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Help! Which card to buy?

rolypolyman

rolypolyman

rolypolyman

Soldato
Joined
22 Nov 2007
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Ayr, Scotland
Ok, decided to start a thread on this as I need informed opinions. I am going to buy either this 5850 or this 5870. I have recently read that a 1Gb card may not be enough memory for some games at high res and AA. I game at 1920 x 1080 and like as high a AA as possible. So, do I buy the 2Gb 5850 or the 1Gb 5870. Would appreciate any help on this decision.:)
 
About every game 1gb 5870 is easily enough for 1920x1080 or 1920x1200(except for Metro 2033 to be completely maxed but i am sure ATI will sort that soon with a new driver), you really only need the 2gb version for 2560x1600 or eye-infinity.

You like your AA as high as possible, so do i though i've tried 24xaa in some games yet it doesn't look hugely better than 8x but i tend to find 4x is enough at that res.

In my view go for the cheapest 5850 if you plan to crossfire otherwise go for cheapest 5870 if you want a good single card setup though if you like quietness/good cooling and do not tend to overclock much then a Vapor-x 5870 is most ideal for you.
 
no contest imo the 5870 will outpeform the 5850 at that resolution. its only when you start to game at higher resolutions or start using multiple monitors in eyefinity that you could do with the 2gb :)
 
Who ever said that 1gb isnt enough for high res is a big fat liar lol. Just get the 5870. Or any 1gb 5850, The 2gb 5850 is wayyyy over priced.

You only need more than 1gb if gaming on more than 2 monitors each with a resolution of 1920x1200

EDIT: some lightning quick replies there :p
 
Ok thanks for the quick replies guys. That extra 1Gb on the 2Gb 5850 is costing about £37 over the 1Gb 5850, that doesn't seem too much given the price of ram. However my main concern would be can that 2Gb 5850 Vapor-x get up to 5870 speeds as a lot of advice on these forums is 'buy a 5850 and clock it to 5870 speeds'. Actually I suppose the question really is does that 5850 vapor-x with the 2Gb of memory give any benefit to me as it is the same price as the stock 5870.:confused:
 
DeeJayCee said:
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18133499

I've been doing some Reading and the poor performance in metro 2033 on ati cards might be because the tesselator in the 5800 can't keep up as only one third is done in hardware and the cache memory can't keep up with feeding it what it needs. Hopefully it is just a driver issue though...
Click to expand...

So I guess neither of these cards will run Metro 2033 maxed out anyway?
What about CF 2Gb5850 or 1Gb 5870, how would either of those perform?:)
 
rolypolyman said:
So I guess neither of these cards will run Metro 2033 maxed out anyway?
What about CF 2Gb5850 or 1Gb 5870, how would either of those perform?:)
Click to expand...

I am using a 5870, i7 920 at 3.4ghz with DX11 at 1920x1200, very high settings, tessellation on, depth of field off(not really noticeable at all neither is tessellation) and i am getting between 20-60fps depending on where i am obviously but most time it's around 35-45fps.

The low fps drops have been areas with mass gunfights or lots of lighting involved however the game is very much playable though i noticed when i turned tessellation off i gained about 10-15fps most times and it didn't change much.

That said go for the 5870 if you are not overclocking otherwise a good clocked 5850 is a very nice choice and work magnificent in crossfire for the price.
 
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