HD 5870 for Battlefield 3?

[krgmer6910]

Hey tomshardware, this is my first post here but have been getting info from you guys for quite a while. I'm very intereseted in pushing some serious graphics for Battlefield 3. My system spec if as follows

intel i5 750 @ 3.2GHz
4Gb of G.Skill DDR3
750W Ultra PSU
EVGA P55 SLI Mobo
XFX HD 5870 stock

I saw the system requirements for battlefield 3 that contain a 6950 as the recommended specs. There has been a lot of speculation as to what "recommended" actually means. Some say max and some say medium. I also have seen benchmarks of BFBC2 that has the 5870 on average 7 fps higher than the 6950 and the 5870 maxing out the alpha.... but its the alpha. So just some speculation as to where the 5870 stands in terms of this game? Much appreciated

 

[krgmer6910]

Thanks for the quick response! Yeah i concur with the 1080p on high which is what im looking for. But how do the settings go do we think? medium, high, very high, ultra? or what? And then yeah i was considering the 1gb limit as a possibility of a bottleneck. What are your opinions on selling the 5870 for like 200 and picking up some crossfire 6850s for 300? My only hesitation there is the cards are still only 1gb but there are benchmarks of those things beating out a 580!

 

[krgmer6910]

go for a gtx 570 or 6950 minimum.

I've seen BFBC2 benchmarks that show the 5870 beating the 6950 by 7 frames, so im not entirely convinced that would be an upgrade

 

[krgmer6910]

I definitely see your point there. So you would consider the VRAM over anything else and pick a 6950 over a pair of 6850s in crossfire? Because they are roughly in the same price range

 

[krgmer6910]

Yeah i meant 6850 crossfire even though any type of multi-GPU setup has its problems so that is obviously a concern regardless of which cards but yeah if money was no option I would have a 580 on the way but its a good 150 more than a pair of 6850s. Im looking to stay in a sub 300 price range

 

[krgmer6910]

Ok i have just seen benchmarks of the 68xx crossfire and its impressive but idk how stable it is. I wouldnt want to go with the 570 because it still has that 1Gb of RAM.... but the 6970 would definitely be an option. A little steep but could be worth it you think that will pretty much max BF3?

 

[nirvananow]

Hey tomshardware, this is my first post here but have been getting info from you guys for quite a while. I'm very intereseted in pushing some serious graphics for Battlefield 3. My system spec if as follows

intel i5 750 @ 3.2GHz
4Gb of G.Skill DDR3
750W Ultra PSU
EVGA P55 SLI Mobo
XFX HD 5870 stock

I saw the system requirements for battlefield 3 that contain a 6950 as the recommended specs. There has been a lot of speculation as to what "recommended" actually means. Some say max and some say medium. I also have seen benchmarks of BFBC2 that has the 5870 on average 7 fps higher than the 6950 and the 5870 maxing out the alpha.... but its the alpha. So just some speculation as to where the 5870 stands in terms of this game? Much appreciated

Howdy, I'll turn you onto a site which I recently was shown too... Now I don't know exactly how accurate this is = but it hasn't failed me so far. Warning, it does require an active x installment to work

http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/CYRI/intro.aspx

nirvananow

 

[krgmer6910]

Haha ok I didn't know that we were thinking of just a 300Mb increase vs. 1Gb.. but what do you mean beta? Beta doesnt release until Tuesday. Do you mean alpha? But ok it looks like the 570 is the primary choice then

 

[spentshells]

Upgrading to a 6950/570 would be a huge waste
I suggest you hold onto your 5870 play it for a week
remember this game will be playable on a xbox/ps3
5870 is far from being obsolete 1600 shaders bro

 

[nirvananow]

Hey tomshardware, this is my first post here but have been getting info from you guys for quite a while. I'm very intereseted in pushing some serious graphics for Battlefield 3. My system spec if as follows

intel i5 750 @ 3.2GHz
4Gb of G.Skill DDR3
750W Ultra PSU
EVGA P55 SLI Mobo
XFX HD 5870 stock

I saw the system requirements for battlefield 3 that contain a 6950 as the recommended specs. There has been a lot of speculation as to what "recommended" actually means. Some say max and some say medium. I also have seen benchmarks of BFBC2 that has the 5870 on average 7 fps higher than the 6950 and the 5870 maxing out the alpha.... but its the alpha. So just some speculation as to where the 5870 stands in terms of this game? Much appreciated

Oops, sorry, that was assuming you had the sys. all set up..
~_~

 

[krgmer6910]

Howdy, I'll turn you onto a site which I recently was shown too... Now I don't know exactly how accurate this is = but it hasn't failed me so far. Warning, it does require an active x installment to work

http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/CYRI/intro.aspx

nirvananow

Hey there i will definitely give that a try when i get home considering im on my netbook now and im pretty sure that I would not be able to run it here... hahaha

 

[shane799]

Hey tomshardware, this is my first post here but have been getting info from you guys for quite a while. I'm very intereseted in pushing some serious graphics for Battlefield 3. My system spec if as follows

intel i5 750 @ 3.2GHz
4Gb of G.Skill DDR3
750W Ultra PSU
EVGA P55 SLI Mobo
XFX HD 5870 stock

I saw the system requirements for battlefield 3 that contain a 6950 as the recommended specs. There has been a lot of speculation as to what "recommended" actually means. Some say max and some say medium. I also have seen benchmarks of BFBC2 that has the 5870 on average 7 fps higher than the 6950 and the 5870 maxing out the alpha.... but its the alpha. So just some speculation as to where the 5870 stands in terms of this game? Much appreciated

Hey Krgmer6910,

Where did you see these benchmarks? The 6950 is essentially the new version of the 5870 with more VRAM in it. I have never seen a benchmark where the 6950 loses to the 5870.

 

[krgmer6910]

Upgrading to a 6950/570 would be a huge waste
I suggest you hold onto your 5870 play it for a week
remember this game will be playable on a xbox/ps3
5870 is far from being obsolete 1600 shaders bro

Not a chance that i will be playing this game on console before PC lol no offense its just my preference but yeah part of me really thinks that the 5870 will still do very well with his game but obviously the anticipation is killing me lol

 

[krgmer6910]

http://www.techspot.com/review/349-amd-radeon-6950/page11.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-gtx-560-ti-gf114,2845-9.html

I might have stretched the 7 fps from the truth its more from 2-5 but it seems that are pretty much equal. I just cant justify the 6950 with these

Here is one where the 6950 wins by a frame... lol
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-6970-radeon-hd-6950-cayman,2818-12.html

 

[spentshells]

Hey Krgmer6910,

Where did you see these benchmarks? The 6950 is essentially the new version of the 5870 with more VRAM in it. I have never seen a benchmark where the 6950 loses to the 5870.

It is pretty easy to find what you claim not to have ever seen

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews/1085/pg8/gtx-570-vs-radeon-6970-and-6950-vs-radeon-5870-all-overclocked-review-call-of-duty-black-ops.html

 

[thegamermojo]

I'd like to see a 5870 beat my sc570!!!!! ,I think any mid grade card gonna have problems running bf3 on any kind of high settings just my opinion but i bet I'm not far off.And whats playable ? 25-30 fps no way i want at least 60.

 

[larkspur]

The 5870 is generally on par with the 6950 especially at resolutions 1080p or lower. Replacing a 5870 with a single 6950 isn't going to show much performance difference at all. In some cases you will get lower frame rates with the 6950.

For that game the 5870 will do very well at 1080p. It is a very powerful chip.

BUT: I wouldn't bother crossfiring two 5870s - they scale very poorly. Crossfiring two 6950s is pretty awesome if you can stand the annoyances of crossfire.

 

[krgmer6910]

No i am definitely looking for what i can run at 60 fps. I have a link saved on my desktop that shows the 5870 running the Alpha at 61 fps average maxed out but they requirements have been beefed up since then considering it was just an alpha...

 

[krgmer6910]

The 5870 is generally on par with the 6950 especially at resolutions 1080p or lower. Replacing a 5870 with a single 6950 isn't going to show much performance difference at all. In some cases you will get lower frame rates with the 6950.

For that game the 5870 will do very well at 1080p. It is a very powerful chip.

BUT: I wouldn't bother crossfiring two 5870s - they scale very poorly. Crossfiring two 6950s is pretty awesome if you can stand the annoyances of crossfire.

Yeah i agree 100% here. The only variable is if the game uses the 2 Gb of memory that the 6950 has to its advantage but i guess only time will tell...

 

[krgmer6910]

And just as a side note this is the Alpha Graphics Card hierarchy i came across

http://media.photobucket.com/image/battlefield%203%20alpha%20graphics%20card/sickietenten/330362_271597279519636_267822233230474_1122601_532504_o.jpg

 

[johnners2981]

I have a 5870 but not going to upgrade until the 7xxx series come out, don't think its worth getting a 6970 or 570 for a few extra frames when a new generation is around the corner.
Just oc the 5870 and wait

 

[larkspur]

Yeah i agree 100% here. The only variable is if the game uses the 2 Gb of memory that the 6950 has to its advantage but i guess only time will tell...

If you game above 1080p then yes the 6950 has the advantage with more vram and you'll definitely notice it. I share your concern about the vram but I'm thinking @1080p BF3 won't quite be bottlenecked by the 5870's 1gb. I'd either go all out with a 580 (or dual 6950s) or wait and see your individual results with your 5870. Someone called it 'mid-grade'. Haha, how quickly we forget. That was the fastest single GPU card for a good long while. It took the hot-n-noisy 480 to finally unseat it. I'm just glad NVIDIA finally got their act together with the 5xx series.

 

[krgmer6910]

Yeah i think waiting with the 5870 is probably the way to go.. I am planning on going eyefinity down the road (just one more monitor! lol) but that won't be for awhile and that is just going to take some unGodly hardware to run at max lol but hopefully the 5870 will still kick the crap out of this game. Would love to see a 2 year old graphics card still competing with whats out today

 

[krgmer6910]

I have a 5870 but not going to upgrade until the 7xxx series come out, don't think its worth getting a 6970 or 570 for a few extra frames when a new generation is around the corner.
Just oc the 5870 and wait

Any suggestions on a stable clock? lol

 

[spentshells]

The 5870 is generally on par with the 6950 especially at resolutions 1080p or lower. Replacing a 5870 with a single 6950 isn't going to show much performance difference at all. In some cases you will get lower frame rates with the 6950.

For that game the 5870 will do very well at 1080p. It is a very powerful chip.

BUT: I wouldn't bother crossfiring two 5870s - they scale very poorly. Crossfiring two 6950s is pretty awesome if you can stand the annoyances of crossfire.

I do agree the 6950s scale n9icely
saying the 5870 CF is a waste is increadibly silly
5970 anyone ? I agree though (I might rather have a big NV card)
although impossible to find in comparrison I do beleive a MSI 5870 Lightning could stand with the 570 oc mentioned above (clearly I believe this it doesnt make it true but there were some massive gains OCING that card)