Is 5870 $100 better than 5850?

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piratepress

[H]ard|Gawd
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I'm considering getting a 5870 or 5850 to replace my GTX 260. I've looked but couldn't find any benchmarks on whether the 5870 is $100+ better than a 5850, particularly if I overclock the 5850. I'm not so much worried about price as getting the best bang for the buck. Thanks for any help!
 
Honestly, monitor size will be the best determination of that answer. If you have a 26-30" monitor, then yes, the 5870 will be worth the extra 100 bucks. Granted, I have a pair of 5870's on only a 25" monitor, but I'm thinking that my good fortune right now may not continue throughout the year into next. Taking that into account, I wanted to build a rig with a moderate chance of being able to hold it's own for a 2 year money drought should it happen.

If your in the same kind of thinking I am, about at least wanting to be able to get 2 years out of it, the 5870 might also be worth the extra 100 bucks in that scenario as well. If you plan on upgrading GPU again within a year or so though, no, it may not be worth the extra 100 bucks.
 
It depends on how much performance you want. If you need bleeding edge, get the 5870. But the 5850 is plenty fast and handily beats the gtx 285. So it's probably a better value price for performance-wise.
 
Thanks, I have a 22" LCD with a max res of 1680x1050. Truth be told, in the past ten years I've only owned one ATI card (a 9800 Pro in 2003) and I was terribly unhappy with it. The only reason I'm considering ATI now is because I want to play Dirt 2 in full DX11 glory in December and nVidia is nowhere to be found.
 
Yeah at 1680x1050 a 5850 should do you just fine. Dirt 2 is gonna be awesome, it's a throw in game with most raden 5800 series cards. Check out the details before you order. :)
 
I think it would also come down to if you are going to go with eyefinity later on.

I would think that if you are running 3 monitors, you are going to need all the graphics horsepower you can get. When you also add in the fact that eyefinity doesn't yet work with crossfire, you are really going to need the most powerful single-card you can get if you go that route.

Another possible consideration is that the 5870 is an inch or so longer than the 5850. That really makes it a beast of a card that might even have issues fitting in many cases.
 
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GotNoRice said:
Another possible consideration is that the 5870 is an inch or so longer than the 5850. That really makes it a beast of a card that might even have issues fitting in many cases.
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Without trying to sound like I'm trying to play off of your words, this is a big issue. The 5870 is indeed a sizable card and even my Antec Twelve Hundred finds the cards blocking drive bays. Anything of a smaller case and the cards would be IN the drive bays!
 
piratepress said:
Thanks, I have a 22" LCD with a max res of 1680x1050. Truth be told, in the past ten years I've only owned one ATI card (a 9800 Pro in 2003) and I was terribly unhappy with it. The only reason I'm considering ATI now is because I want to play Dirt 2 in full DX11 glory in December and nVidia is nowhere to be found.
Click to expand...

I'm in the same boat you are, The last card I bought was the ATI 9700 years ago cos at that time, nvidia didnt have anything good out. Fast foward to 2009. My 8800gts is flickering and I need a card and nvidia is no where to be found.

So yeah I bought the XFX 5870 last night at Fry's and i'm using it on a 20" 4:3 monitor running at 1280x1024.

My old pair of 22's both died in a outage. So this monitor is all I have for a couple months.
 
My 5850 just fits in my mid tower, a 5870 would have required a ton of case modding.

I also run at 16x10, the card is quite powerful. I do plan to run eyefinity though, and i'm ok with the fact that I might have to downgrade some of the visual options to run 3x1.

I'm also painfully aware that my processor is a bottleneck, so I need to work on an upgrade for that before I get a 2nd 5850.
 
moshpit said:
Without trying to sound like I'm trying to play off of your words, this is a big issue. The 5870 is indeed a sizable card and even my Antec Twelve Hundred finds the cards blocking drive bays. Anything of a smaller case and the cards would be IN the drive bays!
Click to expand...

Mosh is absolutely correct. I have an Antec 900 case and the end of the 5850 is almost at the edge at the drive bay. I think the 5870 is at 10.5 inches VS 9.5 for the 5850.

Is that right?
 
KraXed112 said:
I'm in the same boat you are, The last card I bought was the ATI 9700 years ago cos at that time, nvidia didnt have anything good out. Fast foward to 2009. My 8800gts is flickering and I need a card and nvidia is no where to be found.

So yeah I bought the XFX 5870 last night at Fry's and i'm using it on a 20" 4:3 monitor running at 1280x1024.

My old pair of 22's both died in a outage. So this monitor is all I have for a couple months.
Click to expand...


1280x1024 for a 5870? well for now is a little overkill, but well it may last you a lot of time , until effects exceed your card
 
I'm using a 5850 w/ my 2209WA and I've VERY happy. You will see a considerable jump in performance coming from the GTX260, w/ lower power consumption and less heat.

As a mater of fact, I just took the same upgrade path. I have plenty of room in HAF932 so I will probably add another in Crossfire once they become readily available and get back down to $250.
 
I'm going to be different and tell you this:

Think about what performance you want to last you until your next graphics card purchase. Not what performance you want now.
 
piratepress said:
Thanks, I have a 22" LCD with a max res of 1680x1050. Truth be told, in the past ten years I've only owned one ATI card (a 9800 Pro in 2003) and I was terribly unhappy with it. The only reason I'm considering ATI now is because I want to play Dirt 2 in full DX11 glory in December and nVidia is nowhere to be found.
Click to expand...

ATI has really stepped their game up. I temporarily picked up 4890 to replace GTX280, really happy with it!
 
joseardzm said:
1280x1024 for a 5870? well for now is a little overkill, but well it may last you a lot of time , until effects exceed your card
Click to expand...
A little overkill? He's CPU limited at that laptop resolution range. :D
 
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