Graphic Cards GFX upgrade - Do i need it now, if so which one

S

Spectre

Skilled
Hi Guys,

I have decided to upgrade my LCD to 24" - HD resolution 1920 X 1080. Now the decision is which lcd, thats a separate discussion

As you can see from my sig, I have a nice 4870 card, handling anything thrown at it in 1440X900 resolutions.

With my friend's Dell 24" lcd-led (i am using it for testing), i am still able to run the following games quite well, at HD resolution in quite high settings(no stutters nothing)

COD - MW2

Alpha Protocol

Saint's Row 2 ( just installed)

I know for the fact that increasing to full HD rez is going to be taxing on the card.

I also wont play any latest games immediately (unless its a special rpg), I have a huge backlog to complete, so I will play 2009 to 2010 games for atleast few more months.

Now, do i need a little bump in gfx performance, if so which card

My budget is max 5-6K after selling my present one

Which other games can really strain my gfx card to an extent that it will be unplayable. I dont wish to lower resolution or run in low settings, the least acceptable would be medium

TIA, Spectre
 
Out of that list Alpha Protocol is a UT3 Engine game. Any UT3 Engine game (unless the Engine is heavily modified) is going to run butter smooth at high resolutions even on a damned HD4850. You should be safe with all UT2.5/UT3 Engine games. Games like Mass Effect series, Bioshock series, Singularity, Splinter Cell - Conviction, Borderlands, Batman - Arkham Asylum, Medal of Honor : Airborne as well as the latest one (if you really wanna play it) would all be playable. This in itself is a list of decent UT2.5/UT3 Engine games for you to play.

COD - MW2 and Saints Row 2 are also old games now. If you are only going to play games like that, you won't need a GPU upgrade. However there are also games like Metro 2033 that will literally rape that GPU even at 1680 x 1050 and lower. Metro 2033 was unplayable for me on HD 4850 crossfire. If you want to upgrade, look for nothing less than an HD 6870.
 
I have a 5770 and an HD monitor.i am able to play 90 % of the games at high quality.only crysis,metro 2033 and some other unoptimized games like Gta4,borderlands etc had some troble.I think you should wait for crysis 2 before upgrading.
 
^^ Just because your rig cannot run a game does not mean it has to be unoptimized. It can simply mean that your hardware is underpowered for the game. GTA 4 is a decently optimized game. It doesn't need a lot of GPU muscle (considering the quality of the graphics is pretty mediocre) and instead what it needs is CPU muscle (very well optimized for quads) and a large amount of memory on Graphics card to hold textures. Crysis is also pretty decently optimized for GPUs although its not too well optimized for multi-core CPU. As for borderlands, you must be kidding because its one of the better UT3 engine games and makes excellent use of both multi core CPUs as well as the GPU.
 
Thanks LM and agree with your point about GTA4. IMO, its one of better optimized games and got a lot of unjustified bashing
I guess i should hold back the upgrade and keep scouting the market for any good deals

I aint interested in playing Metro 2003 and have finished crysis
Is there any other gfx stressing game, that I can test my current setup on HD, with
 
The 512mb VRAm might hold back at full HD resolution, I have a 4850 (1gb) and able to play almost all games at high setting (full HD resolution on a X2 4000+). Recently Fallout New Vegas was proving to be very choppy, but was a game issue, a patch sorted it out. My point being unless you are a stickler for ultra quality settings, 4850/4870 series are still going strong...
 
Check out S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call Of Pripyat, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky ( after you patch it fully ) :), the X Ray Engine V 1.** is showing its age but the underground atmosphere is still intact and very heavy settings are known to bring decent mid range offerings to heel very fast + the games in themselves are better than Metro 2033 in my view ( better story, gunplay, AI is much better etc. ) I hope this helped and enjoy gaming tovarishj :)
 
Good to hear 4850 still fighting it out at HD rez. The 512 mb is a concern though, lets see how the games handle it, on mine

Aces170 said:
The 512mb VRAm might hold back at full HD resolution, I have a 4850 (1gb) and able to play almost all games at high setting (full HD resolution on a X2 4000+). Recently Fallout New Vegas was proving to be very choppy, but was a game issue, a patch sorted it out. My point being unless you are a stickler for ultra quality settings, 4850/4870 series are still going strong...
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Thanks, I will try these

asingh said:
Dead Space and AVP are quite taxing.
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asingh said:
Dead Space and AVP are quite taxing.
Click to expand...

Dead space is not at all taxing on the 4850/4870. AVP, yes. Also, I second the notion that 4870 owners do not need to upgrade as its still holding its own at HD front. There are only a handful of games that are not playable at HD full settings.
 
Upgrading at this point of time, with the configuration that you already have won't be a wise decision. And why do you want to play all the games at absolutely highest settings all the time?
 
I just asked if I needed to upgrade, i have decided not to do it, at this point in time, unless some good market deal comes up

I want to play at the highest settings only if my system allows me to.. Else I will tweak and see what best I can reach. I can compromise till High, beyond that the visual experience is gone.
the core AA and AF should be atleast 4X for me in whataver rez i play
baccilus said:
Upgrading at this point of time, with the configuration that you already have won't be a wise decision. And why do you want to play all the games at absolutely highest settings all the time?
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I say no dude

The HD4870 is equivalent to GTX260 and is great for Full HD res

Only that it does not have DX11 support

I suggest you to wait a while and buy one after 4-6 months Maybe one year is also good
 
Just a quick update:

Assassins Creed 2 runs so beautifully at extreme gfx settings @ Full HD resolution :D

I pushed every slider all the way up

Guys with 4870, its one hell of a card, don't let it go so soon
 
Hey Spectre My suggestion would be to stick with your current card for the next quarter or so and see how the high end graphics battle pan out...but right now if you must have an upgrade go with either a GTX 470 or HD 6870
 
Absolutely, I am very suprised at how the old warhorse is still holding strong to anything I throw at it. I just wanted to update this thread on some of the games i have played recently and this card lets me run everything @ max settings on HD. All this @ stock clocks
devvfata1ity said:
Hey Spectre My suggestion would be to stick with your current card for the next quarter or so and see how the high end graphics battle pan out...but right now if you must have an upgrade go with either a GTX 470 or HD 6870
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Talk about 4870, my 4850 is still going strong :p .

I was thinking no ****in way im gonna play black ops with issues people were having at full HD with full details. but then it totally worked at Full HD max settings :lol:
 
The Card you currently own is more than enough for any games you throw at it.

I feel confident saying that since I own a 5770 which is more or less your card's equal. :p

Except for "Enthusiast" grade Crysis, everything else is more or less playable with no AA. :)
 
hash said:
Talk about 4870, my 4850 is still going strong :p .

I was thinking no ****in way im gonna play black ops with issues people were having at full HD with full details. but then it totally worked at Full HD max settings :lol:
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AMEN! My 4850 still battles it out with a lot of new games. Black Ops didn't work properly and I didn't plan of mongering around with the settings, so got the 360 version.

But yeah, this was my concern when I was shifting from my trusty 19" Viewsonic CRT monitor to Dell 24 inch screen. To my surprise, a lot of games run properly. I don't think increasing the resolution has caused much issues, it's only when I add on some of the newer graphical features like SSAO, the game would drop the frames rates.
 
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