right, finally gunna order

[paradisiac]

ok, gunna order my mobo and gfx card today.
decided on the HD6850, but looking at the suppliers, its not a huge amount more for a HD6870, is it worth the extra £40-£50?
will i be good to run it on a AsRock 890FX DELUXE3 mobo with my current cpu/ram combo without too much bottleneck?

 

[paradisiac]

i know its not been long, but really wanna get this ordered. any opinions?

 

[LegendaryDread]

I'd go with the 5870 instead. The 6870 is maybe 15% faster than the 6850, for 25% more monies. 5870 is more like 25-30% faster than 6850, for £8 more than a 6870.

 

[paradisiac]

i can only order from one place (do it through work) and these are the prices :
HD6850 - £110
HD6870 - £150
HD5870 £220

so twice the price

or alternativly i can get a GTX460 for the £120-£150 mark depending on brand

 

[J.D]

If you're overclocking the card you get or at least willing to, then I'd go for the GTX 460. If at stock then go for the 6870.

The reason being is that if a stock 5850 can beat the GTX 460 at stock http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/164?vs=156 then I'm sure the 6870 would too.

Here is the GTX 460 1gb vs 5850 (stock) http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/164?vs=180

 

[paradisiac]

dont really want to overclock, just really want to get the best value for money really.
also, the GTX460 2GB is nearly £10 cheaper then the HD6870, would that be the best all rounder?

 

[LegendaryDread]

In that case, 6850 is very good value for money; can't argue with it. 6870 is faster but not £40 faster, IMO.

 

[paradisiac]

In that case, 6850 is very good value for money; can't argue with it. 6870 is faster but not £40 faster, IMO.

better than a GTX460 2GB for £141?

 

[AnimeLaine]

I would get a 6850. Should be able to oc to 6870 stocks with no problem.

 

[Ezyryder]

but he is no overclocking. I would get the 6870. It's a great card for £150.

 

[LegendaryDread]

better than a GTX460 2GB for £141?

That's tempting but there's not much you can't max out with 1GB. It only really becomes a limiting factor when you're trying to play at absurd resolutions (higher than 1920x1200) with AA... or GTA4

I recently switched from 5870 to GTX570 SLI (yet to update sig) and I'm glad to be rid of the CCC; Nvidia's drivers are far superior IMO.

The GTX460 seems slower at stock though. As JD said, if you o/c it will should end up the faster card, even faster than the 6870.

 

[paradisiac]

well if there isnt a huge difference in cards, might go for the HD6850 and put the money i save towards 2x4GB sticks of ram or a phenom.

 

[LegendaryDread]

put the money i save towards 2x4GB sticks of ram or a phenom.

Sounds like a plan.

 

[paradisiac]

ok, last question, which one :
VX6850 1GBD5-DH - £110

Key Features:

* Product Description: VTX3D Radeon HD6850 1GB DDR5 256Bit
* Interface Type: PCI-E
* Chipset: Radeon HD 6850
* Memory size: 1024MB
* Core Clock Speed: 775Mhz
* Memory Clock Speed: 4000Mhz
* Stream Processors: 800
* DX Supported: DX11
* Display: Display Port / HDMI / Dual DVI
* Hyper Memory Support: No
* Cooling: Fan
* PSU Requirements: 500Watt
* Multi Card Support: Yes

or
VX6850 1GBD5-DHX - £114

Key Features:

* Product Description: VTX3D Radeon HD6850 1GB DDR5 256Bit X Edition
* Interface Type: PCI-E
* Chipset: Radeon HD 6850
* Memory size: 1024MB
* Core Clock Speed: 800Mhz
* Memory Clock Speed: 4200Mhz
* Stream Processors: 800
* DX Supported: DX11
* Display: Display Port / HDMI / Dual DVI
* Hyper Memory Support: No
* Cooling: Fan
* PSU Requirements: 500Watt
* Multi Card Support: Yes

 

[Ezyryder]

Drivers seem to be a subjective thing. The new CCC (mind you I have never seen the old CCC!) is as nice as the nVidia control panel IMO.

I have had both nVidia and AMD in the past few months (460 GTX vs 6950@70) and at this point in time I prefer the AMD ones because they just work and I didn’t have to wait a month to get a fix for Bad Company 2 and that is not including the problems I had with the supreme commander games.

Regarding the 6870 vs 6850 vs 460 they are all pretty much the same. If you are not overclocking get the fastest one at stock and that is the 6870 which at £150 is fantastic value seeing as it has 470 speeds.

 

[Ezyryder]

ok, last question, which one :
VX6850 1GBD5-DH - £110


or
VX6850 1GBD5-DHX - £114

out of those 2 and if you are not overclocking the second one as it should be slightly faster for only £4.

 

[paradisiac]

ok, not overclocked a gfx card before (my mate did one back in like 2000) is it easy to do and safe? i dont like the idea of flashing bios incase it messes up and i have £110-£150 of dead card.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

If you want to overclock the HD6850 1GB overclocks quite well too:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4002/amd-radeon-hd-6850-overclocking-roundup-asus-xfx-msi

You can get between 155MHZ to 185MHZ extra on the GPU and even then an HD6850 is still consuming about the same power at peak than a GTX460 1GB at stock clockspeeds.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

In this thread you said you could get a Gigabyte HD6850 1GB too:

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?p=18249346#post18249346

Gigabyte has a better warranty in the UK when compared to VTX AFAIK.

 

[paradisiac]

In this thread you said you could get a Gigabyte HD6850 1GB too:

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?p=18249346#post18249346

Gigabyte has a better warranty in the UK when compared to VTX AFAIK.

yeh i can get the gigabyte GV-R685D5-1GD for the £110, but the cooling system doesnt look as nice/good

spec wise though :

Series: Radeon HD 6000 series
Chipset: Radeon HD 6850
Core Clock: 775MHz
Memory Clock: 4000 MHz
Memory Type: GDDR5
D-sub: No
DVI: Yes
Memory Size: 1 GB
TV-OUT: No

the VTX3D comes with 2 year return to base warrenty, the gigabyte has 3 year return to manufacturer warrenty