Solved Upgrade from a GTS 450 to an HD 4870 x2

[Chalky Emultion]

Today i found an used HD 4870 x2 at 80€ on internet, and I was planning to upgrade my GTS 450 1GB GDDR5 with it on my second pc.

I'm going to sell my GTS 450 for 50-60€...

Will this be a major upgrade in graphics performance?
The card will work with a CD2 E6300 @1.86GHz and 3 GB DDR2

 

[bobkn]

Today i found an used HD 4870 x2 at 80€ on internet, and I was planning to upgrade my GTS 450 1GB GDDR5 with it on my second pc.

I'm going to sell my GTS 450 for 50-60€...

Will this be a major upgrade in graphics performance?
The card will work with a CD2 E6300 @1.86GHz and 3 GB DDR2

According to:

PassMark Software - Video Card Benchmark Charts - Video Card Model List

the two cards will be approximately equal (slight edge to the GTS 450). You would gain nothing in performance, and the 4870 X2 could give more compatibility issues, as it's a single-slot Crossfire package.

 

[Chalky Emultion]

..i looked at this site, but it says that a GTX 670, GTX 680, or a Radeon HD 7950 beats the GTX 690 by a large margin... Since te GTX 690 is comparable to a SLI of 2 GTX 680, this is impossible...
The same thing happens with the HD 4870 x2, which has got less points than the HD 4650 x2...

So a dual-high end GPU (in this case the HD 4870 x2) would be really slower than a single-mid end GPU (GTS 450)?

 

[shawnglory]

I believe you might want to look at the newer chips for around the same price or slightly bump that tag up and get a current-gen mid end. They require less power, has a better computing speed not to mention data rates and of course they are still being supported via updates more than that 4000 series are.

Also NVidia cards from what I have seen over the years always do have the higher benchmark scores using those type of tools.

IE: My 7970 DCU2T oc'ed lost to the scores of 3 of the end range 400 series. However gets 20-30 more fps at its lowest in terms of gaming performance.

 

[Chalky Emultion]

My question is: Is an HD 4870 x2 faster than a GTS 450?

Oh, and my motherboard (Asus P5LP-LE) doesn't support PCI Express 2.1-3.0 cards. Only 1.0, 1.1 or 2.0. And no, this issue can't be solved. I Tested several cards on it and the only that worked were PCI Express 1.1 and 2.0 ones. That's why I'm using a GeForce 400 Series card, because it is PCI Express 2.0. So the fastest GPUs i can use are GeForce GTX 480 and Radeon 4870 x2 (i think). In other words, only PCI Express 2.0 Cards (GeForce 400 series and Radeon HD 4000 series).

I just want to know if the HD 4870 x2 is a fast card.

 

[Chalky Emultion]

i found this: GeForce GTX 480 vs Radeon HD 4870 X2 – Performance Comparison Benchmarks @ Hardware Compare

and this: http://www.hwcompare.com/7621/geforce-gts-450-vs-radeon-hd-4870-x2/

 

[shawnglory]

Yeap the 870(old) / 970 (new) numbered amd cards are often placed on the market to compete with the 70 / 80 numbered nvidia cards and vice versa. it will solidly outperform the gts 450 by a mile at any given time.

So there you go you got your answer and those performance (non bench tool tests) numbers should be all you need.

You might want to look at 6870 if you are looking for an AMD gpu and if you have the extra to dump in the 7870 is a good choice too especially the DCUs from ASUS.

NVidia however, benefits from better optimization in most games. Thus the higher fps. You also get the extra goodies.

At the end of the day it's up to you if you want an AMD card which is great especially when you are working with images and videos but want to game at the same time and an NVidia (quadro aside) is focused more towards gaming.

Consider a newer card and look for performance results instead of just bench comparison and remember

High end - x930 x950 x970 x990 (replace x with series number ie 4,5,6,7) vs x60 x70 x80 x90

every thing else below that line are trumped by the above-mentioned.

____________________

edit : the current and previous generations benefit about 20% - 30% worth of performance at lower power draws and of course new tech.

 

[Chalky Emultion]

Yeap the 870(old) / 970 (new) numbered amd cards are often placed on the market to compete with the 70 / 80 numbered nvidia cards and vice versa. it will solidly outperform the gts 450 by a mile at any given time.

So there you go you got your answer and those performance (non bench tool tests) numbers should be all you need.

You might want to look at 6870 if you are looking for an AMD gpu and if you have the extra to dump in the 7870 is a good choice too especially the DCUs from ASUS.

NVidia however, benefits from better optimization in most games. Thus the higher fps. You also get the extra goodies.

At the end of the day it's up to you if you want an AMD card which is great especially when you are working with images and videos but want to game at the same time and an NVidia (quadro aside) is focused more towards gaming.

Consider a newer card and look for performance results instead of just bench comparison and remember

High end - x930 x950 x970 x990 (replace x with series number ie 4,5,6,7) vs x60 x70 x80 x90

every thing else below that line are trumped by the above-mentioned.

____________________

edit : the current and previous generations benefit about 20% - 30% worth of performance at lower power draws and of course new tech.

thank you.

As I said, I can't run PCI Express 2.1 or 3.0 cards on this pc. Only PCI Express 2.0 and 1.0/1.1 will work for me. So the best GPUs I can use are HD 4xxx's series high end cards and GTX 4xx's series high end cards...

 

[shawnglory]

Ah sorry missed that Yeap you'll be better off with the 4870x2. I didn't catch a glimpse of your proc earlier. You'll probably get bottlenecked if you go for the more recent ones. My C2Q got necked by my 7970. Ended up upgrading everything. Good luck with the buy .

 

[ganjiry]

would you not be better off buying a cheap current motherboard and then adding a mid range gpu? that way then ur not throwing money away on old tech and get better performance

if u went the amd route u could get a current mob for about £40-£50, u can get a amd 965 be for £63 now and then add a amd 6850 or similar card

ASUS M5A78L-M/USB3 AMD 760G (Socket AM3+) DDR3 PCI-Express Motherboard - Aria Technology £55.18

AMD Black Edition - AMD Phenom II X4 3.4 GHz Processor £65-£70

ARIANET Radeon HD 7770 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (OEM) + FREE Games! - Aria PC £86.38

all uk prices though but cant see them being much different in italy

 

[Chalky Emultion]

would you not be better off buying a cheap current motherboard and then adding a mid range gpu? that way then ur not throwing money away on old tech and get better performance

if u went the amd route u could get a current mob for about £40-£50, u can get a amd 965 be for £63 now and then add a amd 6850 or similar card

ASUS M5A78L-M/USB3 AMD 760G (Socket AM3+) DDR3 PCI-Express Motherboard - Aria Technology

AMD Black Edition - AMD Phenom II X4 3.4 GHz Processor

ARIANET Radeon HD 7770 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (OEM) + FREE Games! - Aria PC

If I sell my GTS 450, finally i will pay around 30 € for the HD 4870 x2. I'm not going to spend all these money for a new mobo, CPU and GPU...

 

[ganjiry]

u can get cheaper cpu and gpu those were just an example but its all down to what u want to do at the end of the day

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Comp...R3+PCI-Express+Graphics+Card+?productId=50957 £47.99

 

[shawnglory]

I believe he's on a limited budget. A new system may require more than just a mobo cpu replacement.

DDR2 most probably to DDR3
A new power supply probably
A new casing (we all know how newer cards are long)
New HSF (unless box provides)

that and the 3 components previously mentioned. It's still somewhat costly if someone has a limited budget.

 

[ganjiry]

was just a suggestion.
giving him options

 

[Chalky Emultion]

I believe he's on a limited budget. A new system may require more than just a mobo cpu replacement.

DDR2 most probably to DDR3
A new power supply probably
A new casing (we all know how newer cards are long)
New HSF (unless box provides)

that and the 3 components previously mentioned. It's still somewhat costly if someone has a limited budget.

My budget isn't limited, i just only want to know if an HD 4870 x2 will be better than a GTS 450. This is my second system and I use it for LAN party, as you can see I already have a decent primary pc.

I only need a few more graphics performance in this 2nd pc, nothing more.

was just a suggestion.
giving him options

thank you for your suggestion

 

[ganjiry]

thank you for your suggestion

no probs

 

[shawnglory]

was just a suggestion.
giving him options

Erm I didn't mean any offence by the way. Sorry if I came off that way. I tend to misinterpret my own words in ways that usually doesn't end well. Sorry if I did. Cheers.

@Dorado. ah a LAN comp. nice

 

[ganjiry]

was just a suggestion.
giving him options

Erm I didn't mean any offence by the way. Sorry if I came off that way. I tend to misinterpret my own words in ways that usually doesn't end well. Sorry if I did. Cheers.

lols no offence taken mate no worries

 

[bobkn]

..i looked at this site, but it says that a GTX 670, GTX 680, or a Radeon HD 7950 beats the GTX 690 by a large margin... Since te GTX 690 is comparable to a SLI of 2 GTX 680, this is impossible...
The same thing happens with the HD 4870 x2, which has got less points than the HD 4650 x2...

So a dual-high end GPU (in this case the HD 4870 x2) would be really slower than a single-mid end GPU (GTS 450)?

Fair enough. I didn't spend much time looking for benchmarks, and I agree that the link that I provided must be bogus.

It looks like a single 4870 is better than a GTS 450:

AnandTech - Bench - GPU11

I suppose that the 4870 X2 will be significantly better. (I vaguely recall that it's not quite as good as two discrete 4870 cards in crossfire. The single card has obvious advantages.)

Are you quite sure that a PCI-E 2.1 or 3.0 card won't work with your motherboard?

 

[Chalky Emultion]

Are you quite sure that a PCI-E 2.1 or 3.0 card won't work with your motherboard?

yes, I am. My motherboard has this issue which can't be solved... It comes from a pre-assembled pc and it's really bad...

I have the last 2 questions:

- is a 600W PSU enough for the Radeon 4870 x2?
- do I need a motherboard which supports dual GPUs to run Radeon 4870 x2? (= support for Crossfire/SLI)