Upgrade choices for 5850

[Knave]

Looking to upgrade my aging Sapphire 5850.
Gamer using the resolution of 1920x1080 with around a budget of around £250 to £350.

Have been using Ati for years now but would like to know of a good replacement or Nvidia equivalent if better.

Did try CF but it didn't go well for me to thought best to stick to a single card.

Cheers all for any help.

 

[HankScorpio]

I'm in the same position, have xfire 5770 and really want 100% improvement which I think this card will give me.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-049-HS

Massive price drop for this card and apparently 3 free game codes included, which you could sell for £70

 

[cmndr_andi]

The HD 7950 is a rather good deal now, though personally I would go for one with a decent custom cooler - as the stock one seems to be rather loud. I would recommend the Gigabyte windforce first (that cooler is really very nice) as well as the MSI Twin frozr III, though admittedly this does increase the cost.

You may also want to consider waiting for the new Nvidia GTX 670 Ti which should be within your budget and going by the performance of the GTX 680 - it will be a pretty nice card. I believe the release is expected next month.

 

[jangofat25]

For 1920 x 1080 would 7950 be overkill? i only ask as am on budget less than above, purely as don't play often enough to justify spending £250-300+

7850 or 560 Ti (or 660 Ti when one comes out...) seems sufficient. What you think?
Cheers,
Dan

 

[cmndr_andi]

Overkill? It really depends what you play. There are certainly games out there (like BF3) that will eat up all the performance and ask for more - though for sure the majority of games will be coasting along very easily on such a powerful card at this resolution. However, I think the point of the card is so that you have a card that is great now and will also will keep up with new games for the next couple of years.

 

[HankScorpio]

For 1920 x 1080 would 7950 be overkill? i only ask as am on budget less than above, purely as don't play often enough to justify spending £250-300+

7850 or 560 Ti (or 660 Ti when one comes out...) seems sufficient. What you think?
Cheers,
Dan

Problem with that upgrade is is it really worth spending £200 on an upgrade that gives 3-10 fps more?

5850 vs 560 Ti
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/512?vs=547

Here's the improvement from a 7950

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/512?vs=550

Also the HIS cooler is quieter than the stock one looking at overclock3d.net's review of it so no need in buying an expensive MSI version.

 

[cmndr_andi]

Is this the review you mean? If so, this one is the stock cooler (here is another brand card using the same cooler design) and they say:

when under load the cooler is perfectly capable of keeping the temperatures below 80°c, at the slight cost of some noise pollution. but when you're getting this kind of performance some extraneous noise is to be expected and we'd be very miserable indeed to mark it down just for that.

This review for example compares the fan noise of the MSI Twin frozr III with the stock cooler HD 7950 as well as many other modern cards.

 

[HankScorpio]

Ah right, thought cause it was in the middle it was not stock. He says it's pretty quiet though!

Just don't fancy paying £40 for 10 less dba underload

My current 5770 fozr II is quiet noisy under load so not too sure on them either