XFX Radeon HD 7850 1GB Core Edition

If you are in the market for a sub-$200 video card, the crew at Legit Reviews says the XFX Radeon HD 7850 1GB Core Edition is a smart choice. Here's a quote from the review:

When it comes to gaming performance the XFX Radeon HD 7850 1GB Core Edition did better than expected with a screen resolution of 1920x1080! We were able to easily play all the current game titles at 1080p with the image quality settings cranked up! There were a few game titles like Skyrim where we felt a minor hiccup here or there when the frame buffer would fill up, but they were few and far between. If you are looking to save a few bucks and don't plan on playing beyond 1920x1080 then the XFX R7850 1GB Core Edition should be something to consider.

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Sub $200 for GTX 580ish performance.

Let the haters hate

Wish this card had a better fan setup because it is surprising what the 7850 can do, even with half the vram

Woulda been helpful to include a 2gig 7850 for comparison. I've been considering one to replace my 570.

Can't say I would go for 1 gb any more. Even at lower resolutions, some games can come quite close, especially modded.

The advantage of the Core Edition is the shortened PCB. I heard the cooling on the non-DD XFX is not very good because of relatively few fins in the heatsink. For OCing, the DD cooler is definitely necessary if going with XFX.

There is a review somewhere, Techpowerup I think, on the Club3D 1gb 7850 and the difference versus the 2gb is nearly non-existent. It'd be nice to see a graph over time instead of just the peak or average rates, of course...

I'd be wary of getting a 1GB card at this stage of the game, especially for 1080p. There are a lot of sandbox or other graphically intensive games on the horizon that will make short work of 1GB.

I think that gamers such as myself who are still rocking a 1440x900 monitor should probably consider this card. Yeah, the new games on the horizon will probably demand more VRAM, but damn - at $160 what's not to like about this card?

Edit: Guess the fan sucks, oh well.

I've been spoiled by [H] reviews. I'm tired of see blind application of MSAA instead of using FXAA when it makes sense on other sites. Also, we have only 1280x1024 and 1080p resolutions. Kind of shocking that after a few years nobody has bothered to step up to the standard being set here.

With regards to the actual card, in the end a new 1 GB card today is walking a fine line where as soon as the new console generation hits this thing is going to be hurt trying to play the inevitable console ports at 1080p. It might make a good HTPC/ gaming card since you will be far enough away from the computer and screen to not notice fan noise and whatever tradeoffs that frame buffer is going to impose going forward.