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Thread: £120 worth it?

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    £120 worth it?

    i've been lookin to upgrade my ATI 3870 for a bit now n due to the price drops ive been holding off the purchase.

    i was originally thinking of a 4850 due to the prices, but now all thats changed with the 4770/4850 around £80 & ive just seen a 4870 for £109 obviously the 4890 is now out too but is still over £170

    my question is what does everyone think about buying a 4870? is all the price dropping because there is something coming or is simply to get things moving in harder times.

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    Re: £120 worth it?

    An ATI HD4870 will be more than twice as fast as your 3870 on average. a 4850 will be just under twice as fast on average. I have an Nvidia Geforce 8800 GTS 320 and have decided I can wait no longer with prices like less than £140 for a 4870 1GB.
    I'm opting for the 1GB version as my previous two cards have been artificially limited by their framebuffers - the GTS 320 sometimes slows to a crawl in texture heavy areas of some games as did the card it replaced, a Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB. Out of these texture heavy areas, gameplay was silky smooth and way over 40 fps.
    Anything that needs more than a 1GB framebuffer will be more than the GPU in a 4870 can handle any way.
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    Re: £120 worth it?

    The HD4870 1gb seems a decent upgrade as long as it is not more £20 more expensive than the equivalent 512mb card.

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    Re: £120 worth it?

    I'd pick the 4770 over a 4850, just for the virtue of power consumption and heat. If you OC the 4770 you're within spitting range of the 4850 anyway.

    But since you've a 3870, I'd rule those 2 out as not being enough of a step up to justify the price.

    I see you're on a 22" monitor, so presumably @ 1650x1050.
    I'd personally aim for a 1GB 4870 or a GTX260 if I were you. Nice big step up and >512MB memory - which might be necessary when you crank the AA in new games.

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    Re: £120 worth it?

    I'm in a similar boat with my 3870, and when new ones come out twice as fast without me having to sell a kidney, that's about time to upgrade in my boat. But.... and I know this is always true... but aren't ATI releasing their new series this summer?

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    Re: £120 worth it?

    AMD's having issues with 40nm yields, hence why 4770's are always out of stock, so I wouldn't expect a 5xxx-series to drop that soon, at least not until we get well into Q3/Q4 of this year <-purely speculation.

    What is true though - is that DX11 isn't going to proliferate amoung new games for a while yet - but if you want to hold off for the inevitable price drops when the new cards come out- could be a savvy move. I can't see a GTX260/4870 not lasting another couple years at least - especially with so many games being cross-platform and developed for the current crop of consoles.

    I'm at 1440x900. so I'm alright with my 4850 which just arrived.. just need to grab a new PSU and that should do for a while.

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    Re: £120 worth it?

    i got a 4870 512 and i dont see a problem with haveing 512mb memory i think it does fine for now,

    theres another post somewhere here on hexus that it has gone down to &#163;103 from novatec. Just is your PSU powerfull enough? i bought a brand new ezcool 500w psu and that got fried during quick 10min crysis section so now i got a crossair 450.....
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    Re: £120 worth it?

    well i ended up buying the XFX 4870 512mb over the weekend

    thanks for all your thoughts

    yes the 480w is enough :-)

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    Re: £120 worth it?

    ^ I would tend to agree, but it is difficult to find a 4870 for that price with 1gb of memory, and losing the half a gig of memory for a step up in every other area would make the price worth it IMO.

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    Re: £120 worth it?

    Ive been looking at the 4770 becuase the lower power consumption is a big plus for me, however their like rocking horse shit and you cant find them anywhere In addition to this, DX11 being on the horizon will surely put some prices down and also DX11 cards cant be too far behind then - looking at you AMD DX11 die shots

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    Re: £120 worth it?

    Im going to wait until direct X 11 is out before buying a new card. Hopefully then wont have to upgrade for longer that way!

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    Re: £120 worth it?

    Boom72, I am in a similar situation. How is the XFX 4870 512mb? Is it noisy?

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    Re: £120 worth it?

    nope, ive got it set to 32% as standard and its fine

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    Re: £120 worth it?

    I'd go for the 4870. It's a great balance between performance and price. You'll get enjoyment from it now. DirectX11 will probably take a while to filter into games anyway.

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    Re: £120 worth it?

    Looking at some 4870 1gb. Anyone has any experience with the Asus Dark Knight version?

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    Re: £120 worth it?

    Controlfreak,

    Avoid the Dark Knight as its cooler throws the heat back into the case instead of exhaust it out back.

    For ~£120 I would reccommend:

    XFX HD 4870 1GB (XXX version) - £117 from Novatech

    or

    HD 4890 1GB - £140 from overclockers.co.uk

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