Gaming Looking to upgrade GPU

[W.I.C.K.E.D.]

I'll post my system specs just to give as much info as possible.

Phenom II 550 Black Ed. dual core @ factory 3.1ghz
4gb samsung ddr2 800
600w high performance psu
Gigabyte ma785gm-us2h motherboard
500gb WD green caviar sata HD
Galaxy 9800gt w/ 512mb ddr3
Windows 7 HP

Now the 9800 is obviously what I would like to upgrade. I am very interested in ati cards being I've never owned one. The 58xx series is a little too pricey for me at the moment. I've been looking at the 5770 (being it's more efficient for the electric bill), and if I stuck with nvidia I think i'd get a gtx260 or possibly a gts250. Any suggestions? I like the ati being it offers close to the 4890 in performance, but has better power efficiency. I know any of these would be an upgrade from what I have now, and offer better fps and visuals in games. I just didn't know if anyone had any advice. As I said, I'd love a 58xx but for almost double the price of the 5770 I'll pass for the time being. Any suggestions or help is appreciated.

 

[GreatCrippler]

Using a 5770... actually upgraded from a 9800 as well. Nice upgrade, not mind blowing, but nice.

 

[W.I.C.K.E.D.]

Well, I play arma II which is a military sim and it's pretty heavy on a cpu and gpu. I just get texture loading and crap sometimes, not so much in other games but I do play that the most. So you would recommend the 5770?

P.S. It's harder on hardware than crysis or any game available at the moment. It kicks conventional hard drives in the ass, as well as velociraptor drives.....a lot of people been using ssd on this just because it randomly accesses the hard drive toooooo much, but that's beyond my point here and what I was intending to achieve.

P.S.S.

Wooohoooo

100th Post baby!

 

[GreatCrippler]

You're taxing higher games than me. I do a lot of WoW, and RTS games. nothing overly taxing... Ran RE5 just fine. Not sure how much strain that is.

 

[Originality]

The HD 5830 came out recently, designed to be exactly half way between the 5770 and 5850. Price and performance are pretty much that - half way between the two.

The more money you spend, the better the outcome, and also the more futureproof it is - good cards don't need upgrading for two generations, usually.

 

[Chanser]

5850 for best bang for buck, the price of the 5830s aren't great though we're starting to see 5830s matching the price of top end 5770s.

 

[DEagleson]

You could also try unlocking cores on your cpu too.
Unlocked my AMD Phenom II 720 x3 BE into a quad core, and got a instant boost in fps in BF:BC2.
Using a slightly OC'ed ATI Radeon HD 4770.

Also ATI Radeon HD 5770 is very similar performance wise to the ATI Radeon HD 4870, so if you got the cash either get ATI Radeon HD 5770 or 5830.

 

[Frederica Bernkastel]

I'd upgrade the processor (eww, AMD); but looking at the motherboard specs, that doesn't seem possible.

 

[Originality]

It's always AMD or Intel. If you wanna swap from AMD to Intel, you have to get a new motherboard.

Personally, I agree (with the eww, AMD thing), but the PhenomII BE is a fairly good CPU, so it doesn't really need to be replaced. The 9800GT is also quite good and I personally wouldn't replace it unless I had a game that I really wanted better framerates with.

 

[W.I.C.K.E.D.]

Did try unlocking the other two cores but no luck, the pc didn't post. I might try again, I just don't wanna boost the core voltage too much and damage it. The 58xx series is as I said nice, but I'd rather wait for a price drop hopefully at the end of the year. The recommended specs for arma II are very wrong, as the game wasn't optimized well so it's better to have more efficient hardware to compensate. I can upgrade the cpu antoligy, the ram can go to 1200, and it would support a quad as my current cpu is only a dual core. I don't believe it has two pcie 16x ports so sli or crossfire probably isn't an option, but I don't mind.

Brand Galaxy (Current Card)
Model 98TFF6HUUEXX
Interface
Interface PCI Express 2.0 x16
Chipset
Chipset Manufacturer NVIDIA
GPU GeForce 9800 GT
Core Clock 600MHz
Stream Processors 112
Memory
Effective Memory Clock 900MHz
Memory Size 512MB
Memory Interface 256-bit
Memory Type GDDR3
3D API
DirectX DirectX 10
OpenGL OpenGL 2.1
Ports
DVI 2 x DVI
TV-Out HDTV / S-Video Out
General
RAMDAC 400 MHz
Max Resolution 2560 x 1600
SLI Support SLI Ready
Cooler With Fan
Power Connector 6 Pin
Dual-Link DVI Supported Yes
HDCP Ready Yes
Packaging
Package Contents 98TFF6HUUEXX
Driver Disk
User's Manual
HDTV Cable
S-Video Cable
Power Cable
DVI to VGA/D-sub Adapter
Manufacturer Warranty
Parts 2 years limited
Labor 2 years limited


-----------------------------------

Brand XFX
Model HD-577X-ZNFC
Interface
Interface PCI Express 2.0 x16
Chipset
Chipset Manufacturer ATI
GPU Radeon HD 5770
Core Clock 850MHz
Stream Processors 800 Stream Processing Units
Memory
Effective Memory Clock 1200MHz (4.8Gbps)
Memory Size 1GB
Memory Interface 128-bit
Memory Type DDR5
3D API
DirectX DirectX 11
Ports
HDMI 1 x HDMI
DisplayPort 1 x DisplayPort
DVI 2 x DVI
General
Max Resolution 2560 x 1600
CrossFireX Support Yes
Cooler With Fan
System Requirements Minimum 450 Watt Power Supply Requirement
Power Connector 6 Pin
Dual-Link DVI Supported Yes
HDCP Ready Yes
Dimensions 8.5"x4.376"x1.5"
Packaging
Package Contents HD-577X-ZNFC
Installation CD with Multi-Language User Guide
Quick Installation Guide
Driver CD Installation Guide
XFX Serial Number Door Hanger
6-pin to 4-pin power cable
DVI to VGA adapter
Manufacturer Warranty
Parts Lifetime limited
Labor Lifetime limited

-------------------------
I do see a nice margin of difference between the two cards, my current and what I was looking at.

Noticably, the 5830 is not that much better than the 5770. The only area they typically differ in is the memory interface. Now if I do buy a version that would have the 4000 mhz memory clock that would be the only significant advantage. That's with the $80+ price jump too. Shit, most 5850s have all the same specs exception being the stream processors, for double the price too $300+ compared to the $150 for the 5770.

 

[Originality]

Wow, I didn't realize the 9800 only had 112 "processing cores", but then again, it didn't really matter so much in those days.

I see the HD5770 as an updated version of the HD4870 I have - they both have 800 "processing cores", a similar clock, and 1GB of GDDR5 RAM. It's pretty much the reason I haven't upgraded in the last couple years.

what the fuck is wrong with you? there are some people who prefer amd over intel...besides the fact that not everyone is being funded to buy new super computers by their mommy and daddy's allowance, you cunt

I wonder who actually can convince their parents to buy them a super computer. My parents wouldn't even buy me a PS1 way back when, so I've always had to save up for myself or find odd jobs to buy anything I wanted... and by the time I could afford them, they tended to be less than half their original price. Even the PS3 I got a few weeks ago was heavily discounted, and I traded in a fixed 360 to bring the price further down.

 

[Raki]

Have you tried unlocking 1 or 2 cores? Maybe you're sucessful and you get a nice Quadcore out of your CPU

btw: If you're just gaming an Intel CPU won't take you further than a AMD PII...

 

[Santee]

Buy a 5770 and then later on when you have the money buy another one and crossfire them since the performance of 2 5770s are a little better than a 5850.

 

[W.I.C.K.E.D.]

Have you tried unlocking 1 or 2 cores? Maybe you're sucessful and you get a nice Quadcore out of your CPU

btw: If you're just gaming an Intel CPU won't take you further than a AMD PII...

I did try unlocking with my motherboard's hybrid mode but the pc wouldn't post. It sounds like it starts but the monitor is empty, just black like it's not even booted. I'm not sure how to enable each core specifically to see if only one is faulty and the other isn't.