Worth upgrade? 4850 512MB to 5770 1GB?

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Kmical

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Jan 23, 2003
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I just upgraded my primary system from an E5200 to a PhenomII 955. I was (and am still) using a 4850 card.

I do some light gaming (the Total War series, Company of Heroes, etc), some video editing, and HD video watching. I'm currently using a 24" monitor at 1920x1080.

Is it worth the performance increase to spend $150 on a 5770, then turn around and sell my 4850 for $70? Result is a net cost of $80.

FWIW, my MB supports Crossfire, so I can possibly pick up another 5770 in the future.

Let me know your opinions ... I'm sure there will be some strong ones.
 
Kmical said:
I just upgraded my primary system from an E5200 to a PhenomII 955. I was (and am still) using a 4850 card.

I do some light gaming (the Total War series, Company of Heroes, etc), some video editing, and HD video watching. I'm currently using a 24" monitor at 1920x1080.

Is it worth the performance increase to spend $150 on a 5770, then turn around and sell my 4850 for $70? Result is a net cost of $80.

FWIW, my MB supports Crossfire, so I can possibly pick up another 5770 in the future.

Let me know your opinions ... I'm sure there will be some strong ones.
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IMHO it's better to save up additional funds for a 5850. This is because the 1GB 5770 is iffy above 1680x1050 or 1600x900, depending on whether the monitor is of a 16:10 or a 16:9 aspect ratio. Furthermore, it is an upgrade from your current 512MB 4850 - but not enough of one to justify spending the bucks for one.
 
^^ that's the kind of answer I was looking for. It would be nice if the 5850 would come down from $300, though.

Maybe I'll go the 5850 route if a few of my ebay auctions and Craigslist ads pan out ... ;)
 
newegg has a powercolor (yea i know) 5770 1gb on sale for $151. so 2 of these would be way less than a 5870, yet perform as well as one. 2x just about any 5770 would be less than a 5870.
 
No. From the reviews, I'd guess about a 10% increase. Is 5 more fps at 50 fps worth $80?

That said, I love my 5850. Even at stock it does fairly well at 5040x1050. Buying it in Jan. saved me months of drooling. Less dehydration. Spend the money.

Though I wish I went for one of the 5870's with BCB to get it near $350.
 
Kmical said:
^^ that's the kind of answer I was looking for. It would be nice if the 5850 would come down from $300, though.
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And don't get me wrong; the 1GB 5770 is the card I would have gone with if I were building a completely new rig and budgeting $150-ish on a GPU.

By the way, CrossFired 5770s would improve the performance of some games but not others. In fact, a fair number of recent games cannot use more than one GPU at all.
 
vanilla_guerilla said:
newegg has a powercolor (yea i know) 5770 1gb on sale for $151. so 2 of these would be way less than a 5870, yet perform as well as one. 2x just about any 5770 would be less than a 5870.
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Tiger has a XFX reference (original cooler) 5770 for 150 shipped w/ coupon. Check the deals section for info about it.
 
xBanzai89 said:
Tiger has a XFX reference (original cooler) 5770 for 150 shipped w/ coupon. Check the deals section for info about it.
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In fact, it was that XFX card on sale at TigerDirect that prompted my question.
 
I had a similar choice to make last week, but my new 20" monitor is only 1600 x 900. I decided to stick with the HD 4850. If you're bored with it, edit the BIOS and volt mod. Mine has done 800+ for two years with proper cooling and a pencil. Going 800+ on the core takes it into 4870 territory, which should be plenty of power for your resolution. You can also edit the BIOS to lower the voltage and underclock it in 2D to save power/heat.

If this kind of project is not suitable, have you considered adding a second 4850?
 
A used GTX275 or Radeon 4890 would be a good upgrade from a 4850...also if you have a crossfire capable board, you can just get another 4850 and crossfire em and get performance close to a 5850/GTX470.
 
aldamon said:
I had a similar choice to make last week, but my new 20" monitor is only 1600 x 900. I decided to stick with the HD 4850. If you're bored with it, edit the BIOS and volt mod. Mine has done 800+ for two years with proper cooling and a pencil. Going 800+ on the core takes it into 4870 territory, which should be plenty of power for your resolution. You can also edit the BIOS to lower the voltage and underclock it in 2D to save power/heat.

If this kind of project is not suitable, have you considered adding a second 4850?
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When I had the E5200, the 4850 was an excellent companion. Now, with the overclocked 955, my CPU seems to be telling the 4850 to "hurry up and display those pixels!" ;)

I have the Crossfire option, but the layout of my current case has me preferring a single-card solution.
 
Kmical said:
When I had the E5200, the 4850 was an excellent companion. Now, with the overclocked 955, my CPU seems to be telling the 4850 to "hurry up and display those pixels!" ;).
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If that's how you feel then honestly I think you'd be slumming it a bit with the 5770. Crossfire 4850 is VERY respectable and dirt cheap if you change your mind about the layout. After the 4850 and 4870 launched for $199/$299 respectively, I think the 5850 prices are loony.
 
Upgrading a 4850 512MB to a 5770 1GB for $80 is pretty mediocre. You should save up for a 5850.

Crossfiring the 4850 instead would be more interesting if it weren't a 512MB card. Two 512MB cards in Crossfire still have only 512MB total, and that is not great for 1920x1080 like a 5850 would be.
 
aldamon said:
I've seen no evidence that Crossfire 4850 512MB struggles with 1080P.
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Actually, this is dependent on whether or not a specific game title takes any advantage of more than one GPU. There are still a fair number of game titles on the market that cannot use the second GPU at all.
 
E4g1e said:
Actually, this is dependent on whether or not a specific game title takes any advantage of more than one GPU. There are still a fair number of game titles on the market that cannot use the second GPU at all.
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Like Starcraft and Quake?
 
I run a 1gb 4870 x2 (for a total frame buffer of 512MB) and don't notice any issues with gaming at 1080p resolutions. Runs pretty close to my 5970 (well to the naked eye, in benchmarks the 5970 annihilates the 4870x2)
 
mrnoob123 said:
Like Starcraft and Quake?
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I didn't mean those two titles. Those are very old, pre-DirectX titles, dating back from when games required real DOS mode in order to even run at all.

I meant newer Windows games that run on relatively recent versions of DirectX and Direct3D. Those games either do not take much if any advantage of a second GPU or do not use the second GPU at all. And when it comes to secondary GPU support in games, many games which take advantage of NVIDIA's SLI do not use the second GPU at all on ATi CrossFire systems due to the game developers' exclusion of proper CrossFire support in those games.
 
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Well, I pulled stuff out of the case and re-arranged, so Crossfire is once again a viable option for me. Two of the 5770's in Crossfire for $110-$120 each (open box) might work for me ...
 
PSU first, then save your cash and just get a second 4850 if you're considering Crossfire at all. 4850 and 5770 are almost interchangeable in performance, although the 5770 has nicer features- lower power consumption, DX11 and Eyefinity.
 
mavalpha said:
PSU first, then save your cash and just get a second 4850 if you're considering Crossfire at all. 4850 and 5770 are almost interchangeable in performance, although the 5770 has nicer features- lower power consumption, DX11 and Eyefinity.
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5770 is closer to a 4870 than 4850 in terms of performance.
 
mavalpha said:
PSU first, then save your cash and just get a second 4850 if you're considering Crossfire at all. 4850 and 5770 are almost interchangeable in performance, although the 5770 has nicer features- lower power consumption, DX11 and Eyefinity.
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the 5770 is 15-20% faster than the 4850

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...4-xfx-radeon-hd-5770-1gb-gddr5-review-14.html

Also if I'm not mistaken they run much cooler.

But, yeah op replace that psu before you do anything. Here is a few worth considering,

Antec NEO ECO 520C 520W $64.99 + free shipping Should be more than enough for a 5770 cf setup.

or this,

Combo: Antec EarthWatts EA650 650W + SAPPHIRE 100283L Radeon HD 5770 $214.98
 
New HD5830s can be purchased for just under $200. Don't listen to the naysayers, its a great card for $200. The HD5830's performance is on par with HD4890 (the HD5830 being a little faster in newer games I have tested), but it has DX11, Eyefinity, quieter, and uses less power (huge at idol).

I upgraded from a HD5770 since it was a tad slow for my needs and the HD5830 crushes the HD5770. Also, My HD5830 overclocked great, +20% (985mhz/1200mhz). I am using this card in an Eyefinity setup with 3 22" 1680x1050 monitors + $30 DP-to-VGA and it runs MW2, L4D2, AvP, Dirt 2 at medium/high settings mixed. I highly recommend the HD5830 if the extra $100 for the HD5850 is too much.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102878&cm_re=hd_5830-_-14-102-878-_-Product
 
Personally I'd say yes. New features aside, it is a good deal faster. Also the RAM is nice. 512MB is fine, but there are a number of games that you can't crank up with that. With 1GB of RAM you can crank basically everything up unless you are doing eyefinity.
 
hossdaddy said:
Visiontek used to be the best ati board partner but in the last 2 years they have fallen off the table.
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In fact, they now have little to distinguish themselves from the pack. Their warranty may be great, but is not backed up with good technical support or RMA performance of late.
 
ClearM4 said:
New HD5830s can be purchased for just under $200. Don't listen to the naysayers, its a great card for $200. The HD5830's performance is on par with HD4890 (the HD5830 being a little faster in newer games I have tested), but it has DX11, Eyefinity, quieter, and uses less power (huge at idol).

I upgraded from a HD5770 since it was a tad slow for my needs and the HD5830 crushes the HD5770. Also, My HD5830 overclocked great, +20% (985mhz/1200mhz). I am using this card in an Eyefinity setup with 3 22" 1680x1050 monitors + $30 DP-to-VGA and it runs MW2, L4D2, AvP, Dirt 2 at medium/high settings mixed. I highly recommend the HD5830 if the extra $100 for the HD5850 is too much.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102878&cm_re=hd_5830-_-14-102-878-_-Product
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Looks like it's back up to $219 AR. I think I'm going to go with the XFX 5850 for $280 with free shipping.

Someone stop me if I'm making a terrible mistake with my $280 ;)
 
hossdaddy said:
put it into the WHS: w/e that is and sell the 9600.
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I'm not sure it would be worth it. I run my WHS as a headless server. The only purpose the 9600GSO serves is if I need to get into the BIOS for hardware changes on the server.

I think I'd get a better return selling my 4850 than my 9600GSO :)
 
Kmical said:
Looks like it's back up to $219 AR. I think I'm going to go with the XFX 5850 for $280 with free shipping.

Someone stop me if I'm making a terrible mistake with my $280 ;)
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Nope 5850 is a wonderful upper mid range card. Congrats and enjoy.
 
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