Hey all,

A friend of mine asked for advice on a GPU upgrade and quite frankly I'm not sure what to tell him.

He currently runs a Radeon 5770 with 4GB RAM and a C2D E8500.

He wants a new GPU, specifically he's looking at the 6970. He's looking for something that will last about 2 years.

Most of the games he owns will run happily on a 5770, so is a 6970 overkill?

I'm almost tempted to say save the money for a new rig, given the advent of Sandy Bridge etc.

Yes.

But you know what people who play games get like with GPUs Personally, I'd wait for the arrival of the GTX560 next week and go from there. Unless of course he's a ATI man. In which case a 6870 will be ample. Is he overclocking the CPU? Bear in mind that still isn't limiting in the vast majority of games at resolutions of 19x10 and lower. Although SB would be nice, I don't think it's essential. But then, if he can already play everything he wants to on a 5770, why upgrade anything??

A HD6950 is the best >£200 card around at the moment. They can be flashed to a HD6970 (as pretty much identical cards) which challenges a GTX580.

All for the price of £240.

If that's extreme, seems it if you say his HD5770 is coping, then why not tell him to get a second HD5770 for crossfire? They typically cost around £105 now, and can be had for £90 if you search hard enough :p

If he doesn't have a board that can do crossfire, then a HD5850 (for £150) is the best bet, will still play every game around and won't break the bank. Even out-performs a HD6870 and is supposed to be comparable to the GTX560