Upgrade from a 4870 to a 4870x2 or 5870

[mtd8301]

Currently I'm running an i7 oc'd to 4.0ghz, 6 gigs of ram, and a gigabyte ud3R mobo that has 2 pci-express 2.0 slots (supports crossfire natively, sli with bios update), 750 watt corsair psu. Oh ya, and win7 64bit.

My primary game (75% of my gaming time) is WoW but I do enjoy messing around with other newer games like Mass Effect 2, bioshock 2, dragon age, cod, stalker, etc.

Right now I'm running a single 4870. I have a few choices I'm looking at to upgrade:
A: buy another 4870 and run them in crossfire (~150$)
B: buy a 4870x2 and run it in crossfire with the 4870 i already have (~450$)
C: buy a 5870 (~400)

buying 2 5870's or a 5970 are more than I'm willing to spend. I know WoW doesn't support dx11 but i'd like to have good framerates on those other games as well and any games i'd like to buy in the future. Will the 4xxx series last me awhile or should I upgrade to dx11 right away.

What are your thoughts?

 

[asteldian]

Is your 4870 struggling with what you currently play? If not I would go with option D) Do nothing. Then when it starts to struggle hopefully GPU prices have dropped a bit

Direct x 11 is not a big deal yet, so again I would not bother buying a new card if your current one does fine

If your 4870 is struggling (I would be surprised if it was, my 8800GTX was still running things fine on high quality), personally I would grab the 5870, you have a very nice system, having old technology for your GPU seems a shame.
There is absolutely no need to buy 2 5870s or a 5970, possibly in a few years but not now.

 

[shubham1401]

What's your monitor's native resolution?

 

[rawsteel]

if your power supply is ok with it got 4870x2. The cheapest way to increase the fps by a big margin (70%-80% avg)

Exploit the technology you got. Dx11 is not anything you will want yet, and in 1 year you can upgrade to next gen 6000 series or Fermi2

 

[fisshy]

IF you arent struggling with huge framerate drops i would wait and save for the Sapphire 2GB 5850 Vapor-X... As borat would say : "Is very naas!"

 

[mtd8301]

my monitor is 1920x1080. I don't really *need* to upgrade but I'm just about done with my deployment in Iraq and I feel like blowing some of that money on the weakest part of my system.

the 4870 plays everything fine but some games I can't crank to the max settings. It actually has trouble with WoW at completely max settings in a raid, WoW's graphics have really gotten better in the last few years. With the new expansion I forsee myself needing the upgrade if I want to continue at max settings.

A 4870 is a lot cheaper than a 5870 and two of them would give me probably more performance in most games but the 4xxx series will only last me another year maybe while a 5xxx will last me longer.

I think I'm probably going to go with the 5870 solely for the reason that WoW doesn't support crossfire and sli setups yet. I might not gain as big of a performance boost in other games compared to a 4870x2 but oh well. Spending more for (percieved) less just makes me cringe though.

 

[successful_troll]

I will say go for the HD5970 because the rest are crappy cards...

 

[fisshy]

^ Over priced!

 

[shubham1401]

I will say go for the HD5970 because the rest are crappy cards...

Long time no see!

 

[Petey1013]

Go for the 5870.

 

[mindless728]

if you have the 1GB version of the 4870, i would say get another (1GB version of course) and crossfire, it would give performance in the 5870 range (a little higher/on par)

tri-fire 4870's (4870+4870X2) doesn't scale too well, though it would give exceptional performance (1.5x5870) and would probably last a while

 

[mtd8301]

Best answer selected by mtd8301.