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Help - I don't understand the difference between the various 5850's for sale

EdwardTeach

EdwardTeach

EdwardTeach

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18 Mar 2010
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As the title says I don't understand the difference between all the different 5850's on sale. The price varies from £220 up to £269, yet they all seem to have pretty much the same spec. (I can see that the most expensive ones have a faster core)
are some manufactures considered better quality?
I have been reccomended to go with the asus card. I notice it has a 3yr warranty, 1yr more than anyone else, presumably that is an important consideration?
I can see that powercolor seem to have the best deals by a large margin e.g their 760mhz version is only £234.99 and comes bundled with 2 games, is there any reason I shouldn't go for that?
 
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They are basically all the same spec. Some of them have different BIOSes which allow them to be clocked higher, but apart from the bundled gear the warranty is what differentiates the products. I'd suggest just getting the Powercolour version. It's the cheapest and you get Dirt 2 on the side, it's a win/win situation =)

*edit* Checking the prices, if you want to forgo Dirt2, for 5 more quid Asus has a 3 year warranty, and the Asus BIOSes are pretty good (clock high)
 
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Thanks guys, v quick replies! I was editing my original post to ask about the powercolour pcs+ with the 760mhz core, any thoughts on that it seems relatively cheap.

Also I was thinking I would like to set up a 5850 crossfire a year or so sown the line, for crossfire is it essential that the two cards are identical e.g do they need to have the same core speed?
 
Even tho the PCS+ looked a better offer to me I found the following review which changed my mind and I ended up getting a Saphire instead which is a reference card the same as the Asus and easily overclocked using afterburner and GPU clock tool.

"The UP 6219 is a cost effective voltage regulator that Powercolor has chosen to replace the much more expensive Volterra controllers on the reference design. Nothing is known about this voltage regulator, but I doubt that it supports software voltage control."

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/HD_5850_PCS_Plus/4.html

If you don't intend to do any overclocking with this card yourself then it should be a great buy and has a good review on that link.
 
FLumpster said:
If you don't intend to do any overclocking with this card yourself then it should be a great buy and has a good review on that link.
Click to expand...

Why do you say that?

On page 32 of that review they overclock this card and were able to take the core 100mhz above what they have achieved with a standard reference 5850.

Does that not mean this card is better at overclocking?
 
Hmm I'd be interested to also achieve a better understanding of what to buy since I will most likely be making a decision quite soon.

Just a quick question : so far with the addition of a few dx11 titles, are the differences in graphical effects substantial over the dx10 / 10.1 ? I keep wondering if it worth it or not? Coming from a 4870X2 the upgrade I feel needs to be a 5850 xfire at the least. Since overclockabilty of a card, like cpu's, can vary, I am on the look out for something worth while.


Last thing I want is to change from my current card which (despite my gripes of it being hot and noisey) flattens most 9 / dx10 titles only to get a dx11 card which gives fps that take a nose dive too often. This is why I currently think of a dual card or dual gpu is advisable with today's gaming requirements, especially if you like everything turned up, save for AA, of course. :)
 
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EdwardTeach said:
Why do you say that?

On page 32 of that review they overclock this card and were able to take the core 100mhz above what they have achieved with a standard reference 5850.

Does that not mean this card is better at overclocking?
Click to expand...

Because on this page http://tech.icrontic.com/articles/overclocking-the-radeon-hd-5850/5/ they overclock the core by 200 not 100 on a reference card and ram by nearly 200 but it uses a software voltage increase which the PCS+ does not do due to the different chip.

I'll rephrase.... If your happy with the overclocking this card can do without software voltage overclocking then it should be a good buy.
 
I recieved my sapphire this morning and thought I would report some results I have so far to help you out a bit.

I don't want to use the voltage control yet because it will void the warranty but I will do that in a year or 2 when it runs out.

Using AMD GPU Clock tool I started with the ram. This overclocked from 1000 to 1190. It failed at 1200 and worked at 1195 so decided to leave it on 1190. Left Furmark running for 1 hour as a quick test and was stable.

Moved onto clock next and as of writing this it is at 850 and has been stable running Furmark for 2 hours.

Temps under full load are 78 at moment but the fan is only running at 32 percent as I haven't changed the profile yet.

Clock and memory are at 5870 speeds now.Going to try even higher clock and will report back.
 
900 core speed caused stutters. 895 has been stable in Furmark for the last 20 mins so I'm going to lower it to 890 and run Unigine to stress it for the next few hours.

890/1190 is a good overclock imo with no voltage changes over 725/1000 stock.
Temps have gone upto 80 but fan is still running at 32 percent.

Here are someone elses results on the OC 4850/4870

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18112756

and here is the guide I followed

http://tech.icrontic.com/articles/overclocking-the-radeon-hd-5850/

back in a few hours, hopefully with good news ;)

EDIT : Just set a fan profile and now it's sitting at 71 under full load with the fan at 37 percent.
 
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