Upgrade for DX11?

bonkey

Is DX11 worth an upgrade?

To put this in context...I have a HD 4850 (512MB) in my pc. It might be 2 years old, but on my 1680x1050 monitor, it still does the business I need it to. (pc is 3ghz core2 duo, 4gb memory, running Windows 7 64-bit).

Having taken a break from gaming for a while, I now find myself looking at a slew of new titles. From what I can see, my rig will play them just fine...as long as I don't want the bells and whistles that is DX11.

From looking around, a 1GB 5770 would seem to be the business for the resolution I'm running at, and it won't break the bank. Thing is, that other then getting DX11 support, its not offering much. Its faster...but I don't really need faster (unless I need it for DX11).

I started initially looking at a 6850. I might still go that route, in case I upgrade my monitor as well anytime soon...but I'm still wondering whether or not DX11 is worth an upgrade.

Any thoughts?

AlmightyCushion

I wouldn't bother upgrading just for DX11. I'm in the same position as yourself. I have a 4870 1gb and use a 1920x1200 resolution and I can max most things out with my 4870. I'm tempted to upgrade but it just seems like a waste of money seeing as I'll see very little improvement. If I were you I'd keep your money until you get a bigger monitor or games start taxing your card more.

Overheal

I have the 5770. i like the 5770. But there are better things now. It's only 128-bit architechture, when 256-bit is becoming the norm and will itself probably be outpaced by the end of the year. It also doesnt play everything at full tilt but when I say everything I mean titles like Metro 2033*, which are very powerful engines (I do play at 1980x1020 though). Most current gen stuff it plays just fine.

If you were to go 6-series do it for the extra oomph. If you just want DX11 support a 5770 will do just about fine I think. Still though I have only tried 1 or 2 dx11 titles on it.

*is actually dx10

It depends on your habits but I would personally run your existing card to the ground before upgrading. The 5770 is nice, expecially the Vapor-X edition, but just to get dx11 you aren't going to miss out on much. Not yet anyway. Not enough titles rolling out in the first and second quarter that would warrant it imo.

Solitaire

If you already have a HD4850 don't even think about a HD5770. Even a HD6850 is a hard sell as its only two-and-a-half tiers above the HD4850. If you don't have enough money for a HD6950 and a Full HD monitor then just wait a bit longer for DX11 to mature and its cards to come down a few notches in price At the moment its not worth it.

Hank Scorpio

You can flash the 6850 to a 6870, something to keep in mind i think

Solitaire

Isn't that 6950 > 6970?

AFAIK the HD6850 doesn't have a rush-cut die with firmware-locked SIMD clusters (they're lasered off) and even if they did they don't have a backup BIOS so the risk of bricking it are high

marco_polo

Solitaire wrote: »

If you already have a HD4850 don't even think about a HD5770. Even a HD6850 is a hard sell as its only two-and-a-half tiers above the HD4850. If you don't have enough money for a HD6950 and a Full HD monitor then just wait a bit longer for DX11 to mature and its cards to come down a few notches in price At the moment its not worth it.

+1, A 6950 is the minimum jump I would make from my HD4870 when the time comes, there just aren't enough games on my list that I can justify the upgrade price at the moment, I have come across only three games that the HD4870 cannot max out fully at 1080p, Metro2033, Crysis and Stalker Call of Pripat (Haven't played BFBC2 mind).

Overheal

speaking of jumps do they even make the card that would be the jump for a 5770 yet

Solitaire

HD5770 ~ HD4870

Same upgrade jump as the HD4850 for 512MB models, a half-tier higher for the 1GB model - either a HD6970 or an unlocked HD6950 (GTX570 or OCd GTX560Ti works too). And even then its only vital if you have cash to burn and either play huge resolutions above two megapixel (usually Eyefinity, possibly a 30" screen) or play around 1080p and demand ultra-high settings and fast DX11 rendering, and there aren't many games out to warrant the latter either!

bonkey

Thanks for all the feedback guys.

I guess I'll stick with the 4850 for now, based on what you've all been saying. If something specific comes along that really makes me yearn for DX11, I'll maybe reconsider, but the general feedback seems to be that there's nothing there yet that makes DX11 a "must have".

Hank Scorpio

Solitaire wrote: »

Isn't that 6950 > 6970?

Right you are Solitaire, ATI`s naming confuses me :P

lmimmfn

best to upgrade to a quad core and have a more balanced gaming rig( for todays games where a quad is becoming more of a necessity )

Dont bank on flashing 6950->6970's it was only the first batch up until the end of january which were flashable, post that the cards are supposed to be laser cut, i havnt heard anyone complaining yet, just better to not bank on it.

Overheal

Dual to Quad wouldn't be a huge leap. Better to just hang onto existing hardware and later you can pretty much build a brand new machine with DDR3 Memory, a DX11 Card, and even a high-powered Quad or Hexacore processor. Octacores may be out by year end too.

PogMoThoin

Overheal wrote: »

Dual to Quad wouldn't be a huge leap. Better to just hang onto existing hardware and later you can pretty much build a brand new machine with DDR3 Memory, a DX11 Card, and even a high-powered Quad or Hexacore processor. Octacores may be out by year end too.

Dual to quad would be a massive leap, games wont need hexa or octocores for years but lots of todays benefit from more than 2 cores. You don't need a new pc to have what you described above, his old one could be upgraded to that easily

Overheal

PogMoThoin wrote: »

Dual to quad would be a massive leap, games wont need hexa or octocores for years but lots of todays benefit from more than 2 cores.

Not big enough to warrant the purchase tbh. And the APIs are all moving to scalability. soon it wont matter if you have 4 or 12 your programs will utilize all of them. In the meantime Intel especially is adding fantastic tech into their CPUs, AMD too. Depending on the program your 6 core will become 3 boosted cores, etc.

PogMoThoin

We'll not have any games that support more than 4 cores for years. Its only now that games are starting to support more that 2 cores when quads have been around since 2008. Then with consoles keeping pc game development stagnant........lets not get into that

No way I'd go back to a dual core gaming machine at this stage, I even upgraded the kids one to a quad last year for the same reason, playing modern pc games on top of Windows runs better on a quad than a dual core. A Q6600 quad is under 100 quid now, he'd probably get 50-60 for the dual he got, if the board takes a quad its a worthy upgrade for 40-50 quid, the effects of which would be instantly noticed, even in Windows alone

lmimmfn

Overheal wrote: »

Not big enough to warrant the purchase tbh. And the APIs are all moving to scalability. soon it wont matter if you have 4 or 12 your programs will utilize all of them. In the meantime Intel especially is adding fantastic tech into their CPUs, AMD too. Depending on the program your 6 core will become 3 boosted cores, etc.

theres a tonne of games you cant even play now if you only have a dual core:
Bad Company 2
GTAIV
Metro 2033
to name but a few, gaming wise a dual core is dead in the water. You cant go DX11 if you havnt got a quad core as its putting the cart before the horse. Not only that the multicore support of the DirectX queue is due in drivers soon( hopefully ), which will make things even faster for DX10+ cards.

Solitaire

Yup, its a warning I give to all ultrabudget builders - better to start off with a tricore and a weaker GPU than the other way around as its harder to upgrade

Although you can play GTA4 on a quick dualie at lower res - just

Jonny7

lmimmfn wrote: »

theres a tonne of games you cant even play now if you only have a dual core:
Bad Company 2
GTAIV
Metro 2033
to name but a few, gaming wise a dual core is dead in the water. You cant go DX11 if you havnt got a quad core as its putting the cart before the horse. Not only that the multicore support of the DirectX queue is due in drivers soon( hopefully ), which will make things even faster for DX10+ cards.

Oi... bad company 2 running smooth as butter on a core2duo 2.1 ghz (e6400 the old one) with an ATI 4770 and 2 gigs of ram.

lmimmfn

Jonny7 wrote: »

Oi... bad company 2 running smooth as butter on a core2duo 2.1 ghz (e6400 the old one) with an ATI 4770 and 2 gigs of ram.

well my mate who's a huge fan of BF2 ran it on an E6400 with an 8800GTS and said it ran like junk and ill take his word for it( alone with those with E8400's @4Ghz who are unimpressed with the performance ), if you dont need 60FPS in an FPS like that then more power to ya

Jonny7

I literally have 3 different pc's running games half the day all beside each other and being around since the quake days, we wouldn't play on anything below 125 fps, I am a bit of a frames junkie.. sure I can tell the diff between 65 and 72 fps in vanilla quake

Frostbite is a great engine.. on the other hand GTA4 is badly optimised and metro.. well its just heavy.. other than those and one or two others, I am pretty confident you happily game on 1680x1050 with a 2.5+ ghz dualcore and a 3 yr old ati 4850, I wouldn't write them off just yet.

PogMoThoin

Jonny7 wrote: »

I literally have 3 different pc's running games half the day all beside each other and being around since the quake days, we wouldn't play on anything below 125 fps, I am a bit of a frames junkie.. sure I can tell the diff between 65 and 72 fps in vanilla quake

Frostbite is a great engine.. on the other hand GTA4 is badly optimised and metro.. well its just heavy.. other than those and one or two others, I am pretty confident you happily game on 1680x1050 with a 2.5+ ghz dualcore and a 3 yr old ati 4850, I wouldn't write them off just yet.

Try Arma2 Combined Ops, you'll get a pretty shítty experience on a dual core. It sets the bar as far as cpu power is concerned.

Sephiroth_dude

I've a gtx 260,got it almost 3 yrs ago now,thinking of upgrading,what do ye think?

Solitaire

Depends on what games you want to play and at what resolution. And if you have anything less than €250 to blow on something considerably better then forget it

Sephiroth_dude

Solitaire wrote: »

Depends on what games you want to play and at what resolution. And if you have anything less than €250 to blow on something considerably better then forget it

Well at the moment I,m gaming at 1680x1050 but I was thinking of upgrading my monitor anyway to a hd one and maybe gaming at 1980x1080,I have about 300 euro,Is the 260 still a good card?should I wait?

Solitaire

GTX260+ is still good even for 1080p, the old one with the missing shaders is a bit weak (inferior to HD5770) but will survive. Unless you upgrade to 1080p and have the money to get a HD6950/GTX560Ti/GTX480 I wouldn't bother right now frankly.

bonkey

(Bumping my oldish thread, I know)

For unrelated reasons, I need a new monitor. I've decided to treat myself to a full HD, rather then just sticking with something similar to what I have/had....and will take stock and see if the card still holds up (and if the whine of its fan under load doesn't drive me to look for a quieter card anyway )

Overheal

A nice HD LED from Samsung perhaps?

Screens are definitely something I would either prefer to buy from a shop; or online provided they have a zero-tolerance pixel policy. Because who wants a dead pixel? N o b o d y.

4850 should handle it. If not you can always take the resolution and the AA back down a smidge, that will account for virtually all of the strain.

Sgt Pepper 64

bonkey wrote: »

(Bumping my oldish thread, I know)

For unrelated reasons, I need a new monitor. I've decided to treat myself to a full HD, rather then just sticking with something similar to what I have/had....and will take stock and see if the card still holds up (and if the whine of its fan under load doesn't drive me to look for a quieter card anyway )

I've just gone for this, free delivery, works out at 114 euro, no hdmi, but I dont need it

http://www.amazon.co.uk/BenQ-G2222HDL-21-5-inch-Widescreen-Back-Light/dp/B002UJ31A0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1301737960&sr=8-1

Skerries

what monitor should i be looking to get if i have a 6970?

Solitaire

More than one? :pac:

2560*1600 panels are still stupidly expensive; cheaper getting three premium 22" or three decent 24" panels and Eyefinity-ing them. Small bezels ftw!