Radeon HD 5850

OmegaRed

Anyone have experience with or input on the below card:

http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/5658001/art/sapphire-technology/radeon-hd-5850-vapor-x-oc.html

On the lookout for a new single core card. getting rid of my 4870X2.

Thanks,

OR

Overheal

Somehow it strikes me as a 5770 with extra stream processors and a wider memory bitrate; slower clock. Basically, it will run more monitors than a 5770, but might not be significantly faster? Not for over double the cost.

OmegaRed

so go with one of the the next versions down?

http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/4845324/art/sapphire-technology/radeon-toxic-hd-5850-1-gb.html

OmegaRed

Just to add, my budget is about 300 (stretched to 350). Would be playing at 1900X1200 res. Games would be Modern Warfare, Crysis, Supreme commander and such...

Overheal

5770 suits me just fine on Crysis and things, at that res (well 16:9 so 1920x1080), with AA and AF on, which I dont even need but they're always fun to leave switched on :pac:

I've learned that the higher end cards are for the stupid-high resolutions, multiple monitor hookups, etc. etc. and even the 5770 is rated for 3-monitor Eyefinity gaming, so there shouldnt be any issues gaming on one screen at the 1900x1200 res.

OmegaRed

Just out of interest, is it your 5770 that you are talking about here:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055994848

Overheal

yessir. I was running with AA and AF as I said, Tomshardware ran the same bench with these off though. You really dont need a whole bunch of AA at higher res anyway, I was just dicking about:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-5770,2446-7.html

So perhaps I'm talking through my arse here because the 5850 does perform better on Crytek anyhow. Dont judge by the tech specs? But again, it looks like a 30% increase in performance for a 55% increase in cost.

Judging from the Farcry 2 bench however, I will be looking at buying a clone card in the forseeable future

edit: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-5770,2446-14.html :eek: Stupid crapvidia and its PhysX

And you still have to seriously consider The Processor Bottleneck, shown here. They re-ran the cards on a non-bench machine (the bench being Intel Core i5-750 (Lynnfield) 2.66 GHz, 8 MB L3 Cache, power-saving settings enabled
Overclocked to 3.8 GHz (20 * 190 MHz) for scaling tests)

lmimmfn

Ive a 5850, its a fantastic card. The 5770 OC'd is only the same as a 4890 so absolutely pointless dropping the 4870x2 for that.

In fact if i was in your place i would either go for a 5870 over that 5850, its only 28Euro more than that 5850 and performs significantly better at stock.
Also the 2Gb on that 5850 is unnecessary unless youre planning on 3 screen gaming with eyefinity( ive to set textures on medium on some games with my 1Gb 5850 using eyefinity ), also the Toxics are overpriced. The cooling is great, problem is unless you get a reference 5850 you cant overvolt( reference cards were the initial ones and you can only get them second hand now ), making the uber cooling of the Toxic pointless( have a mate who got a 5850 Toxic and mine outperformed his by about 5% meaning his cost about 80 euro more for nothing really )

Also the memory bus of the 5770 and the 5850 arent the same, the 5770 uses 128bit( meaning crap for high resolutions with AA ) but the 5850 uses a 256Mb memory bus. The 5770 is nowhere near the performance of a 5850

If it were me i would also seriously consider getting an Nvidia 460 if your mobo can SLI, performance wise its generally a bit slower however its a good bit cheaper so you could SLI later, heres a performance chart for Battlefield Bad Company 2 - http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-460-review/16

OmegaRed

Thanks mate. That's pretty detailed. So leaving the 2gig card out of scope, which of these would you recommend?

http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/rf/5850/772_665_103

If I'm honest, I'm not a fan of sli or xfire. I've had bad experience in the past. But I'll look into the 460 also!

Icyseanfitz

ya if i where you i would go the gtx 460 sli route if your motherboard supports it two of them should cost around €400 and they scale brilliantly (80%-90%) in sli, if i remember correctly two of them are a little bit faster than a gtx 480, if you have to go with ati buy a 1 gig 5870 as they are also great cards

Landoflemon

As your just looking for people with experience with these cards, I have a 5850 toxic, and I think it's fabulous! As somebody previously pointed out, the non reference 5850 cannot be overvolted so the increased cooling capability is of no benefit, but I disagree. Even if the card is not overvolted or overclocked further from its factory OC, the added effeciency of the cooling solution on these cards might prolong the life of the graphics card, which I think was worth the extra money at the time I bought mine.

Also, as the 5850 is part of the 5800 series cards, if you were ever convinced in the future to go crossfire, any of the 5800 series cards can be paired together.

This card blasts through all the games I run it on.

OmegaRed

Thanks for the advice guys. I'm really not feeling the nvidia thing at the moment. I've been pretty happy with ATI the last number of years.

Based on the above/google and price restrictions I think I am going to go for this:
http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/5122252/art/sapphire-technology/radeon-hd-5850-1-gb-gddr5.html

or This:

http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/5002990/art/sapphire-technology/radeon-hd-5850-vapor-x-1.html

Which would you pick?

newirishshogun

Landoflemon wrote: »

As your just looking for people with experience with these cards, I have a 5850 toxic, and I think it's fabulous! .

Just bought one of these, due Monday, have you run eyefinity on it, triple monitor setup?

lmimmfn

Landoflemon wrote: »

As somebody previously pointed out, the non reference 5850 cannot be overvolted so the increased cooling capability is of no benefit, but I disagree. Even if the card is not overvolted or overclocked further from its factory OC, the added effeciency of the cooling solution on these cards might prolong the life of the graphics card, which I think was worth the extra money at the time I bought mine.

nah, i agree, if you want good cooling then its the biz, my points were specifically aimed at power( for gpu's i always put price/performance first as long as its a cool series of cards, which the 5850 is, id consider a toxic version of Fermie though if getting one as theyre mega toasty OC'd ), i.e. a reference card with the toxic cooling would be pure win, my 5850 on full fan when ive it overclocked to e.g. 950/1150 is a leaf blower lol( but seeing as my cpu is OC'd and generates lots of heat and i have an 8800GT in it too for Physx, its not that loud )

OmegaRed wrote: »

Thanks for the advice guys. I'm really not feeling the nvidia thing at the moment. I've been pretty happy with ATI the last number of years.

Based on the above/google and price restrictions I think I am going to go for this:
http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/5122252/art/sapphire-technology/radeon-hd-5850-1-gb-gddr5.html

or This:

http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/5002990/art/sapphire-technology/radeon-hd-5850-vapor-x-1.html

Which would you pick?

If it were me i would go for the cheaper one and overclock it, the stock fan will be good enough for any overclock you can get out of it, and its definately not going to be anywhere near as loud as that 4870x2. I would actually go for the Toxic HD over the Vapour( theyre the same price - http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/4845324/art/sapphire-technology/radeon-toxic-hd-5850-1-gb.html#tech-specs ) if you take that path, the toxic has a better cooler and bettoer out of the box OC, these are the overclock settings
Toxic: 765/1125
Vapour-X: 735/1050
Stock 5850: 725/1000
To

Landoflemon

A positive point for the toxic version is that as far as I know overclocking of any kind voids the warranty on the cards, but since it comes factory overclocked you have the safety of being able to return it under the warranty and you have a 5850 with better performance than a standard one.

That's just if you'd like to play things safe anyway.

Landoflemon

newirishshogun wrote: »

Just bought one of these, due Monday, have you run eyefinity on it, triple monitor setup?

I have as of today got 3 20" 1680 x 1050 monitors, but they are all DVI ported monitors, you need to use the mini display port adapter on the card for eyefinity. I think I will just be getting a mini display port to DVI adapter.

lmimmfn

^lucky b**tard :P. ive eyefinity with 2x19" screens and 1 22" screen. I think its gonna struggle at that native res, mine copes well with my gaming resolution of 3840x1024, i have to reduce settings though( textures due to vram limit ), but im thinking 3x24" screens but for that i know i will need to Crossfire

newirishshogun wrote: »

Just bought one of these, due Monday, have you run eyefinity on it, triple monitor setup?

like ^^ says you need an active adapter, im running one with 3 screens and its fantastic, but you can do it with any 2 cards( DX9 only ) using SoftTH - heres my old setup doing 3 screens with an Nvidia 260 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zlp0-pbijjM

Landoflemon

Just Watched your video, GRID looks great on that setup. When you mention vram, do you mean the card itself doesnt have enough memory, or is it a problem elsewhere in your system, with the amount of ram on your motherboard?

lmimmfn

Landoflemon wrote: »

Just Watched your video, GRID looks great on that setup. When you mention vram, do you mean the card itself doesnt have enough memory, or is it a problem elsewhere in your system, with the amount of ram on your motherboard?

cheers, man have to say its the best investment i ever made to tripple screen( had a 19" for the office bought another for 70 euro second hand and picked up an 8800GT to drive the third screen for 50euro, its only used for Nvidia physx now that i have eyefinity setup )
I mean the 5850 doesnt have enough vram to handle AA with high resolution textures in games due to the much higher resolution( im running i7 920@4 Ghz bte, actually 3.8Ghz now in the summer as its a bit too toasty ), this only happens with extreme games. Ive a tonne of games and the only ones i need to reduce are:
Crysis + Crysis Warhead, on Gamer settings with no AA i get approx 35FPS, used to be able to play it on Enthusiast with just my 22"
Bad Company 2( i need 60FPS+ so textures are on medium ),
GTA IV( and liberty city stories ) - cant have the same view distance, everything else maxed out though,
Metro 2033 - well thats a hog of a game like Crysis, the following work maxed though( from my collection )
Lost Planet
Devil May Cry
Wings Of Prey
Grid
Dirt 2
Mirrors Edge
Batman AA( needs manual Unreal 3 file modification for correct aspect ratio though )
Just Cause 2

tbh you'll play games and realise how $hit they were beforehand and youll just want to up your gfx card to handle it. My dilemma at the moment is ive no cash( as i just bought a gaff lol ), have our first kid on the way in 2 and a half months. I want 3 1080p screens though but i want that Samsung eyefinity setup, its 2K, but the individual screens are mega nevermind x3

Landoflemon

Thanks for your detailed reply, I'd my i7 860 at 4.2 Ghz, did all my benchmarking at that and have put it back to stock clocks now as the temperatures just started getting too high when I was encoding videos.

Do you notice yourself that having a card dedicated to physX makes a difference with your frame rates? Congratulations on the kid, hopefully for you their first letter to Santa will be asking for 3 x 1080p Samsung screens!! That price of 2 grand you quoted is steep. Do those screens have a higher refresh rate than 60Hz? Like are they the 120Hz type TV's used for 3D gaming with shutter glasses?

In an attempt to remind the OP that we have not hijacked this post, regarding his original questions on the 5850, I have to say that I quite like the aesthetic appeal of the plastic case on the toxic version! I always think it's a pity that the cards have to go in such that when you look at them all you see is an ugly PCB!

lmimmfn

Landoflemon wrote: »

Thanks for your detailed reply, I'd my i7 860 at 4.2 Ghz, did all my benchmarking at that and have put it back to stock clocks now as the temperatures just started getting too high when I was encoding videos.

Do you notice yourself that having a card dedicated to physX makes a difference with your frame rates? Congratulations on the kid, hopefully for you their first letter to Santa will be asking for 3 x 1080p Samsung screens!! That price of 2 grand you quoted is steep. Do those screens have a higher refresh rate than 60Hz? Like are they the 120Hz type TV's used for 3D gaming with shutter glasses?

In an attempt to remind the OP that we have not hijacked this post, regarding his original questions on the 5850, I have to say that I quite like the aesthetic appeal of the plastic case on the toxic version! I always think it's a pity that the cards have to go in such that when you look at them all you see is an ugly PCB!

no probs dude, the more info the better in all cases
You'll probably need that 860 OC'd to drive 3 screens, i do think if you run all your screens at native youre 5850 wont be able to handle it without going medium settings, however eyefinity supports lower resolutions so you shoud be fine with that.

Thanks on the kid, thats the end of my gaming lol, on the price of the Samsung screen(s), theyre PVA screens, so theyre not doing the con, theyre expensive screens anyway and the tripple screen mount with tiny bevels looks the bomb. Its what i aspire to getting lol, but seeing as i use my home PC for software dev. for work i think it would actually be a good investment. I hate using lower res screens for coding now im used to a 1920x1080 screen at work, we'll see, might just pickup 2 second hand 22's on cheapo and go for a reference 5850 to drive them

On the card for Physx, its completely dependent on whether you like the games that take advantage of it, Batman AA looks much better, Metro 2033 runs like $hit without it, Mafia 2 demo is cool with it, Mirrors Edge i dont notice the difference really, if you dont like those games its not worth it, however i like to play with things so for 50euro for an 8800GT second hand for me it was worth it. I like to max every game i can so Physx is worth it in that respect, its a bit gimmicky though.

Icyseanfitz

i dont think the cpu will really matter too much when trying to do a multi screen setup its mostly the GPU you pick and whether you go ati or nvidia unless you intend to do a lot of video editing or 3d rendering stuff i mean im buying a AMD phenom x4 965 3.4 GHZ three 24 inch 1080p screens (but i have to buy that dell active displayport adapter for one of them) but the thing i am spending most of my money on is the gpu which is a ati hd 5970 which is the most important bit for a multi screen setup, it all depends on what you will be using your pc for but the general rule of thumb is AMD for gaming Intel for everything else with gaming

lmimmfn

Icyseanfitz wrote: »

but the general rule of thumb is AMD for gaming Intel for everything else with gaming

er what? Intel performs better with gaming than AMD even moreso when running Crossfire or SLI

Overheal

lmimmfn wrote: »

er what? Intel performs better with gaming than AMD even moreso when running Crossfire or SLI

I think you're both wrong: Brand Shmand. don't judge a core by it's cover.

Now, when that core's been covered by a brand thats up to its knees in anti-trust investigations, take heed. But, you shouldn't really knock an i7 because it's Intel nor knock an X6 because it's AMD. I will tell you right now though the bottleneck in my machine is not a Hexacore Processor.

lmimmfn

Overheal wrote: »

I think you're both wrong: Brand Shmand. don't judge a core by it's cover.

Now, when that core's been covered by a brand thats up to its knees in anti-trust investigations, take heed. But, you shouldn't really knock an i7 because it's Intel nor knock an X6 because it's AMD. I will tell you right now though the bottleneck in my machine is not a Hexacore Processor.

im no brand loyalist, always bang for buck with me, X6 hexacores are great( they werent out 17 months ago when i built my current rig ).

As for the performance, its very close, but i7 still beats the x6 - http://www.anandtech.com/show/3674/amds-sixcore-phenom-ii-x6-1090t-1055t-reviewed/9

Overheal

i7s are on the bleeding edge alright and now they've unveiled the i7 hexacore, but at 4 times the asking price, the Phenom II X6 still represents best value, imo.

Icyseanfitz

lmimmfn wrote: »

er what? Intel performs better with gaming than AMD even moreso when running Crossfire or SLI

dont get me wrong im not saying AMD is better than intel its just that they generally have better pricing for their CPU's and if all your looking at is gaming then your better going with AMD (seeing as most games are not really cpu intensive more so GPU intensive), all im saying is there really isnt a need in the gaming side of things for all the power an i7 can give

lmimmfn

Icyseanfitz wrote: »

dont get me wrong im not saying AMD is better than intel its just that they generally have better pricing for their CPU's and if all your looking at is gaming then your better going with AMD (seeing as most games are not really cpu intensive more so GPU intensive), all im saying is there really isnt a need in the gaming side of things for all the power an i7 can give

Ah yeah, i agree with that completely , AMDs are far better value at the moment expecially with the X6

Overheal wrote: »

i7s are on the bleeding edge alright and now they've unveiled the i7 hexacore, but at 4 times the asking price, the Phenom II X6 still represents best value, imo.

Again i agree completely with that too, my point really was just on performance rather than bang for buck