is it worth it?.

[Sgt Tackleberry]

Hi all,

I have 5850 1gb graphics card, its gr8 card and i can't knock it at all but i'm now looking at the 6950 graphics card to buy, Would i notice much differents at all if i upgrade to this card or not?.
thanks you

EDIT:

I play my games at 1440x900 res, i play black ops, BFBC2, CSS, CS, crysis. and few more.

 

[RavenXXX2]

At your res the 5850 is more than enough to get the job done, stick with it and wait for the true next generation cards that will give substantial increase in performance.

 

[Sgt Tackleberry]

ok then cool, when are the next card coming out then?.....
i'm about to water cool my cpu with in the next few weeks, should i water cool my gfx then overclock it?... if i do overclock it how should i do it and what is the best way of checking it so i know its stable?

 

[Sgt Tackleberry]

Sorry but bump up

 

[Supernaut91]

New graphics card will be out this year no doubt.

 

[MoodyB]

ok then cool, when are the next card coming out then?.....
i'm about to water cool my cpu with in the next few weeks, should i water cool my gfx then overclock it?... if i do overclock it how should i do it and what is the best way of checking it so i know its stable?

If it's a reference design 5850, then use MSI Afterburner to overclock it & increase the core voltage.

New ATi cards are rumoured to be out at the end of 2011.

Watercooling it should give a higher overclock, but if its a non reference design 5850 then it probably wont allow voltage tweaking & will likely top out at around 850 for the core, and 1150 for the memory.

For stability testing use 3d mark vantage / 2011 and whatever games you currently play.

 

[Exsurgo]

You don't play Metro 2033 or Hawx 2, and I doubt you benchmark Heaven all day long, and the difference between the 6950 and 5850 is not that big in older/non-DX11 titles except at very high resolutions.

Also the 5850 runs cooler and is more overclockable.

 

[buttkinz]

Iv had watercooling on the ati 5770's and 5870. All watercooling did for these cards was silence, still managed 1050mhz on the cores with air. I'm a stickler for silence tho

 

[Sgt Tackleberry]

thanks guys for your replys. i think i will w8 for the new cards to come out ... as to water cooling my 5850 i think i wont bother tbh.
thanks for help

 

[jayextreme]

probably add another 5850 for CF would be a good way to increase performance too, cheaper as well

 

[Marine-RX179]

I recently upgraded to a 5850 and a 1920x1080 res monitor, and although I can overclock the core clock from 725MHz to 975MHz no problem, I found that most game I play don't even require that much speed and is overkill, so I created a separate overclock profile with overclock to just 835MHz for most games in general.

To be honest, for people that already got 5850/5870, I really don't think the 10-15% extra speed/performance of the 6950/6970 is worth it, considering even if you could sell the 5850 for £120 (and that's a big if), you would still need to spend extra £100 or so for getting a 6950.

Sure the 6950/6970 is faster, but is it really worth the extra cost...if your 5850 is not really struggling with the games you play? Also, the new cards has relatively high power consumption, as well as hotter than the 5850/5870. Sure the 6950 is a great upgrade for people who got older slower cards like 8800GT, 4850, but IMO, a overclock 5850 would be good enough to last until the 28nm GPU cards are launched, and hopefully they will deliver better performance, without the cost of high power consumption and heat.