cc4Spawn Posted March 25, 2012 Posted March 25, 2012 (edited) Hey guys. I finally almost have enough money to upgrade my GPU and need some help making this big decision. I have my eyes on the ATI Radeon series. I'm from South Africa and hardware is much more expensive on this side than in the US. I'm thinking of getting the ATI Radeon HD6850 2GB @ R 1,939.00 [$251.00] OR ATI Radeon HD6870 1GB @ R 2,209.00 [$286.00] I like playing games like GTA IV and ARMA II. What would you guys suggest? I'm not thinking of overclocking my GPU just yet as I like to stay safe under warranty. Thanks in advance everyone! My Setup:ASUS M4A87TD EVO AMD Phenom II 1055T @ 3.3GHz Corsair XMS3 2x4GB @ 1600MHz Cooler Master Extreme Power Plus 700W PSU Biostar 8500GT 256MB [xD yeah I know right! But still runs as great as on day one! Just a TAD outdated...] Samsung 1TB Storage Seagate 160GB OS [soon to be OCZ Agility3 60GB SSD] Arctic Cooling Freezer13 CPU Cooler Edited March 25, 2012 by cc4Spawn Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muchoman1 Posted March 25, 2012 Posted March 25, 2012 what resolution screen are you running? are you thinking of going crossfire in the future? and are you planning on going eyefinity (multiscreen gaming)? if your resolution is no more than 1080x1920 or 1200x1920, i would go the 6870, more vram isnt needed unless going to 1600x2560 or eyefinity resolutions or you could wait for kelpers low/mid range cards to come out, they shouldnt be too long and a 650ti or 660 would be more powerful than either of those cards there, and i would think the 650ti would be similarly priced 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoSnipeLimit Posted March 25, 2012 Posted March 25, 2012 Hey guys. I finally almost have enough money to upgrade my GPU and need some help making this big decision. I have my eyes on the ATI Radeon series. I'm from South Africa and hardware is much more expensive on this side than in the US. I'm thinking of getting the ATI Radeon HD6850 2GB @ R 1,939.00 [$251.00] OR ATI Radeon HD6870 1GB @ R 2,209.00 [$286.00] I like playing games like GTA IV and ARMA II. What would you guys suggest? I'm not thinking of overclocking my GPU just yet as I like to stay safe under warranty. Thanks in advance everyone! http://www.prophecy.co.za/club3d-cgax68724f-radeon-hd6870-gddr5-256bit-pcie-p-86874.html Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cc4Spawn Posted March 25, 2012 Posted March 25, 2012 what resolution screen are you running? are you thinking of going crossfire in the future? and are you planning on going eyefinity (multiscreen gaming)? if your resolution is no more than 1080x1920 or 1200x1920, i would go the 6870, more vram isnt needed unless going to 1600x2560 or eyefinity resolutions or you could wait for kelpers low/mid range cards to come out, they shouldnt be too long and a 650ti or 660 would be more powerful than either of those cards there, and i would think the 650ti would be similarly priced At the moment I'm running at 1440x900. Doubt that I will ever go above 1080x1920. Crossfire? No I wont be. My mobo does support it but my second PCIe port is only x18. Wont get enough out of a second card. Also is WAY out of my budget. Will have to upgrade my PSU and so on to be able to do that. So no. No, I don't think I will be doing the whole eyefinity thing. Don't like it... What advantages will i get if i go with a 2GB GPU? [To my understanding, I will be able to render larger maps and set my view distance to the max. Games like Arma have massif maps.] http://www.prophecy.co.za/club3d-cgax68724f-radeon-hd6870-gddr5-256bit-pcie-p-86874.html Thanks for the link. There is another good South African web store "Nivo". Check it out. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black64 Posted March 25, 2012 Posted March 25, 2012 Right now 1GB is totally fine, I run HD (1920x1280) and 1200x900 off my 1GB 6950 with no slow downs. Unless you go higher then HD you don't need more then 1GB. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
d6bmg Posted March 26, 2012 Posted March 26, 2012 For single monitor 1920x1280 resolution, 1GB version will suffice for all the games atm. Buy 2GB version for 'future proofing'. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cc4Spawn Posted March 31, 2012 Posted March 31, 2012 Thanks for all the info guys. Will help me with my purchase, thinking of going with the 2GB GPU as it will be future proof. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rofltroll Posted March 31, 2012 Posted March 31, 2012 6870 is better than a 6850 no matter the amount of ram if you choose to run a 1080p setup. That''s a fact. I suggest, though, that you wait a bit. Prices will go down since the new nvidia kepler cards came out. If you can't wait , however, i strongly suggest you go with the 6870. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rofltroll Posted March 31, 2012 Posted March 31, 2012 (edited) For single monitor 1920x1280 resolution, 1GB version will suffice for all the games atm. Buy 2GB version for 'future proofing'. Don't confuse the man with that future proofing mumbo jumbo. From what I've read, OP won't go for a multiple monitor setup and even if he did, I don't see a 6850 carrying 3 monitors properly for gaming anyway. Even for higher resolution monitors, a 6870 1GB is better than a 6850 2GB. I've been browsing that site and here's what I'd suggest: http://www.prophecy.co.za/inno3d-nvidia-geforce-gtx560-gddr5-256bit-pcie-p-113629.html This 560 Ti has an Inno3D cooler on it; Inno3D knows their stuff when it comes to cooling considering they are responsible for iChill. My GTX 470 is also Inno3D and i've had it for almost 2 years now. The nVidia 560 Ti is slightly better than a 6870 and you also get physX ,if you're into that. Here's a review on the 560 ti where you'll also see how 6870 and 6850 run on different games http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-560-ti-review/1 And if you decide to save money I suggest you go for a 6850 1GB as you won't see any difference between a 2GB and a 1GB if you play 1920x1080. Here's a good one: http://www.prophecy.co.za/sapphire-radeon-hd6850-gddr5-256bit-pcie-p-86063.html Hope this helped. Edit: added some links. Edited March 31, 2012 by Rofltroll 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
d6bmg Posted March 31, 2012 Posted March 31, 2012 (edited) Actually what I wanted to say is the fact that demand of vram increases all the time along with time passed in all the released PC games. Am I missing something? Edited March 31, 2012 by d6bmg Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
El_Capitan Posted March 31, 2012 Posted March 31, 2012 There's no point at all to have more than 1GB VRAM at 1920 x 1200 resolution or lower for mid-ranged gaming cards unless you've got two in SLI/Xfire and playing at Ultra-high settings that utilize more VRAM than 1GB. You'll be performance bottlenecked way before you'll be VRAM bottlenecked. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
d6bmg Posted March 31, 2012 Posted March 31, 2012 ^ Oh ok. Didn't know that fact. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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