Urgent GPU comparison HD 5770 and HD 4870

[Trajen]

Hey, I'm about to order a bunch of components to upgrade my current PC.

I am comparing the following cards (both at $170 right now due to deal on the 5770). Which of these cards should I get?

Purpose: Gaming, watching Netflix on LCD HDTV, basic stuff

1) SAPPHIRE 100279-1GL Radeon HD 4870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card - Retail

2) XFX HD-577A-ZNFC Radeon HD 5770 (Juniper XT) 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card - Retail


My soon to be system (upgrading my X2 for now):
MB: MSI K9N Platinum (nvidia 570 chipset)
CPU: Athlon 64 X2 5600+
RAM: 4GB Mushkin
PSU: Antec CP-850


Thanks!

 

[jennyh]

At the same price there is no reason to buy a 4870 over a 5770.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

At HDTV resolutions (1080 p or 1920x1080 progressive), both cards are capable of playing DX9/10 games. The 4870 will be about 10% faster than the 5770 doing DX9/10.

The 5770 supports Dx11 but the card does not have enough bandwidth to maintain 30 fps under Dx11.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3658&p=14
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/dirt-2-performance-benchmark,2508-8.html

 

[Trajen]

Thanks for the info! Thanks to Jack's pertinent information for how I would most likely use it as well as further research into some of the issues with this particular XFX 5770 card, I'm going to stick with the 4870.

Thanks!

 

[Trajen]

Best answer selected by Trajen.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

The DX11 comment by Jack is irrelevant, since it has nothing to do with bandwidth, and it is something that the HD5770 can do, but the HD4870 can't do at all.

Looking towards the future do you think that either of these cards are going to be running at high resolution and high AA to choke a system? Or do you think it's going to be heavy shader and texture workloads that will start to slow these cards down in future titles?

Comparing the two, the shader capabilities of the HD5770 far outpace the HD4870, and even the HD4890 at times;
http://techreport.com/articles.x/17747/5

But of course worry about the current titles, because since neither struggles there and one is a few frames faster than the other, why would you care about the future when games get more and more demanding?

 

[jennyh]

The results we got seem to favor the HD 5770, which indeed managed to churn out about 8% better performance at almost all resolutions.


Dirt2 just got 8% faster on a 5770.