Radeon 5870 still good?

I

Ingenieur7

Weaksauce
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May 19, 2012
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So is the Radeon 5870 still good for gaming? I'm thinking of upgrading my rig however I'm not sure if I should upgrade my graphics card just yet.
 
Unless you purchase a GTX 570 or HD7870 you won't notice a performance boost over your venerable HD5870. For most games (BF3) @ 1080p you should be able to turn up IQ settings to high with low to moderate amounts of AA/AF. Plus your card is DX11 compliant so you aren't missing any new features.

The Radeon HD5XXX series aren't the best in XFire configuration so don't go buying another for X-Fire.
 
I dont understand questions like this. in general a 5870 is still a good card but its your pc so only you can determine if its still gets the job done. the games you play, settings you use and the rest of your pc all play a role too.
 
What resolution? What games? I've got a 5870 and slightly OC'd it performs as well as a 6970 so I don't see myself upgrading any time soon at 1080p resolution. If you're going eyefinity or high res IPS monitors then you should upgrade but unless you've got a specific reason then I'd say save the money.
 
For single screen at 1080p its still good. I think you could go another generation or two of video cards before you start see titles cripple a 5870.

Biggest reason to upgrade now would be to use less power. But even then I doubt the power you save would be that significant.

You're ultimately the best judge, if the games you play perform to your satisfaction then an upgrade isn't required. If you're not happy with the performance then you have to decide to upgrade.
 
My 5870 at stock clocks (wont overclock for shit) will play every game so far at 1920x1080 at max settings.

Now in Metro and Crysis I stay in the mid to low 30's but its still playable. I don't play BF3 but the benchmarks I see show a 5870 doing in the low 30's on Ultra settings. If I had the money I would upgrade though because while I can play everything at max, I'd like to be out of the 30's in those games.

Problem is you have to spend $400 before you start seeing a good sized difference. A $350 GTX570 or 7870 would be a decent upgrade but not big enough to justify the cost at least not to me. The GTX580 and 7950 would be the minimum I'd consider "worth it" to upgrade to.

So I would suggest (assuming youre at 1920x1080) if you're watching the budget or really need to spend the money elsewhere like a CPU upgrade then keep the 5870. If you've got $400 to spare, pick up a GTX670 cause it would really smooth out the demanding games like Crysis or BF3.
 
cannondale06 said:
I dont understand questions like this. in general a 5870 is still a good card but its your pc so only you can determine if its still gets the job done. the games you play, settings you use and the rest of your pc all play a role too.
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+1 to this.
 
My HD 5870 is still chugging along with a slight overclock (905/1310) @ 1080p. Plays BF3 with half Ultra and half High settings perfectly fine. Average is mid 50's with fps dropping to mid 30's in big firefights. Extremely playable.
 
Zepher said:
I am still chugging along with a 5850 at 1080P.
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+1

It still plays everything just fine @ 1080...

I should note that it really sucks, because I have the itch to upgrade it, but not for little gain............. :D
 
Hagrid said:
+1

It still plays everything just fine @ 1080...

I should note that it really sucks, because I have the itch to upgrade it, but not for little gain............. :D
Click to expand...

Same here.
 
I definitely have the itch to upgrade. Drives me crazy that Ive had the same video card for over 2 years now! That just aint like me! :D

Im having fun buying other little things though I guess. Just built a Athlon II X3 workhorse computer for the wife to check her email, play on Facebook and read her Excel spreadsheets for work and stuff. That entertained me a little. Bought this awesome new 500R so now Ive got more room for stuff like water cooling. So as long as Ive something to occupy my upgrade cravings I can hang on to my 5870 a little longer.
 
On the GPU front, at stock clocks, 5870 = 6950 = ~7850. Even a used 6970 is not really worth the upgrade at the settings you are most likely playing unless VRAM is a big issue for you or you expect to be able to heavily overclock the pre-owned card. A used 580 might be better, but is still going to be an outlay of ~$250-350 depending on the card.

Before upgrading the GPU, you should do a chip comparison to see if you would get more fps from switching to Sandy or Ivy. It is really sad, but many games just work better with Intel chips rather than with AMD, especially in CPU bound games.

As many have said, what do you consider acceptable to be playable? I like at 2560x1600 with 4xAA or 8xAA with the frames rarely (if ever) dropping below 60.
 
I actually downgraded from a 5870 to a 5850 at 1080p and I am still more than content with its performance. Next gen or the following is when I will finally make a (worthwhile) switch.
 
I use my 5870 at 1080p, even at 3x 1080p for some games (without aa).

Though my 5870 has been running at 1GHz for years now, I guess this is not a typical oc. I just don't have a need to upgrade, I was considering the 6GB 7970 for some 5 monitor gaming, but it doesn't seem to be coming out...

If you want to upgrade then do so, but convincing yourself you 'need' to is a bit of a stretch... ;)
 
I think its still good. I game at 1920+1200 runs all games maxed or close to it. Runs Skyrim ultra with no lag. Have to back of on bf3 just a little but still looks and runs great.
 
At 1080p with a little overclock the 5870 is still a pretty good card, it will struggle a bit with games with heavy tesselation but that's about it. Metro and Witcher 2 will probably require slightly lower details levels.
 
Currently using a 5870 with the specs in my sig at 1920 resolution, and with eye candy completely maxed out in most of today's games with no issue whatsoever.

Yes, it is still good.
 
I'm still on my 3 year old 5870 in crossfire. I can max out pretty much anything. Probably won't be upgrading until next gen consoles are out.
 
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