Time to upgrade my 4870s?

Hi there! I'm just posting to get some insight on what to do with my current GPU setup.

My build is:

  • Core2Duo E8400 OC @ 3.6GHz
  • ASUS P5Q Deluxe motherboard
  • 8GB 1066 DDR2
  • 2x AMD/ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB in CF
  • Samsung 830 128GB SSD
  • Corsair HX750 PSU
  • Corsair Graphite 600t white
  • DVD burner
  • A bunch of random hard drives for storage

I've upgraded a lot of things including the case, psu, and ssd since the original build. I also only had 1 GPU when I first built it but found the second one on eBay so I bought that and threw it in.

Overall, I'm in love with this build and couldn't be happier with the performance. But I'm worried about GPUs. Firstly, since Crysis 3 came out, it requires DX11 and I'm afraid this may become something more developers do in the near future. Secondly, I'm a CS student and spend a fair amount of time in Linux. AMD kind of shafted Linux users with their drivers and open source drivers don't really officially support dual GPUs yet from what I understand. Third, I noticed a lot of games I play don't even benefit from the second card so I feel like it's just dead weight. Lastly, I'm finding that even when they're idle, they kick out loads of heat. Being in North Carolina in the summer with crappy A/C, it gets rather uncomfortable. Plus the electric bill.

I'm working my way through university right now, so my budget is slim pickings. I'm wondering if it is time to upgrade the GPUs to a new single card solution. My thoughts were either to go with the AMD Radeon HD 7870 or the nVidia GeForce GTX 660TI. They're pretty close in price and performance. They're PCI-E 3.0 cards but from what I understand, they will work in my PCI-E 2.0 board. I'm not as much of a gamer as I used to be but I do play games every now and then. I do some graphics and video work but nothing intense enough to really benefit from CUDA or OpenCL. For what I do between Linux and Windows 7, is there really any benefit to using one over the other. Or should I even bother upgrading?

Hopefully this makes sense and I can get some idea of what would be the better option for my set up. Thanks!

Garrett

 

I think your dual core CPU might bottle neck a 7870 or 660ti.

Very true. Although I take Windows' system ranking thing very lightly, even it states my CPU is currently a bottle neck. But CPU aside, I'm not looking for something to max out Crysis 1, 2, or 3 with but rather something that could maybe match my current performance (or a smidgen higher) and more energy efficient, cooler, and quieter. 

Basically, I want to replace my two GPUs with a new single GPU that would match my current performance.

yeah athough it may turn out to be expensive you should consider to upgrading to a core 2 quad aswell as a new gpu 

I've actually been considering it since I've seen some Q9550s that are not too expensive on eBay. I don't really want to change boards to get a newer-gen processor; I'm quite attached to mine.

If I was you hold off until Haswell and upgrade motherboard, Ram & CPU before a GPU!