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5850 - Advice - Worth Upgrading Anytime Soon?

AndyT

AndyT

AndyT

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Joined
14 Oct 2009
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Aix-en-Provence
Hi all,

Forgive the long and fairly rambling query, but I've not really kept up with the state of GPUs recently.

I currently have an ATI 5850, and an i5 2500K (very slightly overclocked) running games at 1680x1050 on a 22" monitor.

All seems fine with current games I've been playing recently (BF3 / Walking Dead / Sleeping Dogs), but I have a feeling it could be better on BF3. AA is all off on BF3, and FPS could be better (seems to dip occasionally on larger maps). The thing is, it's playable and I don't think I can really justify upgrading the 5850 at the moment as I imagine I'd be looking at around £250 to £300 for a decent jump in performance.

I've got the urge to upgrade, but there doesn't seem to be any games on the horizon that warrant a splurge of cash anytime soon and the last few times I upgraded I've seen a mammoth jump in performance which has been well worth the cash and time spent researching. I suppose my main question is, am I likely to see much of a jump in performance at the moment?

The last times I upgraded were:
  • Celeron 900 with onboard GFX ---> AMD Athlon 64 3400 + Nvidia 6800 vanilla, around the Doom 3 / Halflife 2 release date (this was amazing and such a good period for PC games);
  • Core 2 Quad Q6600 Nvidia 8800GT around Crysis release (similarly amazing);
  • Kept the Q6600 ATI and bought a 5850 about 3 years ago (well worth the fairly small outlay);
  • Kept the ATI 5850 and bought an i5 2500K about this time last year (not that astounding, but pretty good);

I feel like I "want" to upgrade the GFX card, but there doesn't seem to be any great games on the horizon that will need much more power than what I've already got and current graphics cards don't seem to give that much extra performance considering their cost.

Is there a next generation of games / graphics cards just around the corner, or are we seeing fairly incremental changes in both. Am I missing some huge hype, or is it just a bit slow in the PC games industry at the moment?

Cheers for reading.
 
Will your psu / case handle another 5850 so you can crossfire, you could probably pick one up in members market for £50-75
 
Showboat said:
Will your psu / case handle another 5850 so you can crossfire, you could probably pick one up in members market for £50-75
Click to expand...

Cheers for your reply. Yeah, it should do; I had thought about that, but aren't there issues associated with Crossfire, such as micro stutter etc? I like a fairly easy life when it comes to the PC you see and if I picked up on micro stutter I wouldn't be able to "un-notice" it (probably).

Also, does 2 x 5850 mean 2 x the noise? I presume it's probably not far off.
 
Have you tried OCing. from 725mhz (iirc) to 900 odd is a big jump which shouldn't be difficult. Memory boost upto 250mhz on the stock cards too.

I'm in the same boat and looking at things the 7870 is the lowest card to make it worthwhile. I haven't had to OC yet as I'm an old timer and trying to clear my back catalogue.
 
AndyT said:
Cheers for your reply. Yeah, it should do; I had thought about that, but aren't there issues associated with Crossfire, such as micro stutter etc? I like a fairly easy life when it comes to the PC you see and if I picked up on micro stutter I wouldn't be able to "un-notice" it (probably).

Also, does 2 x 5850 mean 2 x the noise? I presume it's probably not far off.
Click to expand...

I would definitely overclock (had my 5850 at 900/1200 with a small voltage bump for 2 years and it was fine), but a 5850 can be had very cheaply 2nd hand on MM (so cheap I didn't bother selling mine) so you may as well pick up a 2nd one and give it a go until the next gen come out.

I personally got a 7950 because I couldn't wait. It's good for me because I run at 1440p and needed the extra VRAM, but it didn't exactly blow my mind. It just made a few games much smoother and allowed me to up some settings. I wouldn't say it's a futureproof upgrade at this resolution anyway. For £200 less than I spent (I was stupid and bought a single slot mobo), you could go xfire and get a lot of extra juice.
 
I was looking at the Sapphire 7950 on here for £239 with free Hitman Absolution and Far Cry 3, which are both games I'd probably buy on release.

So in that sense I'd get around £50-£60 worth of games free and could sell the 5850 for around £75 on a well known auction site. This would bring the real terms cost down to around £100-odd.

But then I'd probably want a shiny new 1080P monitor to go with it....

I think I might consider the second 5850 and see what additional performance I get.

Decisions, decisions....

I'm currently buying a Samsung 830 128GB SSD and a Hyper Evo 212 cooler for overclocking the i5 2500K plus an extra 8gb of ram for work, so will be doing a full reinstall of everything and a bit of dust down soon. Just seemed like a good time to splurge on a GFX card, but there doesn't seem to be much around worth splurging for. If you know what I mean.
 
I'd say that the 7950 is worth the splurge. I personally would go for an MSI 7950 TF3. You should be aware that a few people have been complaining about problems with that particular card
 
i went from a 5850 to 7970 it was a world of a difference, you need to speed a bit to notice the difference, if you can sell your 5850 a 7950 will be less than 200 quid extra and you will notice the difference, either that or oc and go crossfire
 
A Q6600 and a 5850 is a great combination.
A 2500k and a 7970 is an even better one!

Like the posts above I went through the same combinations, finally went from 5850's X-fired to a 7970 with an i5. That made the world of difference, so going from a single 5850 will be awesome!
 
I'm looking at 7950s now, but I'll probably need a 1080P screen to make it worth while! Oh dear.....
 
Hi, I just upgraded from a similar card to a 7950 and it was def worth it, all games are smooth and look better, better resolution etc.

If you can afford it, goe for it.
 
Hope its not me being bias but I'd also say the 7950 and clock that to 7970Ghz edition speeds. It'll be just a bit more than twice the speed you're getting now.
 
In a moment of overtime fuelled madness I've just snapped up a HIS 7970 IceQ X2 on here for £319 on here along with a Samsung 830 128GB SSD and a Coolermaster Evo 212 cooler....

How much do you reckon I'll get for a boxed Sapphire Radeon 5850 and a broken iPhone 3g?! I feel a clear-out coming on....
 
lol, enjoy mate! I'd say anywhere between £40 (quick sell) to £65 for the 5850 depending on condition etc. No idea what a broken iphone goes for.

Get yourself a decent monitor now. It's the best upgrade you'll make. I believe there's a 1080p 22" monitor going for £49 at OcUK this saturday if you show up early ;) Or the coveted 27" 1440p IPS monitor on crazy sale prices :eek:
 
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