I think that a 7850 @ 1200/5800 clocks is pretty much equal to a stock 7950 or GTX580. Of course, the 7950 will overclock way past this, but it costs nearly twice as much. The 7850 is probably the best value "fully capable upto 1920x1200" card available at the moment.
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How to overclock a 7850 past 1050MHz?
- Thread starter 555BUK
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If you want to run max settings on the latest games, a single 7850 won't be enough at 2560x1600. However, if you are happy to turn some of the setting down a notch, it should be fine.
For Ultra settings @ 2560x1600 in games such as BF3 you really need a GTX680, 7970 or 7850's in crossfire. 7850 crossfire will be a fair bit faster than a single 7970.
Well, as you want to avoid dual cards, the 7950 will be the safest bet for 1600P res.
Have you tried them individually? Crossfire/SLI setups always seem to reduce clocks by a bit.
GTX460 SLI will most likely be slightly faster, unless the 1GB VRAM becomes the limitation.
All reference cards will be built to exactly the same specification. VTX, Powercolor etc just slap different stickers on them and design their own packaging. Infact, my VTX card doesn't even have a VTX label on it (it is straight off the reference production line).
Currently, I believe most (if not all all) 7850's have reference PCB's. Sapphire, ASUS and MSI stick non-reference coolers on them, but the PCB's use the same components. It usually takes a few months before OEM's start getting creative and cutting component costs.
I have a reference card and can honnestly say it is very very quiet. Only when I overclock massively does the fan crank up to noticeable levels, and even then it is not too bad.
I imagine that the Sapphire and MSI Frozr's are better for extreme overclocks, but the reference cards are pretty good for those on a tighter budget.
Perhaps that was before anyone had pushed the 7850's past the 1050MHz barrierI remember getting flamed in the other thread for saying the HD 7850 2Gb was a better buy than the EVGA GTX 480 at £185.. Turns out I was right haha
. An extra 200MHz is what launches these cards past the 480 and into the stock 580 league.This and an overclocked 480 will probably offer very similar performance, however this will obviously run much cooler, quieter, suck less juice, and have the extra 512mb VRAM.
I used one of the most intensive single player maps - Operation Guillotine. After the end of the title sequence I ran Fraps 3 minute time demo and followed exactly the same paths. There are lots of near explosions and particle effects on this level to stress the card.
I get very similar results within large Multiplayer maps, but becasue enviroments/explosions change so much from game to game it is hard to obtain even circumstances. During real gameplay, I always enable VSync, and these cards hold 60fps pretty solid when overclocked. I do see the occasional dips into the 50's, but gameplay is rock solid on Ultra with FXAA set to high. MSAA cripples these cards (even my 680 suffers with MSAA), so use FXAA setting (Post Processing) intead.
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At 1200MHz it will be roughly equal to a stock 7950 or GTX580.
MSAA does not hold 60fps on a GTX680. For both my GTX680 and 7850 builds I used FXAA because it provides almost identical image quality to MSAA, without the hit.No MSAA on that graph. I mean yeah it shows a very impressive performance curve but still should be benched fully 'maxed'. My only gripe on otherwise excellent results
FXAA set to high provides the equivelent of 4-8x MSAA. Why decrease performance for no real gain?
No worries dude, I just benched at the settings I would use. In order to maintain what I call good fps at 1920x1200 on Ultra, this card has to choose between either 2xMSAA or FXAA=high. For me, FXAA set to high gives better results. 8xMSAA would be nice, but the hit is too much for a sub £300 card. Benching with FXAA seemed more practical because that is what most people will end up using for these cards.
4xMSAA pulled the 1200MHz card down to 40-50fps, and 8xMSAA dropped it into the 30's. FXAA is a much better compromise.
What games and benches do you see drops in? Also, what clocks and volts are you running? My 7850 showed similar dips when I gave it too much voltage. Perhaps over-volatage protection is cutting in, or maybe you have clocked it too far?
If none or the above, try the following:-
i). Download DriverSweeper
ii). Uninstall any AMD/NVidia drivers.
iii). Reboot into Windows Safe mode
iv). Run DriverSweeper from within Safe mode. Allow it to clean all of the AMD and NVidia files it locates.
v). Reboot and install the latest official AMD drivers.
Yep. It can make the difference between smooth and juddery gameplay, or allow you to enable extra graphics detail.
The average fps of the stock clocked 7850 above are equal to the minimun fps given by the 1200MHz overclocked 7850.
edit: The above overclock makes the 7850 about as fast as a stock 7950. ~£330 worth of performance for ~£180 is better value than £180 for £180.
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For people having instability issues, try leaving the VRAM at stock levels and just overclock the GPU. Once you find the max GPU clock on stock voltages, start upping the volts by 0.025v increments and up the clocks again. This will help you identify the best balance between clock speed, heat, and noise.
Once you have obtained your max/ideal GPU speed, start upping the memory.
My card clocked as follows.
*Max stable core was 1275MHx with memory at 5800MHz.
*Max stable memory was 6000MHz with core at 1150MHz
*Max for benching was 1325MHz / 6000MHz but this is VERY FAR from stable and needed 100% fan.
*At stock core 860MHz, memory was stable at 6200MHz.
*24/7 clocks were set at = 1200MHz / 5800MHz.
Max stable core and max stable memory would not co-exist on my card. I had to drop one to keep the other. Also, over-volt protection would cut in if I set clocks and voltage too high. This dramatically reduced fps.
Core clocks provide greater gains than memory clocks (atleash within Heaven, 3DMark11 & BF3).
1150MHz / 5600 MHz @ 1.150v should be safe for most cards.
Once you have obtained your max/ideal GPU speed, start upping the memory.
My card clocked as follows.
*Max stable core was 1275MHx with memory at 5800MHz.
*Max stable memory was 6000MHz with core at 1150MHz
*Max for benching was 1325MHz / 6000MHz but this is VERY FAR from stable and needed 100% fan.
*At stock core 860MHz, memory was stable at 6200MHz.
*24/7 clocks were set at = 1200MHz / 5800MHz.
Max stable core and max stable memory would not co-exist on my card. I had to drop one to keep the other. Also, over-volt protection would cut in if I set clocks and voltage too high. This dramatically reduced fps.
Core clocks provide greater gains than memory clocks (atleash within Heaven, 3DMark11 & BF3).
1150MHz / 5600 MHz @ 1.150v should be safe for most cards.
1275MHz was only stable with fan on 80% and 1.2v. Temps and noise are far too hot on the reference cooler to keep it that high. It was completely stable (survived looped Heaven and BF3), but the cost to my ears and risk of a quick death were far too high.
24/7 clocks of 1200MHz requires 1.150v. My card does 1125MHz on stock volts of 1.075v. Perhaps I got a good one that makes several other rubbish cards in the past.
Just as well I didn't use NewTek’s LightWave, Autodesk’s 3ds Max, or play Starcraft at STOCK setting's then
.I have read plenty of 7850 reviews and very few complain of any problems. Probably just more AMD launch driver glitches. Duff cards don't take 8xAA to show up hardware issues. The fact all is fine before adding 4xAA+ definately looks like beta a driver pronlem.