HD 5850 1GB vs. HD 6970 2GB

[balthazar9086]

Hi guys,

 

I'm currently playing Skyrim on ultra settings on my 24" Dell monitor (1920x1200). I have numerous texture and graphics enhancement mods installed and do plan on getting more in the future. Right now the game is mostly running smoothly on my XFX Radeon HD 5850 1GB card (800MHz core, 1130MHz memory) except in a few instances where there are some minor stuttering (e.g. in combat with 6+ enemies and when the horse is running). It's far from being unplayable, obviously, but it does bother me at times. Given that more awesome texture mods will no doubt be released in the future, I thought this might be a good time to upgrade my gpu given that the 7xxx series of Radeon cards have just been released.

 

I don't have the budget to get those 3GB 7xxx's, but I'm very tempted to get the Gigabyte 6970 2GB OC edition (900MHz core, 5.5GHz memory). My question, would this new card make the stuttering go away? Or am I looking at a processor bottleneck? Below are my system specs.

 

Intel i5-750 OC'd @ 3.33GHz

8GB G. Skill Ripjaws

XFX Radeon HD 5850 1GB

WD Caviar Black 640GB

750W Silverstone Strider Plus

Windows 7 64-bit

 

I'm not planning on building a new rig anytime soon though...

 

Thanks!

[maboru]

The more VRAM the better so I don't see any reason not to if you have the money. Good idea to save the rebuild for later this year when the new gen CPUs,GPUs and mobos are released and perfected.

 

Yes, it should help the stuttering.

[Anunnak]

I don't think it'll be that much of an improvement, I'm still using my EAH HD 4870 1GB, Very High settings. I'm quite surprised by this card of mine, I can still run Crysis 2 apparently.

Check the link below if it's linked properly that is. If not select your card to the one you want.

 

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/295?vs=290

[BigBodZod]

A couple of things to look at, first, what is the desktop resolution you are running at and are you running with the added Hi-Res texture packs ?

 

I upgraded to that same Gigabyte GPU, the 2GB OC card, got it from Newegg.com

 

I run in natvie 1920 x 1080p mode on my Samsung 40 Inch HDTV so really if you are running at higher then 1680 x 1050 mode then I would say yes just so you have more horsepower to run at the higher resolutions.

 

If you are not then maybe save the money until later on in the year when you can get an overall system upgrade :)

[balthazar9086]

I run the game at 1920x1200. I'm also looking at the Asus 6970 DirectCU II 890MHz 2GB. The only downsides for that card apparently are its large size and the very modest factory OC. I've heard of people with chips that actually didn't allow much OC past the default OC...

 

I will be getting a 6970 card...just not sure which flavor to go for.

[mclericp]

6970 will beat the 5850, so go for it.

Just dont overheat ur GPU like what i did.

be happy u got a 5850 and not a 6570 like me....bloody card went boom after 3mths

[brunospfc]

Hey guys,

 

Help with that.

 

I have a 5970 2Gb and in Ultra configuration I see some lags, this is normal?

 

Thank you.

[pchclx]

i used amd system monitor (http://sites.amd.com/us/game/downloads/amd-system-monitor/pages/overview.aspx)

 

and alt-tab (or ctrl-alt-del) out of skyrim during heavy gameplay to check it. does a good job of showing system usage on simple view and you can expand each pane to see more indepth graphics card usage, individual cpu cores and ram usage. this should give you an idea of if your cpu or gpu is slowing you down !

 

it's allowed me to learn that my weak point is my Radeon HD 6450M card.. not sure if i can ugprade it, but at least i know my i7 chip is never breaking a sweat

[morpheas768]

Hi guys,

 

I'm currently playing Skyrim on ultra settings on my 24" Dell monitor (1920x1200). I have numerous texture and graphics enhancement mods installed and do plan on getting more in the future. Right now the game is mostly running smoothly on my XFX Radeon HD 5850 1GB card (800MHz core, 1130MHz memory) except in a few instances where there are some minor stuttering (e.g. in combat with 6+ enemies and when the horse is running). It's far from being unplayable, obviously, but it does bother me at times. Given that more awesome texture mods will no doubt be released in the future, I thought this might be a good time to upgrade my gpu given that the 7xxx series of Radeon cards have just been released.

 

I don't have the budget to get those 3GB 7xxx's, but I'm very tempted to get the Gigabyte 6970 2GB OC edition (900MHz core, 5.5GHz memory). My question, would this new card make the stuttering go away? Or am I looking at a processor bottleneck? Below are my system specs.

 

Intel i5-750 OC'd @ 3.33GHz

8GB G. Skill Ripjaws

XFX Radeon HD 5850 1GB

WD Caviar Black 640GB

750W Silverstone Strider Plus

Windows 7 64-bit

 

I'm not planning on building a new rig anytime soon though...

 

Thanks!

 

1st of all, your CPU is definitely a bottleneck. I recommend upgrading to a Sandy Bridge system (i5 2xxx, i7 2xxx), considering that Skyrim is quite CPU heavy, but not so heavy on the GPU part.

 

Tools like SkyBoost and TESV Acceleration Layer really help a lot, depending on how strong your CPU is.

Skyrim unfortunately is both CPU-limited, AND doesnt fully utilize all of the CPU cores if you've got a quad core.

 

Your 5850 is just fine, the only thing holding it back is the VRam maybe.

I recommend using tools like GPU-Z or AMD system monitor to check VRam and GPU usage. If you notice your Vram going all the way up to 1024 (I've seen that happen many times on my GF GTX 560 ti card), then 2 GB would help a little.

 

As for the 6970, if you can find it at a good price, then get it, otherwise you could try getting a 6950 2 GB and hack-update it to a 6970 through BIOS update, although this is really advanced stuff, and you'd do that at your own risk.

 

Asus or Gigabyte, it doesnt really matter, since 10 or 20 MHZ in OC doesnt make any difference in game. Just look for the best price, a trusty shop to buy from, and best cooling available.

Btw my Asus GTX 560 ti, which has a smaller cooling system than the 6970 you're talking about, but its still the same type of cooler from asus, branded DirectCU II, is a pretty cool card literally, I've never seen it go above 50 degrees Celcius in game, using the stock OC settings. Just saying.

 

As for the stuttering, I've read in many forums that quite a lot of AMD gfx card users experience this, and is unrelated to performance, but is known as a driver issue. AMD has been really slow at fixing these various issues in specific games the past few months comparing to Nvidia, so a driver update may or may not fix this issue.

 

Basically, if you can afford it, I would suggest going for a Sandy Bridge system, otherwise you could get the 6970, its up to you (or your wallet, lol).

 

Good luck, and happy SHOUTING! :biggrin:

Edited January 17, 2012 by morpheas768

[balthazar9086]

Btw my Asus GTX 560 ti, which has a smaller cooling system than the 6970 you're talking about, but its still the same type of cooler from asus, branded DirectCU II, is a pretty cool card literally, I've never seen it go above 50 degrees Celcius in game, using the stock OC settings. Just saying.

 

Thanks for all the replies!

 

@morpheas768 I've heard that the DirectCU II cooling system is so heavy that there is a tendency for it to droop and fall away from the card itself, thereby reducing its cooling abilities. Is that true?