Graphics card upgrade advice!!

I have the chance to get a secondhand HD4870 512mb for £110. I currently have an HD3870(can overclock to 877mhz). I bought it in late November 2007.

I have an overclocked E4300(at 3ghz) in the rig I am going to use it in and an HX520W PSU and 4gb of RAM.

Is it worth the upgrade or should I wait for the newer 40nm cards coming out in the next few months??

The only games I will play this year are some of the COD series, Project Origin, the Bioshock sequel and perhaps Alan Wake if it comes out.

My monitor has a maximum resolution of 1680x1050 although I usually game at 1280x800 or 1440x900 as my monitor has good scaling.

It would certainly increase your performance markedly (~40%) at 1680*1050 the would be no need to reduce graphics settings or resolution, but if you can wait it may be worth it your £110 in a couple of months may buy you a whole lot more! I realise you can wait forever with that mentality but since ATI have revealed the R740 its reasonable to assume the higher specced versions will follow along promptly.

I was wondering whether I could get rid of my HD3870 as I could probably get £55 to £65 on Ebay. So after fees I would make 40 to 50 quid . The cost of the upgrade would be 60 to 70 quid.

However I am thinking that it would be better to keep the 60 to 70 quid and save a bit more money in the next few months. The next 125 to 150 quid GPUs from Nvidia and ATI will at least be more powerful than what they have now and probably have lower power consumption too.

Also both my computers have older chipsets - one has a 975X which has a PCI-E 8X slot and the other a P35 which has a 16X slot. I wonder if these generation 1 slots will limit performance of newer cards anyway??

I suppose I could always buy the more demanding games later(or even next year)! :(

Hopefully my HD3870 can at least handle Project Origin and Bioshock 2.

Thanks for the good advice!! The upgrade itch is always very hard to scratch! :laugh:

Yes I currently have the itch myself got some money for Christmas and currently trying to dissuade myself from spending it on either a 23" 2048*1152 monitor or a new graphics card but a GXT280 or HD4850X2 for less than £250 is so tempting but so overkill for my current 22" monitor.

The other options is to get some more watercooling gubbinz (maybe some better fan and temp monitoring like an Aquaero) or a new full ATX motherboard the is a nice X38 Gigabyte on Scan for less than £100 then get a couple of the R740 cards when they release in crossfire... would be limiting myself to a S775 CPU for another round though.

As to PCIe1 limiting your performance on current cards its something like 0-2% performance drop (depending on card and game) between PCIe1 16x and PCIe2 16x I guess this will only go up with newer cards but by how much or if it will only really effect the real top end is anybodies guess.

This is why I am limiting myself to around £100 to £150 for a new graphics card this year - if I have the money though LOL! :(

Also I am thinking whether my gaming system will need a full upgrade anyway next year.

I got a few games that I can replay anyway. Also I have got a few I have not even finished yet!!

Apart from Project Origin,the new Bioshock and Alan Wake I cannot think of any other games I would really want to buy this year.

As I said I can always play the games next year as I have other cheaper hobbies that I can pursue.

I think in the long term it is probably better to save the money for a huge update. Going from my previous XP2800 to my current 3ghz Core2 was one such upgrade.

Yeah I jumped from a 2GHz Celery to this current C2D and that was a monster leap in performance as well nothing at the moment that makes me want to upgrade apart from the itch and a few games running a bit slower than I would like (Stalker:CS being the main one at the moment although the next rollout of drivers may solve that apparently :D) oh and of course the old I need 4 cores i really really do 2 just isn't enough!

I think that an HD3870 should at least be a bare minimum for games this year. It only came just over a year ago anyway. Also most gamers will not have a 3ghz to 3.5ghz dual or quad core and let alone even 4gb of RAM.

Perhaps I need to start playing more games at medium settings at 1280x800!! Oh the indignity of it!:laugh:

A 4870 for £110 is a very good price considering that 4850's go for about £95 or so. Instead of waiting, you could sell your 3870 for £50 or so, then spend £60 on top and enjoy the 4870 in the meanwhile until the new cards come out. Firstly I say this because the new cards might be overpriced in the first few months of their release and might not offer a huge performance boost over the 4870. Plus at the moment the 4870 can run almost every game out there at 1680*1050 on high settings, and I dont expect that to change with the newer games that will be coming out this year (bioshock 2, etc).

I was thinking the same but the card which was offered to me was secondhand and he lost the receipt. The guy has already sold it now as I said I was not interested in it anymore.

Last year I bought an 8800GTS 512mb but I only kept that for a few months too as the HD3870 was OK for most things. I sold it as I was not using it enough.

Having thought it through only Crysis has ever really stressed my card out.
However tweaking the settings and a bit of OC helped me play Crysis Warhead at 1440x900 and 1280x800 on high settings which I found surprising! :)

Ideally I am waiting for a graphics card with at least the processing power of the HD4870 but with lower power comsumption than an HD3870.

Perhaps the HD5850(??) or HD5830(??) will be this card?