Radeon HD4870 vs. Radeon HD5770

A question for the system builders out there.

i picked up an ASUS Radeon HD 4870 for $99.99 after rebate, but then i took a look at the XFX HD 5770 that Father Xmas suggests for his $750 rig that costs $144.99 after rebate.

Now the rest of the system is running Windows 7 64bit on an i5-750 with 4 gigs of DDR3-1600 RAM, so will the difference in visuals and framerate be significant between the two cards?

Debating whether i want to spend the additional $45 to get the 5770...

In terms of raw Frames Per Second, the 5770 and the 4870 are fairly evenly matched.

The 5770 will do DX11 / OpenGL 4.0.
The 4870 will not.

In some games this means you can get a much better image off of a 5770 than you will off of a 4870, such as in Unigine.

Unigine Heaven 2.1 :: 4850 :: Tessellation - No :: TGA Source



Unigine Heaven 2.1 :: 5770 :: Tessellation - On :: TGA Source




Unigine Heaven 2.1 :: 4850 :: Tessellation - No :: TGA Source



Unigine Heaven 2.1 :: 5770 :: Tessellation - On :: TGA Source



Unigine Heaven 2.1 :: 5770 :: Tessellation - Off :: TGA Source



As you can see in the screen-shots there is a drastic difference in the Image Quality that the 5770 can push in comparison to the 4870 when leveraging OpenGL 4.0 / DX11 features.

City of Heroes does not have an OpenGL 4.0 client. CoH's Ultra Mode only leverages OpenGL 3.x calls, so there's no current image difference between running Ultra Mode on a RadeonHD 4870 and a RadeonHD 5770.

In reference to City of Heroes, right now, there's no practical or real difference between the 5770 and the 4870. If this is the only game you play, save your money.

If this is NOT the only game you play, the 5770 may be worth the extra cash.

Thanks for the info. CoH is not the only game i play, but it's the most graphically demanding, so for now i'll stay with the 5770. If i do find myself wanting the extra graphical goodness i'll drop the 5770 into the old box and get whatever is comparable to the 4870 at that point.

Mmmm, now to set it up for dual boot and see about getting CoH to run in Linux for comparison purposes.

The HD 4870 is a bit faster than HD 5770. It's also hotter and uses more power.

The 4870 is inexpensive now because the HD 58xx series melts it's face off faster than a Nazi trying to call God so nobody makes it anymore and everyone is trying to sell off their remaining inventory, cheap. The downside as je_saist points out is it's only a Dx10.1/OGL 3 card and not the new hot and sexy Dx11/OGL 4.

So, for price and performance, the HD 4870 beats the HD 5770. Downside is lack of Dx11 support and vanishing inventory.

To be clear, the melt face off comment is about performance and not heat. The HD 5850 is significantly faster than the HD 4870, which was also their $300 card when it was introduced a little over two years ago (the HD 5850 is not quite a year old).

Well ATI does have a tendency to run the fans slower for reduced noise and let the temps get up there so yes there is a reason for Asus's marketing point about cooler than the original fan/heatsink.