Need advice. Which GPU to keep?

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Deleted member 96510

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I have two cards in my possession. A GTX460 768MB and a Radeon 5850. Which do I keep? I run a 19" monitor @ 1440x900.

Rest of rig if it matters:

Phenon II X2 560 unlocked to X4 (FX-8120 on the way)
Crosshair V
G.Skill Ripjaws X DDR3-1600 (DDR3-1866 on the wat)
Corsair C300 64GB OS
2x1TB Seagate 7200.11 Raid 0 Programs and Data
Corsair GS800

Soon to be watercooled and overclocked!
 
5850 is faster indeed. but i would sell it instead since they go for better prices and upgrade the gtx 460 when new gen comes out
 
Keep both of them just in case one of them die. Its always good to have a spare video card lying around for troubleshooting.
 
noid370 said:
Keep both of them just in case one of them die. Its always good to have a spare video card lying around for troubleshooting.
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This. It doesn't happen often but it is nice to have a backup in case your 5850 takes a dump on you. Both cards are more than capable of handling 1440x900 so you're covered either way.
 
5850 is faster, but the 460 gtx will have less driver issues with new games.

And this is coming from an ATI user
 
DASHlT said:
5850 is faster, but the 460 gtx will have less driver issues with new games.

And this is coming from an ATI user
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To be fair the vast majority of driver issues are with Crossfire which isn't going to be a problem here. What was the last major issue you had with a driver and a single card?
 
DASHlT said:
5850 is faster, but the 460 gtx will have less driver issues with new games.

And this is coming from an ATI user
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Also at his resolution he probably won't notice a speed difference between the 2. Sell the 5850, put the money towards a new monitor.
 
DASHlT said:
5850 is faster, but the 460 gtx will have less driver issues with new games.

And this is coming from an ATI user
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That said, the HD5850 will have less hardware issues with new games, so it's a toss up. I'd rather have software issues than hardware issues.

To be fair the vast majority of driver issues are with Crossfire which isn't going to be a problem here. What was the last major issue you had with a driver and a single card?
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As it happens I disagree here, I'd say most driver bugs affect all cards of that brand, not just multi-GPU. Normally multi-GPU issues are just a question of unsupported new titles and/or scaling.
 
samuelmorris said:
That said, the HD5850 will have less hardware issues with new games, so it's a toss up. I'd rather have software issues than hardware issues.


As it happens I disagree here, I'd say most driver bugs affect all cards of that brand, not just multi-GPU. Normally multi-GPU issues are just a question of unsupported new titles and/or scaling.
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Like what though? Give an example. I've been using AMD cards for a while and every game runs without a problem. The only issues I've had is no CF support or negative scaling in CF. If I turn off CF a single card has always worked fine for me.
 
The HD5 series enlarged cursor problem, replaced with the corrupted cursor problem, replaced with the screencorner bug problem, alongside the idle clock speed issues with multiple displays. All of these affected single cards as well as dual GPUs. All of them have since been fixed, but it's rare you encounter driver problems that only affect dual graphics outside of crossfire scaling.
 
I have had a 5850 for a couple years and have had no problems at all, I can't think of any game that didn't work right for me (maybe Heroes VI I guess). Only when I tried to CF it did I have problems.

5850's usually have a ton of overclocking headroom, if you can get it up 900mhz it won't be all that far behind a stock 560ti. Although I suspect a 560ti will overclock well too.
 
Do video cards usually crap out on a normal bassis? I still have a GTX 295 and, it hasn't "crapped out" on me for quite a long time. I also have a GTX 460, it's a solid performer. My other rig has a 4870 as well and it's been running for years now. Heck I'm still using a 8800 GTX in one of my other rigs, that one was the best money I ever spent on a video card. I also have a 5 year old radeon card in my work PC as well and it's still performing.

I would sell the radeon, keep the nvidia and wait for next gen tech to upgrade. Or you could try and sell both of them and buy yourself a better video card. I follow tomshardware hierarchy chart to figure out worthwhile upgrades.
 
Depends on the manufacturer a lot of the time. Most G80 and G92 Geforces (8600/8800/9600/9800) only have a 2 or 3 year shelf life due to the poor manufacturing process used at the time yet a large number of cards out there will solidly operate well beyond 5 years. Generally if you want cards to last steer clear of cheaper non-reference designs and read up on the technology used beforehand. Even the reference designs for some geforces can sometimes be quite poor, yet others fare very well.

Never use tomshardware. It's hands down the worst review site on the web.
 
So I kept the 5850, watercooled it and am going to see how far I can OC it. The reason for the small monitor is I had to give up my big desk for a little desk to make room for a crib for my new baby boy. Thanks for the advice.
 
wolfofsin said:
So I kept the 5850, watercooled it and am going to see how far I can OC it. The reason for the small monitor is I had to give up my big desk for a little desk to make room for a crib for my new baby boy. Thanks for the advice.
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congrats on your new addition! :D
 
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