5850, where would you go from here?

[flinco]

I'd like to upgrade from a 5870 to a 680/7970 when they cost around 150 second hand.

The other option would be to wait a few years for the 20nm cards and get a mid range one of them.

 

[Bleek]

I can't install both monitors because the connectors are too close, the DVI converter obscures the main DVI connection. The 5850 had them stacked on top of each other so no fowling was possible.

I'll now have to get some kind of additional extender or cable.

Oh and the drivers says Vista or 7, no XP mentioned? Yes I'm still on XP because it's never let me down and just works!

Found the XP driver on the Sapphire site.

 

[Bleek]

... which doesn't work!

Awesome.

 

[Darujhistan]

I think i'm gonna pick something up 2nd hand, the price of GPU's right now is absolutely insane.

 

[Bleek]

... which doesn't work!

Awesome.

Anyone got any ideas why when I try and install 12.2, 12.3 or 12.4 the DD option isn't listed just the CC and audio driver? Is it work me forcing pointing windows to the driver files instead of using the CC installer?

edit: nope, can't do that.

WTF? I've never had a problem installing a graphics card before!

 

[Bleek]

Ok I've installed the driver by hand through WDDM and forced it to 6800 series (there isn't a 7 series listed on the driver). It appears to have worked, although the card is obviously listed as a 6800 now.

So none of the Catalysts support XP with 7x series cards then?

 

[HeX]

You really need to get off that antiquated OS now. Win7 is leaps and bounds better. I'd be tempted to say to grab the Win8 CP and get that slapped on.

 

[Bleek]

Well you know what, I can't really see any FPS gains in Tribes either?

Surely I'd see a performance boost... now I'm really annoyed.

edit: No must be dodgy driver crap going on, CPU aroung 60% in game and GPU around 80% in game.

 

[Bleek]

You really need to get off that antiquated OS now. Win7 is leaps and bounds better. I'd be tempted to say to grab the Win8 CP and get that slapped on.

Too much stuff to move over, too many apps, too many hdd's, just don't have the time or patience!

 

[HeX]

Get it done, it'll be worth it, you can get your OS, drivers and main apps on in under an hour, rest just do as and when you need em

 

[Bleek]

Get it done, it'll be worth it, you can get your OS, drivers and main apps on in under an hour, rest just do as and when you need em

I might have to at this rate - no XP 7850 support until later next month!

 

[Doppleganger]

Don't know about that guys. My 5870 is struggling in Batman AC.

At maximum settings at 1080p mine is struggling on occasion too. The old dear is being retired very shortly!

 

[HR4]

I have the Sapphire HD5850 2gb Toxic, its been a truly great card and at the mo I am playing Arma2 a lot, it gives me great frame rates at the highest settings, so I can’t see any reason to change it.

BIS have recently included fxaa & smaa built into A2 (1.60 patch), I played around with both settings in the configs and fxaa came out a winner after being mixed with the ingame aa setting. Now I can use low aa settings ingame mixed with the ‘fxaa + sharp filter’ setting in configs and ‘fxaa preset level set to 26’ also in configs, gives me an overall effect of very high setting aa, without the fps hit).

The 5850 always breezed along at 1920x1080 res with very good fps averages in A2, but now I get slightly more frame rates with the new tweaks. Until something comes out that significantly changes my mind regards performance, especially in A2, then my 5850 stays where it is..