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Contemplating New Graphics card Setup.

Muel

Muel

Muel

Soldato
Joined
26 Jun 2009
Posts
3,023
Location
Sheffield
Hey, I currently have an ATI 4670 1024mb, it's really good for the money, but I'm thinking now I could do with a better setup, not decided for sure yet though. :P

The thing is, I can't decide what path to take, single card or crossfire?

I have this board: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-366-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1481

And a Corsair HX650W power supply, with a 140w 965 aswell. I'm worried that the PSU doesn't provide enough power for two powerful cards?

I want to stick with ATI, and I think my options really are a crossfire 4890/5770 (I'm guessing 5770 would be best for the price?), or a single 5850? 5870 is getting a bit expensive for me.

So that's it really, I'd really appreciate some opinions! :P
 
5870s are definitely not worth the money, I don't think they ever will really. If you can get a 5850 for around £230, I'd go for that.

I'm sure OcUK have some in stock for £230 too.

The 5770s will bring you more performance, but I'd say that a 5850, with the intention of getting a second one, once the prices have come right down, would be the best thing for you to do.
 
Thanks for the advice guys, I'm not too keen on the idea of a dual 5850 setup as that would cost too much in total. I am leaning more towards dual cards purely because I love my modding and they look beefy. :P

I think I'll go for the 5770s, am I right in thinking they're better than the 4890s? The specs are better but the prices are lower, so I think I might be missing something? For £125 a card they seem fantastic value for money though.
 
Muel said:
Thanks for the advice guys, I'm not too keen on the idea of a dual 5850 setup as that would cost too much in total. I am leaning more towards dual cards purely because I love my modding and they look beefy. :P

I think I'll go for the 5770s, am I right in thinking they're better than the 4890s? The specs are better but the prices are lower, so I think I might be missing something? For £125 a card they seem fantastic value for money though.
Click to expand...

No a 4890 is the more powerful card.

But for dx11 + Lower power consumption + Lower heat you want the 5770.
 
Yeh out of those two the 5770 wins for me then.

Tempted by a 5850 setup though now, costs over double the cost for two 5770, but each card has 1440 processing cores instead of 800....

The memory is 800mhz slower though. (Effective. What do they even mean by effective?).
 
Current RAM is DDR which means Double DATA Rate - for every clock tick it can do 2 commands - so its actually running at say 400MHz but has the effective bandwidth of non DDR RAM running at 800MHz.
 
If you have the money get the 5850, should be more than enough horsepower on your 22" monitor for the time being, and you won't have any of the potential issues crossfire sometimes brings.

Don't be fooled by all the people who have purchased 5770s in crossfire, the only reason people were going down this route is because the 5850s and 5870s were so scarce, and some geeks just can't wait :D
 
What I'm now thinking is, a 5850 will be less hassle to set-up, almost definately powerful enough and if it isn't, can always get another...

I have a 22" now, but I'm thinking of getting a 28" aswell and running it dual screen. :P

Argh but I want dual cards! It looks so much cooler to have two. :P
 
coupe69 said:
If you have the money get the 5850, should be more than enough horsepower on your 22" monitor for the time being, and you won't have any of the potential issues crossfire sometimes brings.

Don't be fooled by all the people who have purchased 5770s in crossfire, the only reason people were going down this route is because the 5850s and 5870s were so scarce, and some geeks just can't wait :D
Click to expand...

partly true, but im so glad i got 5770's in crossfire knowing that they give a beating to 5870's aswell as trampling all over 5850's for less money

5850 cards are a big fail at moment because of price, when there down in price it will be different but at current pricing i dont see the point in buying 5850
 
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Rroff said:
Current RAM is DDR which means Double DATA Rate - for every clock tick it can do 2 commands - so its actually running at say 400MHz but has the effective bandwidth of non DDR RAM running at 800MHz.
Click to expand...

Where as GDDR5 does 4 commands every cycle. Really should be called QDR.
 
kylew said:
5870s are definitely not worth the money, I don't think they ever will really. If you can get a 5850 for around £230, I'd go for that.

I'm sure OcUK have some in stock for £230 too.

The 5770s will bring you more performance, but I'd say that a 5850, with the intention of getting a second one, once the prices have come right down, would be the best thing for you to do.
Click to expand...

/agreed
 
Hmm lots to think about, I think I'll go for a 5850, it'll be powerful enough I'm sure, but if it's not I can always get another. Saves me having to get the crossfire set uo properly aswell. :P
 
kylew said:
5870s are definitely not worth the money, I don't think they ever will really. If you can get a 5850 for around £230, I'd go for that.

I'm sure OcUK have some in stock for £230 too.

The 5770s will bring you more performance, but I'd say that a 5850, with the intention of getting a second one, once the prices have come right down, would be the best thing for you to do.
Click to expand...

+1

Definitely 5850 for the option to crossfire. Crossfiring these will give you the performance of a 5970 and in some cases better ;)

Crossfiring 5770 will not match or better the performance of crossfired 5850/5870's.
 
Imo, just getting one 5850 to later crossfire doesn't really work... why? because you will feel that the 5850 is more than capable when you get it and when it starts struggling you want to upgrade to a new card anyway.
 
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