need bit of help on 5850 v's 7770

[Lowri]

Hi all, I am really hoping someone can help me with a simple answer.

My current Graphics cards is - http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/product_index.aspx?pid=1152&lid=1

And I am looking to buy this - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Asus-7770-Radeon-Graphics-Card/dp/B0081LDXW2/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=37MLUO3YVEZ52&coliid=I1E51X7PDPDFNP

All I would appreciate to know is if the sapphire one is still worth keeping rather than replacing or if the Asus card would be an upgrade.

Thank you in advance for any or all help you feel you can give me.

 

[Gregster]

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/512?vs=536

That would be a no bud. Your current card is faster and welcome to the forums

 

[Lowri]

Thank you for the quick response, but...

The benchmarks are for both 1Gb cards and not the specific cards this is the problem I have found when looking myself, the sapphire for example isn't the standard card it the extreme version and also the benchmark link is only for the 7770 with 1Gb, whereas I am looking at the 2Gb.

I ams till trying to get my head around that my card that is 3 years old can still beat a year old card.

and thank you for the welcome

 

[Gregster]

You're welcome.

The extra 1GB on your card will make no difference to frames but will help when a game is VRAM heavy. Anandtech is great for guidelines and comes in very handy for comparisons. I wouldn't swap out your card for a 7770 is the bottom line.

 

[Marine-RX179]

Thank you for the quick response, but...

The benchmarks are for both 1Gb cards and not the specific cards this is the problem I have found when looking myself, the sapphire for example isn't the standard card it the extreme version and also the benchmark link is only for the 7770 with 1Gb, whereas I am looking at the 2Gb.

I ams till trying to get my head around that my card that is 3 years old can still beat a year old card.

and thank you for the welcome

Yea lower end card usually poor bang for bucks...largely due to their crippled memory bus. The 7770 is around on par with the 6850 at best, and the 6850 itself is around 10% slower than the 5850.

A while ago OcUK was selling the 7850 2GB and with 3 free games as well (think it was a AMD Silver and Bronze ticket) for just £89.99...the overclocked 7850 2GB is around 40% faster than the overclocked 5850 and with 1GB more vram as well. That was a very good deal but of course it sold out very quickly.

I myself have used the 5850 for a long time, and only recently upgraded to the preflashed 290 to 290x at £360, plus a 3rd party cooler (£33) and some extra chipsinks (£12), so around £400 all in

But for your case if you want to upgrade from your 5850, I would recommend you prepare a budget of around £220, and snatch a decent 280x when they shows up on deal at around this price (they are expensive at around £260+ if they are not on deal). 280x would be around a little bit more than double the speed of your 5850. Or if you really can't stretch your budget to £220, you could still keep and eye on the 7850 deals for under £100 or a 270 (essentially a 7870) at under £130, or you can try to find a 2nd hand 7850 for under £90....around £70 if you are lucky.

 

[Lowri]

again thank you very much for your help and advice, its really appreciated.

I am hoping to go from -

CPU - AMD Phenom II X4 955BE
RAM - 8.00GB Single-Channel DDR3 @ 666MHz (9-9-9-24)
Motherboard - ASUS M4N98TD EVO (AM3) 32 °C
Graphics - Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 Xtreme 1Gb 40 °C
Storage - 111GB OCZ-VERTEX3 ATA Device (SSD) 30 °C
931GB SAMSUNG HD103SJ ATA Device (SATA) 22 °C

to -

CPU - AMD FX6300BE
RAM - 8.00GB Single-Channel DDR3 @ 666MHz (9-9-9-24)
Motherboard - Asus M5A97 R2.0 (AM3+)
Graphics - Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 Xtreme 1Gb (Probably keep)
Storage - 111GB OCZ-VERTEX3 ATA Device (SSD)
931GB SAMSUNG HD103SJ ATA Device (SATA)

I am also going to invest in a Corsair CX500 Modular PSU as I have a crap maplin own brand 700w psu.

As for the RAM, have never been able to get it to stay above 666Mhz, guessing thats the Mobo, but meh hopefully the new one will be a big upgrade.

I am sorry this list isn't full of amazing gear, but don't have masses of money to spend so by keeping the same GPU will have about 300 to spend on it all (thank god for Amazon).

Will also keep an eye out for 7850 deals (thanks for the tip)