Radeon 5850 Engineering sample

[Heinz57]

Hey guys, my dad told me the other day that somone at his works was selling an 'almost new' Radeon 5850 for £150. Great I thought, too good to turn down even with a lack of warranty!

Dad brought it home yesterday and it's an 'engineering sample' dated 09/04/09 (so presumably 4th Sept 09 in Uk speak). I'm not sure what to do with it- as the manufacturing date is so close to the actual release date I'm inclined to think that it can't be that different from the actual release version.

It looks exactly the same as a normal 5850, except it has a weird little connector on the back of pcb which I can't see on any photos of the production version. The Bios is 012.011.000.000.000000, which seems to be a slightly lower number to other branded models I have seen on the internet. It seems to be running okay, and it spends most of its time idling a low temp and low fan speed (25%). GPUz says its clocked at 725/1000 with 1440 shaders which seems about right (Everest thinks it has 1520 for some reason). I've played a few games and they seemed to run okay- Empire TW sort of froze (although I could still move the camera) at one point a short time after putting the textures up to ultra- but I'm not sure if that's not just the game being buggy as usual.

Anyway, the point of this long warbling post is what would you do with it? Keep it or try to get your money back?

 

[Vince]

5850 for £150... Bargain, engineering sample or not... Im sure most es (engineering sample) parts will be better or equal to their retail brethrans anyway.

I remember an old engineering sample Barton that a friend had, it was a freakishly good overclocker.

 

[UncertainGod]

Keep it, it's most likely a preview board released for some site to review and quite often you will find those samples are manufactured to a higher quality. Plus you can always update the BIOS yourself.

 

[straxusii]

Bench it and if it works and performs as a 5850 then it's a deal

 

[straxusii]

Keep it, it's most likely a preview board released for some site to review and quite often you will find those samples are manufactured to a higher quality. Plus you can always update the BIOS yourself.

And this^, engineering samples are always cherry picked when possible so the review sites say "And these cards overclock like nobody's business!"

 

[malachi]

I wouldnt keep it if it was an engineering sample, could have bugs inside of bios even if you flashed it too but you never know. For £150 though its still a good deal.

 

[SMB30]

I'll have it if you don't want it!

 

[Vince]

I will also have it for some 5850 cf action

 

[Heinz57]

Thanks, I'll probably put it through its paces over the next few days then and see what happens. If it melts it's going back!

 

[gurusan]

And this^, engineering samples are always cherry picked when possible so the review sites say "And these cards overclock like nobody's business!"

I think this is a myth as every single engineering sample chip or board I've come across has been totally crap at overclocking. I remember I had an E3110 ES that topped out at 4GHz with 1.4V. What a piece of trash.

However, 5850 for 150 is a bargain or not....but also keep in mind you purchased this illegally and selling it on is also illegal.