5850 availability?

They arent readily available most places, production is still ramping up, similar to why 4770s took a while to hit good availability, the availability should improve within a couple of weeks but they are selling like hot cakes now so its hard for the stores to keep them in stock. Im not sure if tiger direct or zipzoomfly are california tax exempt, if they are keep an eye on them and buy one as soon as you see they are available again.
 

deadcell

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The 5850 is rated by many sources as the best value/performance GPU as of this date. So finding one right now is slim to none. My guess? It may be available so it meets demand somewhere around this holiday season. Its just no one want to miss out on this great value. With little patience, you may also consider the Nvidia 300 series coming this holiday season, (December). Seeing how the 200 series outperformed the 4800 series, Nvidia might just repeat this with their 300 series vs. the 5000. In time we shall see...
 
Pretty good marketing huh ? Tell everybody for months that you can make a release with plenty to go around and then trickle them out so the prices stay high. A month from now there will probably be more and there will also be releases with higher clocks and better cooling from other vendors. Be patient. Black Friday would be a time to buy. That's only about 7 weeks away. If you're impatient check out your favorite e-tailer often. One pops up every once in a while.
 

Godzealot

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I'm not sure if the price would even go down before the nv 300 comes out, and is the nv300 really coming out in december? They seem to be having trouble even with a fake sample board. I dont know much, Im' just a consumer =)
 

deadcell

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Thanks! Those bastards might just be up to something here. Lame codename though. I am glade they are going with something else other than "Fermi", because that codename will sound good printed on a cereal box, but not on a high performance card. Do all of us a favor and just call it GT300. What happened to good old days when computer components had long numerical/Alphabitical codenames?
deadcell
 

Godzealot

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Managed to nab a tax-free, 2-day free shipping 5850 from Amazon for 259.99. All for randomly waking up at 5AM. Finally! Been waiting a week for this. Sorry to gloat but Im happy.

Amazon.com items (Sold by Amazon.com, LLC):

1 Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 1 ... $259.99 1 $259.99

Shipped via UPS (estimated delivery date: October 9, 2009).

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Item Subtotal: $259.99
Shipping and handling: $0.00

Total: $259.99

Paid by Visa: $259.99

--------------------------------------------------------------------

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Please be aware that items in this order may be subject to California's
Electronic Waste Recycling Act. If any items in this order are subject
to that Act, the seller of that item has elected to pay any fees due
on your behalf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
 

deadcell

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I see. I always recommended buying PSU with massive wattage capability for the time it will be needed. I would say that your next investment should be a good PSU. Doesn't the 5850 require 550W min? I recommend Corsair, PC Power and Cooling, or my favorite, Thermaltake. I got the Thermaltake TR2 RX 850 and it keeps my BFG GTX295 and everything else well powered. Also, I always liked the Corsair 1000W continous power PSU. You shouldn't go with anything lower than 850W of continous power running SLi or CrossX, depending on the card's specs. As for your heatsink, good investment! But it seems to be in the way. I kinda like that MOBO though. Is just these Micros are so compact compared to the standard ATX. I don't know what to tell you in this case. One thing is for sure, I would get a ATX MOBO before I even think about replacing that massive cooler to have room for crossX. This is the main reason why I went with the MSI X58 ATX Pro-E. Plenty of room and 3x PCI-16 (2.0). Let me know how you would approch this issue if you could do crossX later on...
deadcell
 

Godzealot

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It's fine. I dont even wanna start thinking about it right now (I've spent countless hours at night reading reviews catching up on hardware news and reviews), I probably won't be upgrading for at least 2 years or so... I'm sure I can get playable framerates at 1920x1080 and I dont mind no AA that much anyway.

If I do upgrade in the future, then I would have to weigh the options of the combined cost of a PSU, Mobo, and another 5850, versus just a next gen card. At least my case is plenty large (CM Storm Scout)
 

deadcell

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Nice chassis. Yeah, this card will get you decent frame rate at 1920x1080, no AA. The AA always drains my FPS and I have the GTX295. I should of gone with 2x BFG GTX275. This would of outperform the 295, and cost the same, and than just run a 3-way later on. There is a good chance I would just go quad with a second GTX295 someday. You just might always go with one real fast card, rather than investing on PSU, MOBO and a second 5850 , like you stated. At one point, thats what I did. Best of luck on your future upgrades my friend.
p.s. How is the 5850 performing at 1920x1080?
 

Godzealot

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It's coming tomorrow so we'll see... I'm worried the card won't fit because the heatsink's big and its really close to the PCIe slot... Hopefully the card is fatter downwards instead of upwards haha
 

Godzealot

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With my i5-750 running at 3800mhz and the 5850 @ 775/1125, smooth framerates @ 1920 with 4xaa and 16AF at ultra settings any game I throw at it (so far batman, fallout, world of warcraft).