ATI 5870 or 6970?

i am upgrading my fraphix from an ATI 5770 HD and i am wondering which is better to upgrade to, i want a faster, more powerful, higher performance, better quality graphics card, the 6970 is what imm looking at now and its pushing my budget a little, i am also looking into the 5870, i would ammagine a newer modle like the 6970 would be better but their arent many reviews out there, so please vote in the pole for your opinion and help me out, please only answer if you consistantly use or have seen one of the 2 in action or know of some reviews.

The 5870 will provide a minor performance boost, considering the fact that it's in the same family as the 5770. Go for the 6970. I use a 5770 on a daily basis at home, and use a 6970 at school.

Kyogre1940 said:

The 5870 will provide a minor performance boost, considering the fact that it's in the same family as the 5770. Go for the 6970. I use a 5770 on a daily basis at home, and use a 6970 at school.

thank you for the insite, my next question is, i would like to go with the visontek but im also looking into the 6970 MSI ed. i notice that the MSI's is less expensive, any suggestions? or does it just come down to manufacturer preference, imm gunna use amd's CCC drivers, not MSI or visiontek's anyways.

Sapphire is more reliable and overall a better company. And - I would actually suggest using the drivers that come with the card/manufacturer. It's the same CCC, but optimized for your specific card.

Just as a reference, a 5870 has exactly 2 times the ideal performance of a 5770 spec wise, the 5870 is about 10% faster than a 6870, the 6970 should be 50% better than the 6870.

Edit: Looking at the Poll, why do you want a 5870 Eyefinity 6 edition? Those cost roughly $100 more than the regular Eyefinity 3 editions.

Thornton said:

i am upgrading my fraphix from an ATI 5770 HD and i am wondering which is better to upgrade to, i want a faster, more powerful, higher performance, better quality graphics card, the 6970 is what imm looking at now and its pushing my budget a little, i am also looking into the 5870, i would ammagine a newer modle like the 6970 would be better but their arent many reviews out there, so please vote in the pole for your opinion and help me out, please only answer if you consistantly use or have seen one of the 2 in action or know of some reviews.

I was going to recommend going NVIDIA here (which is the best move IMO [the GeForce GTX 570 is a f#%cking monster.]).... But... Considering you have an AMD CPU, It wouldn't be smart at all.

Now, between the HD 5870 and HD 6970.... I'd say.... Neither. The best choice?:

• Radeon HD 6950

Those GPUs can be flashed to HD 6970s quite easily. So, you'll end up getting HD 6970 performance for ~$70 bucks less.

SlackerITGuy said:

Now, between the HD 5870 and HD 6970.... I'd say.... Neither. The best choice?:

• Radeon HD 6950

Those GPUs can be flashed to HD 6970s quite easily. So, you'll end up getting HD 6970 performance for ~$70 bucks less.

And I wouldn't delay as I suspect this little 'feature' will be addressed sooner rather than later. (non-reference revisions etc)

Also, if you are a heavy overclocker - the 6970 would be a better option due to the 6+6 pin (6950) vs 6+8 pin of the 6970.

The 6xxx series also scale better in crossfire if that becomes an option in the future.

As for brand - as others have mentioned, Sapphire, ASUS, Gigabyte etc have a better 'reputation'. Although I'd go MSI over Visiontek given the choice.

Basically, all the cards are currently reference at the moment, so go with the one that either bundles extra goodies, or has the best warranty for your location.


The 5870 is quicker @ stock clocks, but the newer features of the 6xxx series trumps this. Plus newer series card will also get more 'priority' driver attention.