avg fps

6870 Single.........16/76/56

6870 x2..............22/123/79

Overall, not what I expected, I think I will wait a little longer and purchase a newer card. Another

6870 in Xfire isn't making leaps and bounds. I know benchmarks are not everything, but I know that I

only turned down tessellation in Batman Arkham City to get decent frame rates again on a single 6870.

I think 3D mark isn't kind to xfire setups .

Please note that your Fire Strike score showed negative scaling, that is, score is lower than with just one card. Cat13.1 came out before the launch of 3DMark so the CF profile is absent. I had 2x HD6870 in CF before jumping on the HD7970's, they were pretty impressive and were able to run BF3 in Ultra setting, but w/o MSAA since they had only 1GB VRAM each. Very powerful when CF works, but ultimately, the 1GB VRAM was the main reason why I had sold them off for my first HD7970.

That makes sense for the drivers. 3d mark still shows them as uncertified. I'm gonna wait and see what comes from the next and series of cards.