5850 or 7790?

[pandem0nium]

Had a bit reading on TechReport and yea you seem to be right about the TrueAudio part being within the processor...but the question is- would AMD have driver for enabling them?

I mean if the 260x was just a straight rebrand of the 7790, then people could probably just flash the bios to make it a 260x to enable the TrueAudio...however that isn't the case. The 7790 would be using and 7000 series driver where as the the 260/260x would be using the 200 series driver, and I got a strong feeling that TrueAudio would not be enable for 7000 series driver. May be some 3rd party could make some hax to enable the TrueAudio on the 7790? But I'm not sure if anyone would bother to do that, considering 7790 is not exactly a mainstream card with huge number of owners/users.

But yea 7790 is may be worth holding onto for Mantle alone. But until Mantle become commonly used of games that OP would play, the 5850 would remain overall a better performing card.

IMO OP should sell off both the 5850 and 7790, and buy a 2nd hand 7850. Not much point keeping both, when he could have a 7850 with 1GB more vram, higher memory bandwidth and around 40% faster than either card

I'd be very surprised if the drivers are actually any different. A quick google shows me people have had some success flashing the card to a 260x.

+1 for the 7850/270 idea. I had a 7850 + £30 gelid icy vision cooler. Beast of an overclocker, it could do 1240 on the core!

 

[enkoda]

I have overclocked my 5850 before but with the stock cooler it was just too annoying, especially as the pc is the lounge.

I have to admit, it was a bit of an impulse buy, and should've read up a bit more. I honestly thought it would leave the 5850 way behind...

It shouldn't be problem selling the 7790 on for what I paid, so even if I do end up stuck with it the general consensus is to sell both & go for a 7850/7870 or 260x/270.

pandem0nium:
I'll have a google for flashing it to a 260X, but won't go ahead unless I'm stuck with the card.

 

[Marine-RX179]

I have overclocked my 5850 before but with the stock cooler it was just too annoying, especially as the pc is the lounge.

I have to admit, it was a bit of an impulse buy, and should've read up a bit more. I honestly thought it would leave the 5850 way behind...

It shouldn't be problem selling the 7790 on for what I paid, so even if I do end up stuck with it the general consensus is to sell both & go for a 7850/7870 or 260x/270.

pandem0nium:
I'll have a google for flashing it to a 260X, but won't go ahead unless I'm stuck with the card.

If you do end up selling the 7790, don't buy a 260x or you would just end up doing a sidegrade AGAIN. Make sure you go for a 7850 2GB as a bare minimum upgrade.

 

[Boomstick777]

If you do end up selling the 7790, don't buy a 260x or you would just end up doing a sidegrade AGAIN. Make sure you go for a 7850 2GB as a bare minimum upgrade.

^^ This.

 

[humbug]

One of these.

Its a re-branded 7870. it destroys the 6870 http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/857?vs=780

 

[pandem0nium]

I have overclocked my 5850 before but with the stock cooler it was just too annoying, especially as the pc is the lounge.

I have to admit, it was a bit of an impulse buy, and should've read up a bit more. I honestly thought it would leave the 5850 way behind...

It shouldn't be problem selling the 7790 on for what I paid, so even if I do end up stuck with it the general consensus is to sell both & go for a 7850/7870 or 260x/270.

pandem0nium:
I'll have a google for flashing it to a 260X, but won't go ahead unless I'm stuck with the card.

I would only go down the route of flashing if you're bothered about true audio, as that would be the only real benefit. And that depends if any games you plan on buying implement it, which isn't any as of yet. I think Thief will be the first one.