Time to replace my 8800GTX.... Which 5850 for overclocking?

L

loafer87gt

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 2, 2005
Messages
469
Which 5850 cards can you overclock and adjust voltage to right out of the box without having to flash the cards BIOS? I see some users getting near 5870 levels of performance with their overclocked 5850's and was thinking this would be a good present to myself at Christmas. Any recommendations on which card to go with if I plan on doing some overclocking? Thanks in advance...
 
Regardless I would go with XFX. From my personal experience and what others have posted, almost all AMD card distributors are terrible with warranties (except XFX). I wouldn't mess with over volting or overclocking without knowing whether the company from which you bought the card is going to stand behind it.
 
I'll second that. I bought my XFX for that exact reason, excellent warranty coverage. (Not that I have experienced it but they are known for it. Hell, all my video cards still work.) Apparently they are OCing friendly unlike most.

I'm using MSI Afterburner 1.4.1 for all my OCing needs. (See sig for results.)
 
MSI Afterburner will work with all 5800 cards. Thankfully, they were nice enough to not include a vendor check lock.
 
Only ASUS comes out of the box with unlocked OC capability.

MSI ships with locked BIOS, but they released an unlocked version.

XFX has the best warranty, but if you flash ASUS/MSI BIOS to the card and then fry it, to the point that you can't reload the original XFX BIOS, you're hosed anyway.

I gave my RV870 money to MSI. It was the least expensive 5850 at the time I decided to buy, and I fully intended to void any warranty regardless. It was my way of saying Thanks for Afterburner. It's a great tool, and MSI doesn't prevent you from using it if you didn't buy their card (they just won't necessarily provide app support to you). It was a fine gesture on their part towards the community.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top