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Is a 5850 still considered a good card?

liamcrane

liamcrane

liamcrane

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Evening all

Just curious to hear peoples opinion on the 5850 card, i have had mine a while now and i must say i really think its still a great card. I have overclocked mine to 900/1100 with a slight voltage tweak to 1.136 and it seems to be well on par with the 6800 series cards and runs top end games really well. Im not to sure how good 6800 series cards overclock but would i be right in saying that my only worthwhile upgrade would be to a 6900 series card with the extra 1gb of vram?
 
liamcrane said:
Evening all

Just curious to hear peoples opinion on the 5850 card, i have had mine a while now and i must say i really think its still a great card. I have overclocked mine to 900/1100 with a slight voltage tweak to 1.136 and it seems to be well on par with the 6800 series cards and runs top end games really well. Im not to sure how good 6800 series cards overclock but would i be right in saying that my only worthwhile upgrade would be to a 6900 series card with the extra 1gb of vram?
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5850 is faster by about 2-3 FPS than the 6850,

i went from 5850 to 6950 2Gb and the difference is quite amazing tessellation performance is so much better, also apparently x-fire scaling is much better too but will hopefully see for myself by xmas time
 
5850 is still a belting card tbh i wish i hadn't upgraded to a 6950 from my 5850 extreme, performance gains are neglible at best i've found, the extra 1Gb of ram means better textures in some games, but my TFIII 6950 won't clock as far as my old 5850 and it's a fair bit noisier too tbh

i would recommend if you want a boost, get another 5850 for crossfire, either that or wait for the 7X series cards to come out,
 
An overclocked 5850 would be roughly on par with an overclocked 6870.

6950 2GB is a little bit faster than a stock speed 5870, but with the benefit of much greater overclocking headroom and more VRAM. 6970 2GB is almost as fast as a GTX480/GTX570, but with more VRAM. 6970 2GB and 6950 2GB would both hit the same max overclock (950MHz-1000MHz)...on the same clock speed, the 6970 2GB is only around 3% faster than the 6950 2GB, so most people consider it poor value comparing to the 6950 2GB.

So basically in terms of GPU grunt, 69xx is not really that much faster than the 58xx...the biggest benefit is just the extra VRAM which does help improve performance in SOME games. But is it worth selling the 5850 (for £90, and only getting £80-£85 in return after taking away the deliver cost) and spending £120~£150 extra on a 6950 2GB? In terms of gain vs cost, it is indeed poor value...but for people that got an upgrade itch and money to blow, then sure they can upgrade from the 5850 to the 6950 2GB despite the relatively little gain. But for people that are counting the dollars (well, pounds in our case) and want to get the maximum return on performance with the money they spend, they would make do with their 5850 and holdout for the next gen cards.
 
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Cool thanks guys, i have been looking for the same Asus 5850 model i have around the web for a possible xfire setup but it seems to be way over priced at around £180!! Would a single 2gb 6950 scale better than 2 5850's in xfire due the the 1gb vram limit on both cards?
 
2 5850's are at the same level as the 580! - Anyone with a 5850 at the moment would be nuts selling it at a loss and buying a more powerful card (£200!) when they can simply buy a second 5850 (Approx £80) and xfire it to the same levels as a 580 (and sometimes better!)

No single card (other than the crazy 6990) will be as good as 5850 crossfired ;)

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/303?vs=305
 
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zoomee said:
2 5850's are at the same level as the 580! - Anyone with a 5850 at the moment would be nuts selling it at a loss and buying a more powerful card (£200!) when they can simply buy a second 5850 (Approx £80) and xfire it to the same levels as a 580 (and sometimes better!)

No single card (other than the crazy 6990) will be as good as 5850 crossfired ;)

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/303?vs=305
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That is quite a blowing statement. Try to start dual-instance of WoW on 5850 1GB CrossfireX and enjoy slideshow...
 
harmony said:
Very decent card for single GPU setup. Lack some vram for CrossfireX.
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Rubbish tbh. I had a crossfire 5850 setup, which ate everythign I threw at it on my 1920x1200 setup.
I didn't run Metro on 4xAA though, but everythign else was at maximum settings and 4xAA.
I'm not one of those who needs 60fps all the time, but in many games it did achieve this, and in those games it didn't, it was still pretty smooth.
 
My 5850 has ran everything I've thrown at it max settings 1080p smooth. Shogun 2 on dx9 (before dx11 patched in) ran a solid 30fps as does Crysis on Ultra settings with max AA etc.

Your best bet is to buy a second off the members market and crossfire them, as I've just done in prep for BF3. For 70-80 quid, you get better performance than a GTX580. Can't beat that tbh.

(ignore harmony, he's been spewing rubbish about vram on these forums since the dawn of time - unless you play at a res of 1920x1200 or higher, then you don't need more than 1GB vram - 1080p or lower and you'll be fine)
 
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harmony said:
That is quite a blowing statement. Try to start dual-instance of WoW on 5850 1GB CrossfireX and enjoy slideshow...
Click to expand...

Have you done that? Or are you just theorizing? I find it hard to believe - isn't WOW limited more by CPU than GPU?

If it's true, it's the ONLY game that the 5850 crossfire setup fails in. 5850 CF is a good match for a 580 GTX: sometimes a little better, sometimes a little worse.
 
Sweet cheers guys, the only slight issue i have is my current setup is AM2+ with DDR2 Ram and my board only has 1 PCI slot, i have looked into perhaps getting a 2500K overclocking it to around 4ghz if possible. Would the board below be considered good for xfire?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-458-AS

I did forget to point out i have a dual montior setup but i only use one for gaming and the res is only 1600x900. Could someone maybe point me in the right direction of a good 5850 i could pair with my Asus one? wasn't sure if they had to be the same brand
 
tbh there a cracking card and for what you have to outlay for what you gain at the moment its just not worth it.
 
Any brand will do mate. I'm in the same boat but cheaped out on my mobo when I upgraded and am regretting it. I'm waiting for 7xxx series. stick with your chip and do the same, or make sure you get a xfire board when you upgrade. I get 75% usage on my 2500k @4.9ghz in bf3!
 
Deific said:
My 5850 has ran everything I've thrown at it max settings 1080p smooth. Shogun 2 on dx9 (before dx11 patched in) ran a solid 30fps as does Crysis on Ultra settings with max AA etc.

Your best bet is to buy a second off the members market and crossfire them, as I've just done in prep for BF3. For 70-80 quid, you get better performance than a GTX580. Can't beat that tbh.

(ignore harmony, he's been spewing rubbish about vram on these forums since the dawn of time - unless you play at a res of 1920x1200 or higher, then you don't need more than 1GB vram - 1080p or lower and you'll be fine)
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What a load of tosh u think u can really run crysis at ultra on 8xAA , yeah must have been a really enjoyable experience playing at 4FPS.

i owned a 5850 at 950/1200 and it's impossible to play crysis on full max setting and it be consistent enough to be enjoyable
 
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