anyone disapointed with 5000s series

[lanzarobbie]

hi

im just looking here

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/...h-quality/Battlefield-Bad-Company-2,2111.html

4830 25 5050 29
4870 512m 36 5770 34 fps
4890 41 5830 39
5850 50

i thought there was a big performance jump in this series but looking at this chart, says otherwise.

unfortunately there is no 4850 listed or 4870 1gb

 

[Vince]

Im really happy with mine so far, mind you I suppose it depends on what you were upgrading from. Without doubt though my laptop with a 5650 has been the biggest supprise, the chip is very capable for a relatively low end part.

 

[eyetrip]

I went from a 4870 1GB to a 5850 1GB. It is a worthy upgrade but, in my opinion, only if you overclock. Once you get them up to around 900/950 is when they shine over the 4870.

 

[RavenXXX2]

A 5870 is a massive leap in performance over a 4870, and so is a 5850, even more so if you clock it past 5870 speeds.

 

[lanzarobbie]

A 5870 is a massive leap in performance over a 4870, and so is a 5850, even more so if you clock it past 5870 speeds.

yeah but isnt the price aswell, i payed about £130 for my 4850 2 yrs ago the 5850 is around £230 £100 more.

 

[el Kuarlos]

Nvidia's CEO?

 

[lanzarobbie]

Nvidia's CEO?

Who me, i havnt even bothered mentioning nvidia as its seems they offer no competion in the gpu market as there products are more expensive and run a lot hotter, i was hoping fermi was going to lower the gpu prices but the wait has shown otherwise.

if anything i wish id brought a 5850 when it was £200

 

[NathWraith]

Who me, i havnt even bothered mentioning nvidia as its seems they offer no competion in the gpu market as there products are more expensive and run a lot hotter, i was hoping fermi was going to lower the gpu prices but the wait has shown otherwise.

Agreed however fermi does have the edge on performance but not so much to make most people take a 480 over a 5870.

 

[magicroundabout]

i went from crossfired 4870's to a single 5870 and the performance is better.
plus it runs cooler and uses a lot less power.

 

[Klo]

I'm on a 2900xt, but only game at 1440x900, would the upgrade be worth it?

 

[mame]

I've tried talking myself into buying a 5850 or 5870 but I just can't, they are too expensive. For the cost over the card I have now, I don't think a 5850 is that impressive really. It's no more an important card than the 8800GT was when that was released for about £130. People seem quick to forget how cheap last gen cards were last year, even the 4890 was £125 a few weeks after release.

 

[phatboy]

I'm on a 2900xt, but only game at 1440x900, would the upgrade be worth it?

i would definately say so, the 2900XT is an old girl now, even with a 5770 you would see a big improvement i reckon.

 

[Mojo]

I've tried talking myself into buying a 5850 or 5870 but I just can't, they are too expensive. For the cost over the card I have now, I don't think a 5850 is that impressive really. It's no more an important card than the 8800GT was when that was released for about £130. People seem quick to forget how cheap last gen cards were last year, even the 4890 was £125 a few weeks after release.

That's a very good point. ATI's 4xxx releases were so cheap a high end part could be had for 130 quid. It basically left the gtx285 dead in the water, with the competition between the 4890 and gtx275 resulting in a good old fashioned price war. At one point, didn't the 4890 hit 120 quid? Just imagine if fermi had been competitive, all the cards might possibly be a good 30-40 quid cheaper

 

[reflux]

The 4890 hung around £160 until it started going EOL at which point it dropped £30 or so. But it still represented very good value for money.

The problem here is the lack of competition.... last generation, we had some very evenly matched cards at defined price points, and this generation they're all over the place.

 

[lanzarobbie]

The 4890 hung around £160 until it started going EOL at which point it dropped £30 or so. But it still represented very good value for money.

The problem here is the lack of competition.... last generation, we had some very evenly matched cards at defined price points, and this generation they're all over the place.

agree im going to hang on along as i can until i upgrade, hopefully something will change.

 

[jazzy182]

Im happy with my 5770

bought my 4870 when they were first out and at £180 it was worth it. Sold it for £70, bought my mates 5770 for £80, cant complain an extra tenner for DX11

 

[Greebo]

It's 25% faster than 4890 which is not to be sniffed at especially since the 5850 is the mid range card and not the top card. Probably 40%+ if your overclock your 5850 past 5870 speeds.

And as for price, I am getting fed up having to keep pointing out exchange rate differences.

The 4850 you bought £130 two years ago had a RRP of $239 at launch when you got $2 to the pound.

The 5850 had a list price of $259 at launch although I admit since then ATI has upped the price slightly.

So for a card which costs $20 more two years later and is around 60% faster I think it's good value.

If we still had $2 to the pound at 5850 launch they would have only been £150 to buy instead of the £197 I paid for mine.

 

[straxusii]

No you nutter!

So this gen's second tier card (5850) is 25% faster than the prior gen's 2nd edition top tier card (4890). And that's disappointing??

 

[drunkenmaster]

OK, lets be honest and not rewrite the history books.

A 4850, overclocked NEVER CAME CLOSE to a 4870 in performance, it didn't overclock very well and had a massively stunted bandwidth due to memory. A 4870, the top end card that wasn't even closely matched by its lower end 4850 brother, was £180 or so on launch.

This gen a 5850 which most certainly does match its big brother(5% difference both maxed out), which only has low stock clocks but isn't massively crippled like the 4850, was £200 on launch, I actually got mine for £193, about a week after launch.

The price is still £200 rrp, you can still find them for VERY close to this, you've been able to find them VERY close to this since launch. RETAILERS are marking them up, RETAILERS are making a killing on them because the consumer is willing(stupidly) to pay it.


SO last gen to get the best AMD card around cost £180, this time £200. What a massive difference.

The reason for the price difference is fairly simple, first GDDR5 costs several times what gddr3 does, that was half the reason for the low cost of the 4850. Also was a very mature 55nm process that had a cheap cost per wafer and massive yields for AMD.

40nm is a horrible process, wafers cost the best part of 50% more and on top of that yields are way down. Core costs are OVER 100% higher than last gen.

The fact that to get a similar level of performance, in terms of getting a top end card, has gone from £180-200, is brilliant. Because of the core cost increase to AMD, we could have seen the £300 5870 as 20-25% faster than a 5850, but a 5850 crippled so it could never get close, then you'd have a point.

As for looking at one game to determine performance, thats ridiculous, you could have gone with Metro 2033, probably the best looking game around right now, the 5870 is twice as fast as the 4890 in that, its showed the absolute best scaling in performance so far of any game.

Meaning, double the performance is certainly there. Not all games show it, hardly surprising and nothing new.

 

[gurusan]

drunkenmaster there were quite a few non-ref 4850s that did 800MHz on stock voltage...and with pencil mods could be clocked quite high. I myself had one clocked at 920MHz or so for my daily clock.

I also did some testing at 1680x1050 and when the 4850 and 4870 were at identical clocks (memory clocks too), the 4870 had only around a 5% lead over the 4850 from the gDDR5.