Decisions, decisions...

[InnocentCriminal]

OK! Deep down I know which is the best option but I'm interested to see where you guys would put your money if in the same situation. Anyroad, here it is...

What would you have out of these options?

 

[VulkanBros]

ehhh.....I´m gone blind....what options?

 

[InnocentCriminal]

Anyone else not seeing them?

 

[Darknova]

Now that's a hard choice, how about the 4870 AND 2GB of RAM? It'll play anything you throw at it.

 

[InnocentCriminal]

Now that's a hard choice, how about the 4870 AND 2GB of RAM? It'll play anything you throw at it.

That is a good point - I think I'm being wishful with the 4890, should have excluded that. See, I don't exactly need the RAM right now but I thought I might as well bung that in with the 4850.

I completely forgot about the Thermalright TRUE Black I do need.

 

[Darknova]

I take it from your monitor you're playing at 1680x1050? Well then the 4870 1GB will play everything maxed, I know mine does. An extra 2GB of RAM will help (I see you only have 2GB currently).

The 4890 is just an overclocked 4870, yes it can also overclock quite a lot higher (if the reports are true) but I just don't see it as a viable upgrade *shrugs*

 

[InnocentCriminal]

Yeah it's not really, wishful (stupid) thinking.

 

[95Viper]

I take it from your monitor you're playing at 1680x1050? Well then the 4870 1GB will play everything maxed, I know mine does. An extra 2GB of RAM will help (I see you only have 2GB currently).

The 4890 is just an overclocked 4870, yes it can also overclock quite a lot higher (if the reports are true) but I just don't see it as a viable upgrade *shrugs*

Agreed.

Go more memory, better video and the true. Better frames with the vid card and less data swapping to disk with the extra mem.

Wait on the cpu.

 

[alexp999]

I voted on the 4870, best choice IMO.

Though for the money, a GTX 260 would be better.

And see if you need more than 2GB of RAM with what you are playing, only Crysis and GTA IV takes me into needing 4GB

 

[InnocentCriminal]

^^

The 4870, the RAM & TRUE come to just below £250 - a bit too much to spend in one go really. The RAM & cooler can wait so I'll most likely go with the 4870.

... see if you need more than 2GB of RAM with what you are playing, only Crysis and GTA IV takes me into needing 4GB

I'll be playing, Crysis, Warhead, SoC, Clear Sky, Company of Heroes, Far Cry 2, FEAR 1 & 2 - a lot of games.

 

[Tatty_Two]

I went for the first option, 4850's in Crossfire are very sweet and an extra 2gig of ram is always nice..... to me thats a very cost effective way of getting not only a nice graphics boost but also a nice system performance improvement.

 

[InnocentCriminal]

Funny you should say that, I'm keeping my eyes on two 512MB 4870s on eBay which were up on Buy Now for £200 but the bugger removed that when people started bidding. Only problem with going Crossfire is that my girlfriend would want one of the cards even though I bought her a pre-OC'd 3870. She doesn't even know why a 4870 is better.

"It's a 1000 better, obviously!"

 

[Frizz]

I voted 4870 1GB for stability and silky smooth performance with your gaming resolution.

 

[Tatty_Two]

Funny you should say that, I'm keeping my eyes on two 512MB 4870s on eBay which were up on Buy Now for £200 but the bugger removed that when people started bidding. Only problem with going Crossfire is that my girlfriend would want one of the cards even though I bought her a pre-OC'd 3870. She doesn't even know why a 4870 is better.

"It's a 1000 better, obviously!"

It's not the seller, thats just the way with e bay, if you do it in auction format with the "buy it now" option, once the forst bid has been made, the BIN options goes.

 

[InnocentCriminal]

Awww!

Fair enough.

 

[Frizz]

Yeah, once the buy it now price disappear I get skeptical of buying by bid since they don't provide returns etc.

 

[ShadowFold]

I voted HD 4870 1gb. I got one coming my way as well! My 4830 is very powerful, I'm excited to see how well this whole GDDR5 thing and high clock speeds work out!

 

[HolyCow02]

i said 4890 for the hell of it

 

[InnocentCriminal]

^^

 

[Frizz]

if you can wait, I think you'd be much happier with a 4890 since its the latest and greatest from ATI

 

[Xaser04]

4870 1GB TBH. (OR GTX260 depending on which offers the best performance in the games you play).

The 4890 would be a nice choice and no doubt will be faster than a HD4870, however I doubt it will be worth the ~£90 extra. (Heck you may as well find a used GTX280 for this and clock it!).

 

[InnocentCriminal]

The heart & head are rarely in sync. I know the best option is to get the 4870, then a new CPU and later some RAM. However, I just can't stop OC'ing and the idea of a 1GHz GPU is too much. Still, I do have a little sense *cough* and £230 is just too much to spend in one go. £160 is fine.

Interested in all your opinions though, hence the thread.

 

[ShadowFold]

I too want a 4890 but I figured a HD 4870 1gb and a PII 720 or 955 would be better than a Athlon X2 and a 4890..

 

[InnocentCriminal]

Definitely!

I'll get the 4870 next week so I can finally start playing my single player games! XD

Only problem then will be my CPU limiting me, can't seem to get the bastard past 3.5GHz. >.<

 

[ShadowFold]

That's still fast enough. I got my kuma going 3.3ghz all day long and it's pretty fast with my 4830. I would imagine in graphics intensive games like stalker and crysis the CPU isn't going to limit you that much!