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More upgrade Advice

Could look at a 6950 (would be quite a bit better, circa 215, if you sell your 5850 for around a ton, then for an additional 115 its reasonable upgrade), or an NV 480 (best bang for buck, but loud & hot - 200quid), or even 570 (480 performance but quiet, cooler & more expensive - 300quid)
 
Some cards for comparison.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/295?vs=292

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/295?vs=309

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/295?vs=306

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/295?vs=330

If your mobo supports crossfire then how about dropping in another 5850?
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/303?vs=295

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-103-MS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=411

The 480 is also good for the money but has high power draw, so if that is an issue then perhaps consider a 560 or 570.
 
Hi thanks for the advice was considering trying out crossfire as I have the gigabyte UD5 but would I need the same make of card as mine is one of the original batmobile 5850's?

Also is there a benefit in most games for dual cards or is it still very driver dependent thing?

Seriously considering the 480 at that price is there any other inherent advantage of the more modern cards like better dx11 support etc?
 
I think most people that have tried sli or crossfire tend to express positive comments, myself included. A single card set up will have less potential issues and might be smoother. I had a 4870X2 and briefly owned a 4890. I always found the X2 not to run choppy in almost all games, though when I removed it from my system and dropped in the 4890, it was simply smoother still.

Another card you could consider would be the 6950 and then if you wanted to you could flash it to almost 6970 performance. (Practically 100% success rate in flashing the card). That is also good for the money.

The advantage with the 500 nVidia series over the 400 is that they will run cooler, quieter, with a touch more performance and iirc less power draw, at least at idle.

I'm not telling you what to buy but if it were me I would be comparing benchmarks out of the 6950 (flashed) / 560 / 570.

Oh the agony of choice! :)
 
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The 5xxx series doesn't scale all that well in crossfire at all. You may well be better off selling and getting a new card.

I'd highly recommend the 6950 for price : performance, and also (as mentioned) the fact it can be flashed to a 6970 bios.
 
joxang said:
The 5xxx series doesn't scale all that well in crossfire at all. You may well be better off selling and getting a new card.

I'd highly recommend the 6950 for price : performance, and also (as mentioned) the fact it can be flashed to a 6970 bios.
Click to expand...

Little bit of an exaggeration there. The 6900s scale better, but the 5800 scaling is by no means bad.
 
I went from a heavily clocked 5850 (1000/1250) to a GTX 480 and the 480 is a lot better, even at stock. The minimum fps are almost double what i was getting with the 5850 and all of my games are now smooth when maxxed out (1920x1200). With the 5850 i was getting a lot of stuttering in Stalker COP but it's now nice and smooth.
 
kylew said:
Little bit of an exaggeration there. The 6900s scale better, but the 5800 scaling is by no means bad.
Click to expand...

Depends on what you mean by bad :). It's worse than Nvidia 4xx/5xx scaling, and worse than Ati 6xxx scaling. At 1080p and lower it's miles worse, and at higher resolutions it evens out a bit more.

There won't be many games the OP can't run with a 6950 however, especially if he's not playing on a 30 incher, and a future cfx upgrade will be more worthwhile than the current cfx upgrade.

EDIT: Just adding some links:
5xxx scaling: http://techreport.com/articles.x/19404/11
[H] report on scaling in the new generation cards: http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/01/11/amd_69706950_cfx_nvidia_580570_sli_review/7
Quote: 'Where the last generation of AMD GPU was neutered when it came to CrossFireX scaling, the 6970 and 6950 are "fixed" in that regard.'
 
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What resolution are you gaming at?

If anything at 1680*1050 or below I wouldn't spend £300 as the 5850 should max all games at that res just fine and your CPU is more than capable of assisting it.
 
1920x1200 mostly as I have a venerable Dell 24" tft and yeah not going to spend all my budgetm
I figure i'm going to try find another reasonably priced 5850 or get a 480 gtx.

Does it make a difference if the cards are different makes for crossfire?
 
GTX480 would be perfect for that res and would save you the hassle of the problems of running two cards in crossfire.

I dont think it matters if they are different brands for crossfire.
 
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