I haven't been following the graphics card market/reviews/prices, but I'd like to get a new graphics card, as my old HD 3870X2 doesn't keep up with anything anymore (duh) and it's overheating like an angry bitch. I can't be bothered to clean the shit again and apply new paste, all in all I'm tired of my card and it's problems.
On a different forum, a second hand AMD HD 5850 is being sold for about $150. It's been used for about 2,5 years and has had it's bios flashed to allow overclocking to higher frequencies. I trust the user selling it when he says it's in good conditition. I'm obviously tempted to buy it, because as far as I've read and researched, it's better than HD 6850, the GTX 650 Ti (which sells for around $200 in my country at the moment), and the HD 7770, and it's getting close to a HD 7850. It seems to be at the same level as a GTC 560 Ti (I could be wrong), apart from the fact that the latter has 2GB of VRAM instead of 1GB (sells on the same forum for around $210). I know that the HD 5850 is of an older generation, but at that price it really seems like a must-buy for me. Should I get it?
Another issue that I'm concerned about is if my CPU would bottleneck the HD 5850. I have an Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 (3ghz), 8GB of DDR3 RAM (1333Mhz) and my motherboard is an Asus Rampage Extreme LGA775, for which I paid a lot of money at that time and never got to use it's huge overclocking potential. As far as I see it, bottlenecking with this CPU is inevitable, however I'd like to hear some opinions on this one. I'm considering buying an used Core 2 Quad. Before you ask, I'm not willing to give up my motherboard and buy a newer platform (mostly budget issues, and I feel it would be a real shame to replace the Rampage Extreme).
Thanks!
Ive got an E8500(3.16) @ 4Ghz. And a AMD 6950.
I can run planetside2 and BF3 maxed out but the fps stays at 20-40 no matter the graphic settings.
This shows a CPU bottleneck but still allows me to play relatively ok at high graphics.
The E6850 and 5850 are not as good as my setup, so expect a bit less from it.
The HD5850 is a good card if you aren't expecting to play any DX11 titles that use tessellation. The tessellation unit in the HD5000 series is mostly terrible and dies with even small amounts of it in use. There are also some other DX11 shortcomings on the HD5000 series that I can't remember currently, but nothing significant.
The HD6850 is a weaker card than the HD5850, but has a stronger tessellation unit and will perform much better in tessellated games.
The HD7850 is going to be a stronger card than both of the former cards. The core is more efficient in terms of horsepower and energy efficiency. They apparently can also overclock to the moon and back with ease.
I think the 7850 would be your best bet, you can get a 2GB card for $180, they have low power usage and overclock like mad.
Stock core clock is 860mhz I've got mine to 1200mhz with a little voltage tweaking and it still never runs over 65C.
[QUOTE=total_noob;39277140]I think the 7850 would be your best bet, you can get a 2GB card for $180, they have low power usage and overclock like mad.
Stock core clock is 860mhz I've got mine to 1200mhz with a little voltage tweaking and it still never runs over 65C.[/QUOTE]
Unfortunately, in my country a new 7850 goes for about $250 (maybe less for an used one), so I'm not sure if it's really worth at the moment. Besides, my budget is not that high.
I'd rather get an 7770, which goes for a bit less than $150 now, with Far Cry 3 as bundle. Given my current CPU and the fact that I don't have the money to upgrade to a platform with i5 at the moment, is 7770 a good choice?
It'd probably be fine.
I'm looking at the Sapphire cards. Which one should I choose between: [URL="http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?cid=1&gid=3&sgid=1159&pid=1523&lid=1"]7770 Vapor-X[/URL] ($175), [URL="http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?cid=1&gid=3&sgid=1159&pid=1686&psn=&lid=1&leg=0"]7770 Ghz Edition Flex[/URL] ($178), [URL="http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?cid=1&gid=3&sgid=1159&pid=1745&psn=&lid=1&leg=0"]7770 Ghz Edition OC[/URL] ($165) and [URL="http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?cid=1&gid=3&sgid=1159&pid=1723&psn=&lid=1&leg=0"]standard 7770 Ghz Edition[/URL] ($143)?
I'm thinking to just get the standard Ghz non-oc edition and do the OC myself, save some money. How's the cooling and OC performance for it?
[QUOTE=Zircon_;39275873]I can't be bothered to clean the shit again and apply new paste, all in all I'm tired of my card and it's problems.[/QUOTE]
Damn, from how you say it, seems like you clean those cards a lot in a short period of time - or had them a long time =). As for buying a second hand card(That has been overclocked AND BIOS tweaked) I would tread lightly. I have no experience buying second hand merchandise, I do however have experience overclocking and BIOS tweaking/updating. From my experience a whole lot of stuff can go bad in a matter of seconds(lets not think about years) while running an unstable system. For instance *Shhhh* CAPACITORS *wink* I hope you undoubtedly trust this seller.
I see you also are thinking of choosing between: 7770 Vapor-X ($175), 7770 Ghz Edition Flex ($178), 7770 Ghz Edition OC ($165) and standard 7770 Ghz Edition ($143). I have researched any reviews on any of those cards but, as time shows - go with anything other than the OC, as that is unnecessary because I believe you will OC the card anyway. From my time playing with OC'ed cards, it sucks trying to put all the data(when comparing to others results)in perspective when there are so many different brands of that same card reviewing overclocks. I believe which ever you choose will be all around better than what you currently have while still being bottlenecked by the CPU.
My system:
Motherboard: nForce 680i Alienware
GPU: Radeon 4890 1 gigabyte RAM
Processor: Core2Duo E6750 up from 2.6 @ 3.2
RAM: Corsair CM2X 2048x2(High Performance)
I don't think I'll upgrade for a while as I can run EVERY GAME that releases to date. The day when my system can't run a new release is the day that I move on to something better -I'll have to, as I'm not going to return my game =).
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.
