Another 5850, or a 5830 for CF?

S

stateofjermaine

[H]ard|Gawd
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Just picked up Brink, DiRT 3, Crysis 2, and will probably try out Metro; getting a little taste for gaming again. ;)

But I was surprised when I noticed I can't completely max out Brink or DiRT on a 24", without playing in windowed and dropping the res (looking for 60+ FPS). So, hehe, of course we can't have that! I considered initially just grabbing a used 5850, and riding on CF for a while until my next rig in a few years. But I'm hearing through the grapevine (been out of the loop), that this bitcoin/bitmining business is driving 5000 prices up. So, I'm wondering if I should shoot for a 5830, and deal with the minor performance difference.

Also, what exactly is bitmining, if anyone wouldn't mind sharing?
 
Bitmining is like folding except people use 58xx cards and get money instead of curing cancer.

The 5830 is a very lame card. It is pretty crippled. You have 1440 shaders now. Going to a 5830 would limit your existing card to 1152, and then you'd gain 1152, but you will have to take a scaling hit on it, and on your RAM.

Imo, the best thing to do is ride the bitcoin craze and sell your 5850 immediately. Three months ago, prices were below 150, and now they're significantly higher. With the money you get from the sale and the money you had set aside for a 5830, you could get crossfire 6870s and stomp your old setup.
 
TheQuestian said:
Hmm, you make a very persuasive argument. What do you think I could get for my 5850?
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Not sure. Check the fs section and ebay completed listings. Id hurry, tho, before the bitcoin fad is over and everyone tries to unload their 58xx cards and the prices drop.
 
Heh, I guess alternatively, I could slow down and wait for the big 58XX dump of 2011, and pick up the second 5850 for cheap. Hmm.
 
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Looking at the bench results, it looks like I might be better off keeping my 5850, and trying to scoop another one up somewhere for $200 or so. All the hoops I'd have to jump through to get two 6870's would not be worth the performance difference. 6870 CF = Amazing. 5850 CF = Amazing.

Heh, but at least I feel comfortable disregarding the 5830, for now.
 
If you're going to spend $200, then spend $250 and get a 6950 and sell your 5850 for $200. If you game a 6950 is great and they overclock really well too.
 
Hmm. Why a 6950? Sure, it's a nice card, but it seems to be cut from the same cloth as a 5870. And all I would be doing is paying less for much less performance? CF 5850's vs. single 5970 . . . there's really no comparison. Maybe I'm not understanding?
 
extide said:
If you're going to spend $200, then spend $250 and get a 6950 and sell your 5850 for $200. If you game a 6950 is great and they overclock really well too.
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Are the 5850's really worth $200 now? I have a reference XFX 5850 that I may be selling.
 
They're going for about that. I won't be able to afford one, yet, but I'm sure you could get that price for one.
 
TheQuestian said:
They're going for about that. I won't be able to afford one, yet, but I'm sure you could get that price for one.
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I disagree. He won't sell it at $200 on here. Look around and you'll see those that are selling are less than 200
 
Sell the 5850 for ~200 and pick up a couple 6870s for ~350. The 68xx series performs better in crossfire then the 58xx series and the 6870 is a touch more powerful than the 5850 to begin with. The 6870s in CF will perform similiar to a 580 or better on some games.
 
celwin said:
I disagree. He won't sell it at $200 on here. Look around and you'll see those that are selling are less than 200
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Oh, I didn't expect him to sell it for that on these boards. But look on ebay, recently ended, and the price is ranging from $190 - $250.
 
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TheQuestian said:
Just picked up Brink, DiRT 3, Crysis 2, and will probably try out Metro; getting a little taste for gaming again. ;)

But I was surprised when I noticed I can't completely max out Brink or DiRT on a 24", without playing in windowed and dropping the res (looking for 60+ FPS). So, hehe, of course we can't have that! I considered initially just grabbing a used 5850, and riding on CF for a while until my next rig in a few years. But I'm hearing through the grapevine (been out of the loop), that this bitcoin/bitmining business is driving 5000 prices up. So, I'm wondering if I should shoot for a 5830, and deal with the minor performance difference.

Also, what exactly is bitmining, if anyone wouldn't mind sharing?
Click to expand...

Going crossfire with 5850 or 6870 wont improve your gaming experience. A crossfire setup needs much a higher frame rate than a single card to maintain a smooth gameplay so in the end, it is not worth the extra money. Try to overclock your 5850 to 850/ 1200 or above. At that clock the performance is almost the same as a 5870 or 6950. Going from 5800 series to 6800 or 6900 series is barely an upgrade. Wait for the next gen cards at 28nm.

If you cannot get 60fps with Dirt at 1920x1200 try dropping to dx9 or reducing the reflection to high from ultra for large fps gain without noticeable image quality loss. What is the rest of your system?
 
TheQuestian said:
Hmm. Why a 6950? Sure, it's a nice card, but it seems to be cut from the same cloth as a 5870. And all I would be doing is paying less for much less performance? CF 5850's vs. single 5970 . . . there's really no comparison. Maybe I'm not understanding?
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What exactly do you mean by "it seems to be cut from the same cloth as a 5870" in regard to the 6950? A 6950 will give you more performance than that 5850 will.

I upgraded from a 5850 to a 2GB 6950 ( the ASUS Eyefinity 6 w/ the triple slot cooler ) instead of adding another 5850 for Crossfire 5 months ago and the performance increase was much more than I was expecting ( @ stock ). I then went from my single 1920x1200 monitor to three 23" 1920x1080 screens ( Dell U2311Hs, got em on sale ) for Eyefinity and I'm pretty happy with it. I can't guarantee 60 FPS minimum in everything but the tradeoffs have been good enough for the added experience.
 
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IAMEVIL said:
Going crossfire with 5850 or 6870 wont improve your gaming experience. A crossfire setup needs much a higher frame rate than a single card to maintain a smooth gameplay so in the end, it is not worth the extra money. Try to overclock your 5850 to 850/ 1200 or above. At that clock the performance is almost the same as a 5870 or 6950. Going from 5800 series to 6800 or 6900 series is barely an upgrade. Wait for the next gen cards at 28nm.
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Seems like I hear anecdotal evidence from both sides (for and against CF 5850's). My system is posted in my sig, and I built it probably two years ago. In those two years, I have heard and read a lot of good things about 5850 CF performance. My card is currently running at 900/1200, so there's not much more I can eek out, I don't think.

If you cannot get 60fps with Dirt at 1920x1200 try dropping to dx9 or reducing the reflection to high from ultra for large fps gain without noticeable image quality loss.
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I love DX11, and I'm not really out to defeat the purpose of running a 5800 series card. I would agree that upgrading to a 6800 or 6900 single card would probably not meet my expectations, but that was never really what I was proposing! :D
 
Bbq said:
Sell your 5850

Use money to buy 6950

Free upgrade.
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Too much hassle. I thought about it, but I'd be dealing with a minimum two week turn-around in which I would have no card and thus no PC (no integrated GPU). The time it would take to sell it, along with the time it would take get another card really diminishes the value of the upgrade, from my perspective. A 6950 just doesn't compete in my mind with CF 5850's. The reviews seem to echo this sentiment.
 
Pooky said:
What exactly do you mean by "it seems to be cut from the same cloth as a 5870" in regard to the 6950? A 6950 will give you more performance than that 5850 will.
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I mean that it seems to be a performer along the lines of an overclocked 5870. Certainly it would be an upgrade from my 5850—technically—but my expectation are very high, and I just don't see how it makes more sense than a $200 5970-level upgrade (essentially).

I upgraded from a 5850 to a 2GB 6950 (the ASUS Eyefinity 6 w/the triple slot cooler) instead of adding another 5850 for Crossfire 5 months ago and the performance increase was much more than I was expecting (@ stock). I then went from my single 1920x1200 monitor to three 23" 1920x1080 screens (Dell U2311Hs, got em on sale) for Eyefinity and I'm pretty happy with it. I can't guarantee 60 FPS minimum in everything but the tradeoffs have been good enough for the added experience.
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Glad you're enjoying it! I think it's just a matter of different strokes, tho. I'd love an Eyefinity setup, but I know I won't do it until I can afford to REALLY do it, with very high-end graphics and high settings.

Thanks for all the input!
 
TheQuestian said:
Too much hassle. I thought about it, but I'd be dealing with a minimum two week turn-around in which I would have no card and thus no PC (no integrated GPU). The time it would take to sell it, along with the time it would take get another card really diminishes the value of the upgrade, from my perspective. A 6950 just doesn't compete in my mind with CF 5850's. The reviews seem to echo this sentiment.
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A single 5850 costs as much as a 6950.
 
BababooeyHTJ said:
A single 5850 costs as much as a 6950.
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Mostly true, though I think you may be missing the point. While I hate the fact that 5850's are overpriced at the moment and a pair of 6950's would decently outperform them, the fact is that it's still not worth it to me to put my 5850 up for sale—wait—buy two 6950's—wait—and then enjoy gaming at 90+ FPS instead of 70+ FPS at max settings.

Sure, I will upgrade my whole system one day, and then it will be all out war on the newest GPU's, but for now I just have to admit that simply adding a 5850 is the simplest, most painless upgrade path.
 
TheQuestian said:
Seems like I hear anecdotal evidence from both sides (for and against CF 5850's). My system is posted in my sig, and I built it probably two years ago. In those two years, I have heard and read a lot of good things about 5850 CF performance. My card is currently running at 900/1200, so there's not much more I can eek out, I don't think.


I love DX11, and I'm not really out to defeat the purpose of running a 5800 series card. I would agree that upgrading to a 6800 or 6900 single card would probably not meet my expectations, but that was never really what I was proposing! :D
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The good things you hear about CF are mostly related to pure benchmark performance. Since a single 5850 can run most games without problem, 5850CF should have no problem as well. The problem with CF is the way AFR works. 2 frames arrive almost at the same time followed by a long pause before another 2 frames. This makes the gaps between frames are not much smaller than with a single card. At the same fps the gaps are actually larger making it visually more choppy. In the end it always better upgrading to a faster single card than CF 2 weaker cards
 
IAMEVIL said:
The good things you hear about CF are mostly related to pure benchmark performance. Since a single 5850 can run most games without problem, 5850CF should have no problem as well. The problem with CF is the way AFR works. 2 frames arrive almost at the same time followed by a long pause before another 2 frames. This makes the gaps between frames are not much smaller than with a single card. At the same fps the gaps are actually larger making it visually more choppy. In the end it always better upgrading to a faster single card than CF 2 weaker cards
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Now, that post has finally bumped my head hard enough for me to pay attention. Well said. IF what you say is true, then maybe a CF 5850 setup would be a real disappointment. Sigh. Well, maybe I'm back to the drawing board, with a card to sell, and a $400 decision to make. Am I crazy enough to be considering a used GTX 580?
 
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I have or had CX5850 and it was a pretty nice punch for sure.. but i am switching to a 6950 2Gb as an upgrade for Eyefinity as the only weak spot of the CX5850 was the 1Gb ram as i need more at 5760 x 1080

here is a Vantage run for you with the CX5850 and the i7 930 was clock at 3.2Ghz...

http://3dmark.com/3dmv/2594643
 
fanboy said:
I have or had CX5850 and it was a pretty nice punch for sure.. but i am switching to a 6950 2Gb as an upgrade for Eyefinity as the only weak spot of the CX5850 was the 1Gb ram as i need more at 5760 x 1080

here is a Vantage run for you with the CX5850 and the i7 930 was clock at 3.2Ghz...

http://3dmark.com/3dmv/2594643
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Thanks for the input! Yes, the benchmarks are always nice, but what was your experience with "microstutter" or any other oddities while you were gaming?
 
TheQuestian said:
Now, that post has finally bumped my head hard enough for me to pay attention. Well said. IF what you say is true, then maybe a CF 5850 setup would be a real disappointment. Sigh. Well, maybe I'm back to the drawing board, with a card to sell, and a $400 decision to make. Am I crazy enough to be considering a used GTX 580?
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Yes if you search the internet enough, you will come across posts where user upgrade from 2 weaker cards to a single more powerful card and the gameplay experience is always better. Not to mention all those threads about CF not scaling, wild swings in fps, negative scaling, flickering, disabling one card to make a game play better.....they affect 6000 series as much as 5000 series.
A gtx580 will be a nice upgrade but not worth it considering we are close to the 7000 series launch. Btw your 5850 at 900/ 1200 will should already outperform a 6870 and a stock 6950 in games (without heavy tessellation). If it is a reference card, try give it a voltage bump to see if it clocks to 1ghz.
 
the only thing about my CX5850 setup that gave me any issue was trying to run higher settings in BC 2 in Eyefinity.. I never noticed microstutter as my Evga x58 board was full x16/x16 and i ran both ribbons on the cards.. I played alot of iRacing Sims and it wouldn't take long to see the stutter if you had it with 20 cars around you at 190Mph and Tally or Daytona..
 
I'll trade you my 5850 for a 6950, that way you can crossfire the 5850's.
 
Haha, Zepher, you should have asked me two hours ago! I appreciate the offer, but I'm pretty sure I want to go with a single card solution, now. :eek:
 
IAMEVIL said:
Going crossfire with 5850 or 6870 wont improve your gaming experience. A crossfire setup needs much a higher frame rate than a single card to maintain a smooth gameplay so in the end, it is not worth the extra money. Try to overclock your 5850 to 850/ 1200 or above. At that clock the performance is almost the same as a 5870 or 6950. Going from 5800 series to 6800 or 6900 series is barely an upgrade. Wait for the next gen cards at 28nm...
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While it's true it may not improve the experience in all games, it most certainly does make a difference.

If your cpu can feed enough info to the cards (crossfire requires more cpu speed than a single card to feed the data through) and there is no driver issue it will improve most gaming situations alot, especially with how good scaling between 2 cards is now-adays. (ati said there were no specific crossfire changes between 5xxx and 6xxx but the 6xxx series scales better for some reason).
 
Fair enough. I think I just went the safe route because I know I would be the guy who notices microstutter and can't freaking carry on because of it. Besides, I think for $275 (minus what I got for the 5850), I am getting an incredible level of performance.
 
Ok this one is easy.

1. Buy a 6850 and use it while your selling the 5850.
2. sell the 5850
3. buy a second 6850
4. enjoy crossfire 5850 performance with dual 6850's

Yes, 2 6850's will about = 2 5850's. Plus they use less power and will overclock rather nicely.
The best part is , the xfx 6850 is going for 140$ AR and a free copy of dirt 3..
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...4150505&cm_re=6850_1gb-_-14-150-505-_-Product

bfbc2_1920_1200.gif
 
Heh, thanks. Pretty easy. o_o

But really, I already decided not to go CF and got a GTX 570 for (effectively) $100. So, I'm good. :D
 
TheQuestian said:
Fair enough. I think I just went the safe route because I know I would be the guy who notices microstutter and can't freaking carry on because of it. Besides, I think for $275 (minus what I got for the 5850), I am getting an incredible level of performance.
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Definately, i don't think there was anyway you could have gone wrong because it would have been fast either way.

As for microstutter(MS) i've never personally noticed it, probably what's considered to be MS with these new cards doesn't affect me at all. (sure it has improved substantially now compared to when people first noticed it)

I do have an issue with screen-tearing when i have v-sync off, as i just can't stand the look/feel of games with it - not a dual card issue though. Tbh maybe it was a certain setup people had that caused the MS to be more pronounced than usual and maybe some people still get it.

I have used dual cards on many diff setups amd & intel mainly since HD4xxx series and have never experienced anything close to what MS has been described as, even when i had 7900gt sli. I have encountered normal stuttering but that's just cause some games hate 5760 x 1080 res ;)
 
TheQuestian said:
Mostly true, though I think you may be missing the point. While I hate the fact that 5850's are overpriced at the moment and a pair of 6950's would decently outperform them, the fact is that it's still not worth it to me to put my 5850 up for sale—wait—buy two 6950's—wait—and then enjoy gaming at 90+ FPS instead of 70+ FPS at max settings.

Sure, I will upgrade my whole system one day, and then it will be all out war on the newest GPU's, but for now I just have to admit that simply adding a 5850 is the simplest, most painless upgrade path.
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or you could buy a 6950 for the price that you are willing to pay for your 5850 and when the new card gets here list the 5850 for sale and buy another 6950 or be happy with your free upgrade.

TheQuestian said:
Ended up selling my 5850, and getting a great deal on an EVGA GTX 570 for $275. Man, I'm pumped.
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Good choice
 
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