Thinking of returning my 5850

Zarich

Limp Gawd
Joined
May 7, 2010
Messages
208
Haven't even opened it yet. But honestly I regret not getting the 470. 470 being the faster card with physx for just a little more money. I was concerned about the heat and noise, but I think it is a non issue and I overreacted. I also feel that the 5850 will not likely give me full gaming results at 1920x1080. I don't OC my cards and I think that is why everyone recommends the 5850..because OC it is great, but normal clocked it loses too much. Anyway.. suffering buyers remorse.... Thoughts?
 
From the [H] review:

HardOCP said:
Starting from the bottom up, we would say the least relevant video card is the GeForce GTX 470. In all our gameplay testing today, not once did the GeForce GTX 470 provide a superior gameplay experience compared to the Radeon HD 5850, even in Metro 2033. In fact, performance was very close between both video cards, and in some cases the Radeon HD 5850 proved to provide faster framerates. Looking strictly at performance, these video cards are equal.


Of course, we have to look beyond just performance, as metrics such as cost and power consumption come into play. The GeForce GTX 470 is more expensive than the Radeon HD 5850. We are seeing some great deals on Radeon HD 5850 cards starting to crop up, and the fact is that the Radeon 5850 can be purchased with a lot less of your cold hard cash. Looking at power, the GeForce GTX 470 consumes a good bit more power than the Radeon HD 5850, while also producing higher thermals.


The HD 5850 is the clear value winner when compared to the GTX 470. We have been telling you that the Radeon 5850 is the best value in enthusiast video cards since last year and the GTX 470 does nothing to change that.
 
Haven't even opened it yet. But honestly I regret not getting the 470. 470 being the faster card with physx for just a little more money. I was concerned about the heat and noise, but I think it is a non issue and I overreacted. I also feel that the 5850 will not likely give me full gaming results at 1920x1080. I don't OC my cards and I think that is why everyone recommends the 5850..because OC it is great, but normal clocked it loses too much. Anyway.. suffering buyers remorse.... Thoughts?

The 470 is not faster then the 5850.

It just uses more power, and creates more heat then the 5850, and its also more expensive then the 5850.

Now sure why you would want the 470, unless you and loyal to Nvidia
 
Err I think saying the 470 is a faster card is a stretch. But saying it is a faster card with physx is a little short sighted.

I don’t get how on one hand you can be concerned with performance of the 5850 but think the 470 is going to give you physx support. What are you going to have to sacrifice on the rendering side to get that 470 to pull double duty doing physx?
 
well, it's a "value" winner but I don't think you care too much about that. When you begin to second guess a purchase, really, nothing we can say will change your mind. You'll have to try out both cards yourself to see if you lose anything.

Even with the "Value" going to ATI, many people still go NVIDIA. That said, why doesn't everyone go ATI? Because you're not alone in your line of thinking. I tried the 470 in between trying to get a good 480 setup. It was good card minus the price--unless you can get one for for the same price or better than a 5850 (and you don't care about energy use and such).

If you care about eyefinity or the like, forget nvidia right now. They suck on the driver front--delay, delay, delay.

Sometimes eating 15% restocking fee to know for sure you got the better of the two cards IS worth it. (but then you really don't care about price so....viscous circle lol)
 
the ONLY reason id pick a GTX470 over a 5850 would be for Folding@Home. And they haven't gotten the GPU3 client 100% sorted yet anyway. Strictly for gaming id pick the 5850 any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

It can't be said any better than the quote in Post #2
 
The problem that review was posted before the 257 drivers, and before the price came down to $330 which is the going rate at the egg now. If you go for bing you can even get one for $309. So now the prices are competitive, the drivers have given the 470 more speed. Throw in dx11 and it moves even faster. Looking at the anand reviews the 470 is almost always ahead.
 
open it and find out instead of speculating. unless you really just want the other card more, then return this one and go buy the other.
 
The problem that review was posted before the 257 drivers, and before the price came down to $330 which is the going rate at the egg now. If you go for bing you can even get one for $309. So now the prices are competitive, the drivers have given the 470 more speed. Throw in dx11 and it moves even faster. Looking at the anand reviews the 470 is almost always ahead.

You sound like you made your decision already.

Why make a post about it then?
 
I haven't made a decision. I tend to argue both sides until I go insane.
 
Well like I said I think the notion that the 470 gives you physx support in games is a bit silly. I haven’t seen anything to convince me physx doesn’t need a dedicated card to be effective. And I believe I was reading the other day that Nvidia removed the restriction that tried to force you to have a Nvidia card as the primary to work.

So I see no reason to even factor physx in when selecting a primary card. Though I am sure Nvidia is counting on people doing just that.

As far as performance goes you seem to have your mind made up as to what is better. I just think you’re kidding yourself if you think physx support gives the 470 anything over the 5850.
 
I haven't made a decision. I tend to argue both sides until I go insane.

Well then go with what you like.

Me personally, i would get an 5850. Eyefinity works, overclocks well, and its a good price/performance.

The 470 is just not Value at all to me...

Good luck with your decision, but I think you made the right choice already.
 
And I believe I was reading the other day that Nvidia removed the restriction that tried to force you to have a Nvidia card as the primary to work.

That was a bug unfortunately, they forgot to put in the code that locks out non-Nvidia cards. Nvidia proved that all that the restriction is is an arbitrary lock-out and it works perfectly with other cards.

They have since corrected the drivers and non-Nvidia cards are locked out again.
 
The 470 is faster than the 5850, unless you believe [H] is infallible. Almost every other review site shows the 470 as the faster card. And that was with the older drivers.

How much did you pay for the 5850? If it was under $300, I can't see how there's anything to regret unless you have specific concerns or requirements.

For me, I chose 470 not so much because of Physx, but familiarity with Nvidia drivers, more video RAM, greater freedom in monitor choice (no DP requirement for 3-monitor setup), and (eventually...) 3-monitor gaming that by design has to work properly with SLI, whereas Eyefinity may or may not have problems with Crossfire, depending on who-knows-what factors.

What is your fear with just OCing the thing, anyway? And on air/stock cooling, the 5850's power efficiency is much more conducive to multi-GPU config than the Fermi cards (which can get loud), if you want more power down the line.
 
That was a bug unfortunately, they forgot to put in the code that locks out non-Nvidia cards. Nvidia proved that all that the restriction is is an arbitrary lock-out and it works perfectly with other cards.

They have since corrected the drivers and non-Nvidia cards are locked out again.

Well that’s a shame; here I was thinking I was going to do a driver update this week. At least we still have the work around.

Though to be honest I am about to pull my secondary card. It’s proving to be little more than a waste of power in my system with most games I own not having GPU physx and having played out the few that do.
 
The 5850 can easily max out just about any game at 19x10 including Crysis. I've heard Metro 2033 is pretty demanding so perhaps it won't max that particular game out, I'm not sure as I haven't played it.

Ultimately, if you'd be happier with a 470 then you should get that. If however your main concern is performance, 19x10 is a pretty easy task for the 5850. It doesn't need to be OC'd, but it can be if you so desired.
 
The 470 is faster than the 5850, unless you believe [H] is infallible. Almost every other review site shows the 470 as the faster card. And that was with the older drivers.

How much did you pay for the 5850? If it was under $300, I can't see how there's anything to regret unless you have specific concerns or requirements.

For me, I chose 470 not so much because of Physx, but familiarity with Nvidia drivers, more video RAM, greater freedom in monitor choice (no DP requirement for 3-monitor setup), and (eventually...) 3-monitor gaming that by design has to work properly with SLI, whereas Eyefinity may or may not have problems with Crossfire, depending on who-knows-what factors.

What is your fear with just OCing the thing, anyway? And on air/stock cooling, the 5850's power efficiency is much more conducive to multi-GPU config than the Fermi cards (which can get loud), if you want more power down the line.

Just for the record almost every other site used the 10.3 Catalyst drivers instead of the 10.3a Preview performance drivers btw, that's why [H] placed the 5850 higher than other sites. The 10.3a drivers had a large performance boost that is in the official 10.4 drivers but not 10.3 drivers.

So I'd say 5850 and 470 *were* basically equal but with the new 470 drivers (dunno if 10.5 increased performance any) the 470 is a bit faster as per its price point.


I wasn't gonna bother comment on these other things but I suppose this is a thread about the pros/cons of buying a 470 vs 5850 so.. The greater monitor choice for 3 monitor is user dependent, as it's counterbalanced by the restriction in video card/mobo choice (must use SLI) so I think that depends on what the OP has planned, or already owns. Since he bought a 5850 to begin with something tells me his mobo doesn't support SLI anyway so that's a big investment to rebuild. Also the notion that 3 monitor SLI works well by necessity may not be a good one, what if it inherently performs poorly *because* it had to be on SLI? I've been anxiously awaiting some benches on 5760x1200 resolutions because I'm very curious about the implementation it could be faster or slower based on how smart the drivers are about handling that transferring of data between the outputs (Crossfire is a much simpler task but also has bandwidth spikes)
 
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The problem that review was posted before the 257 drivers, and before the price came down to $330 which is the going rate at the egg now. If you go for bing you can even get one for $309. So now the prices are competitive, the drivers have given the 470 more speed. Throw in dx11 and it moves even faster. Looking at the anand reviews the 470 is almost always ahead.

Anand review is crap I can tell you..

also, 257 is nowhere superior driver that make card faster in any possible way.

tested several games including AvP and Crysis due to their claim, none of them have performance increase beside Metro 2033, which is slightly increase but still unplayable in some level with max setting (no DoF).

also, there are massive crash now with DiRT 2, Dragon Age, SF4...

if you don't mind those issue, and still think 470 is a better card and faster.. go for it :rolleyes:
 
I still can not understand the infatuation with making the deciding factor of a GPU on PhysX. There are like what, 3 or 4 games that support it worth mentioning? Even then, the effects that it adds are minimal, if not simply tacked-on exaggerations and over-the-top effects that have been done for years on the CPU alone!

Why am I the only person that seems to see this? Show me a game where PhysX actually adds something to the core game play that would necessitate and/or actually reasonably justify the purchase of a GPU entirely for a non-graphics processing task. I'm not talking Folding here, simply PhysX. Nvidia's marketing scam has gotten a firm hold onto way to many people if you ask me.
 
If you like PhysX, return your ATI card. If you don't care of PhysX, keep the ATI card.

I switched from Nvidia to ATI. There are ZERO issues the hardware. It's a great product.

The only way you can see if your hardware will function properly with the way you like it, is to properly uninstall the older drivers, driver cleaner and run the hardware and see if it is to your liking (god I love run-on sentences).
 
I still can not understand the infatuation with making the deciding factor of a GPU on PhysX. There are like what, 3 or 4 games that support it worth mentioning? Even then, the effects that it adds are minimal, if not simply tacked-on exaggerations and over-the-top effects that have been done for years on the CPU alone!

Why am I the only person that seems to see this? Show me a game where PhysX actually adds something to the core game play that would necessitate and/or actually reasonably justify the purchase of a GPU entirely for a non-graphics processing task. I'm not talking Folding here, simply PhysX. Nvidia's marketing scam has gotten a firm hold onto way to many people if you ask me.

Hey I will bitch non stop about every aspect of PhysX if you need something to read. It's frustrating tech because it *could* be something cool but we won't see it be cool any time soon, thanks nVidia.
 
I really wanted to go Nvidia with my latest build due to their driver stability.

But really, do your research and just about everybody will tell you, THE cards to buy right now are the 5770, 5850, and 5870.
 
I really wanted to go Nvidia with my latest build due to their driver stability.

But really, do your research and just about everybody will tell you, THE cards to buy right now are the 5770, 5850, and 5870.

Yes.. this I found.. no matter who I asked.. for my res everyone said a 5850 is enough. That and the price really pushed me over..
Alright.. I am gonna give this thing a shot.. If I am really disappointed I guess I could return it.
 
Yes.. this I found.. no matter who I asked.. for my res everyone said a 5850 is enough. That and the price really pushed me over..
Alright.. I am gonna give this thing a shot.. If I am really disappointed I guess I could return it.

Enjoy man!

Just BE SURE to upgrade your motherboard BIOS to the latest version.
 
err.. why is that.

Well, it's been reported (and I personally experienced) various issues with the 5800 series until upgrading the mobo BIOS.

I was very pleased with how painless updating your bios is these days.

It's just a precaution, but one I'd recommend just to avoid a possibly initial bad experience.
 
I will take my two 5850s over any of those Fermi power hungry super heat producing blocks any day
 
I'm in a similar situation as OP. I haven't made a purchase yet, I'm in between the 5850 and the 470. I have been researching both extensively, as-well as made a post on [H]. I game at a lower res of 1680x1050, but even at that res, certain games can't be maxed easily. I think though that some people may write off the GTX 470 to soon before seeing all its performance. It seems that the 5850 has been tapped of all its power by now, great card for sure, no doubt about that.

However, if you check this link:
http://hardocp.com/article/2010/04/05/metro_2033_directx_11_gameplay_performance_iq/4

[H] showing the GTX 470 on par with a 5870, now all of a sudden, the GTX 470 seems like a much better deal then a 5850. I guess putting physx and all that stuff aside, it boils down to, are you willing to spend say an extra 50$ to possibly end up with better performance? At the end of the day the worst you can do is come even with a 5850, I guess the 470 just gives you the chance as nvidia refines the drivers. How much better? Seems tough to tell at this point. However, when I do see the 470 on the heels of a 5870, it does make me wonder.
 
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Power isnt an issue, but heat an noise were. See there.. that is what makes me re-think things. Running metro at very high with full tess and AA. The 5850 can't even manage AA at 1920x1080 on high. *hmm*...
 
Two days ago I visited 5 major review sites, wrote down all games benchmarked, and marked which one beat the other, 5850 or 470.

I am officially flip flopping. I was misinformed when I suggested the 5850 over the 470. The 470 is absolutely the way to go, and its only going to get better. Ironically, I still cannot recommend you buy the 470. If there is a $50 difference, I would certainly go with the 470. But $80? That's pushing it. I'd recommend keeping the 5850 for now, just OC it. Save your money. Once you can buy a GTX 480, sell the 5850 and go for the gold. The 480 is sick and it OC's so very well. The gains have been extremely impressive.
 
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