5850 really worth waiting for?

Ah hamburgers. I checked Newegg this afternoon and saw the ASUS ones in stock and thought I was in business. No such luck.

I've decided that, since the only games I'll be playing for the next month or two are Fallout 3 and COD 4, I'll get a 9800 GTX+ for $100 ($129 sale price w/ $30 rebate), which is capable of playing both of those games with max settings at my monitor's resolution at 60+ FPS. Then early next year I'll reassess the 5850 situation.

I took about 5 years off from gaming, so I missed out on some great games that I need to get caught up on. All of the HL2 expansions, COD 4, Fallout 3, etc. It's gonna take me a while to play through this stuff and be ready for Modern Warfare 2, which is what the 5850 would be for.

So I'm fine riding out this whole shortage issue, which is giving me stress. Waiting sucks for me because I just have a 9400GT, meaning I can't play anything made in the last 2 or 3 years with any detail.

That's all I have to say about that.
 
amen to being slight behind the game release curve, and keeping the gaming fun, and on a budget. I have been trying to do this for a while now, purposely lagging behind. that being said, there's still games that (when released) I cannot pass up.
 
RevMen said:
Ah hamburgers. I checked Newegg this afternoon and saw the ASUS ones in stock and thought I was in business. No such luck.

I've decided that, since the only games I'll be playing for the next month or two are Fallout 3 and COD 4, I'll get a 9800 GTX+ for $100 ($129 sale price w/ $30 rebate), which is capable of playing both of those games with max settings at my monitor's resolution at 60+ FPS. Then early next year I'll reassess the 5850 situation.

I took about 5 years off from gaming, so I missed out on some great games that I need to get caught up on. All of the HL2 expansions, COD 4, Fallout 3, etc. It's gonna take me a while to play through this stuff and be ready for Modern Warfare 2, which is what the 5850 would be for.

So I'm fine riding out this whole shortage issue, which is giving me stress. Waiting sucks for me because I just have a 9400GT, meaning I can't play anything made in the last 2 or 3 years with any detail.

That's all I have to say about that.
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Don't do it man! Get a 5770 at the very least! You'll at least be able to cross fire it when games start to bog it down. A 9800GTX+ though better than your 9400, isn't going to give you the upgrade thrills you're looking for! 5850 rocks all current game titles (even crysis, but not on enthusias settingst). I went from an 8800GT and the difference is night and day.
 
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I actually picked up the 9800GTX+ on my way home last night at Best Buy. The 9400GT isn't even comparable in any way.

The 5770 would be like $160. Definitely a stronger card than the 9800GTX+ but my long term plan is to get a HD5850 or HD5870 in 2 or 3 months. I realize I'll lose some bucks selling my 9800GTX+ and replacing it with the HD5850/5870, but maybe prices on those cards will be down a little next year to help make up the difference.

So for $100 right now I can play the games I'm playing at max settings at my monitor's max resolution and refresh rate. No reason to buy more card than I need if I'm planning on switching it out anyway. I literally chose the 9800GTX+ by looking at benchmark reports showing FPS in Fallout 3 for various cards. I picked it because it gave me exactly enough performance.
 
OK guys, I need a hand here...

Are these scores normal for a stock 5850?

3DMark06: 17243 3DMarks
3DMark Vantage: P11666 3DMarks

Q9550 @ 3,4GHz
8GB DDR2-800
Crucial M225 128GB
Sapphire HD 5850
Windows 7 x64
Catalyst 9.11 beta (FYI the official 9.10 gave similar results)

Because I don't know what is going on, I feel it's not performing up to par, case in point, I get worse performance in GTA 4's benchmark than with my old 4870, I got a meager 10fps improvement in CS:S Stress Test vs my old 4870, etc.
 
Raudulfr said:
OK guys, I need a hand here...

Are these scores normal for a stock 5850?

3DMark06: 17243 3DMarks
3DMark Vantage: P11666 3DMarks

Q9550 @ 3,4GHz
8GB DDR2-800
Crucial M225 128GB
Sapphire HD 5850
Windows 7 x64
Catalyst 9.11 beta (FYI the official 9.10 gave similar results)

Because I don't know what is going on, I feel it's not performing up to par, case in point, I get worse performance in GTA 4's benchmark than with my old 4870, I got a meager 10fps improvement in CS:S Stress Test vs my old 4870, etc.
Click to expand...
Looks pretty normal to me. If you are still getting wierd fps issues in games, try taking out 6 gigs of ram and runs tests again with each stick indivually. When i installed my 5850, i noticed i got lag in some games too. Problem went away after i bumped up the voltage to my ram.
 
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