5850 and PSU

[Nashsafc]

I have a 650 watt "Win Power" PSU. Which doesn't seem like one that is certified. Currently i am running a GTS 250 on it and i have no problmes at all. In the future i am planning on upgrading the graphics card to an ATI 5850. I'm wondering would it be pushing the psu if i put the 5850 on? I have a 95 watt processor. The 5850 requirements specifies that it needs a 500 watt psu minimum. Would someone tell me whether i definately need to upgrade my power supply or would i be able to keep it. Just to say that i don't want to upgrade my power supply so that in the future i can add an even more power psu, i want to try and stick with the one i have. but if in the future i do upgrade graphics card and if i have to upgrade psu i will do so. My motherboard does not support SLI so i can't really get 2 GTS 250. Would it be worth anythng in the future?

 

[Nashsafc]

ARRRGHH. I have had a look at the specifications of the ATI 5850 and it says that it's maximum board power is 151 watts. For the GTS 250 it is 150 watts. My PSU is running the GTS 250 fine, but would the 5850 actually need a beter quality psu eventhough it is not using that much power. I can't tell how many rails my psu has, would the 5850 require more amps/rails than the GTS 250. I have had a look at my PSU and there is no information worth noting.

 

[cory1234]

The 5850 uses only slightly more power than your current card. You should be fine with that ps.

 

[Nashsafc]

but the performance gain is incredible. Is it almost the same as 2 ati 4850s put together? Or is it actually better? Where i have seen it it costs less than the 4850x2. Wow so i can stick with my psu. This ati 5850 must really have an amazing new architecutre, almost revolutionary from the dx 10 graphics cards, but i'm just soo facinated how they've done it in such a short time, i thought the ati 4890 was already very new.

 

[Nashsafc]

The ati 5850 can not be as good as one gtx 285? According to these results http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v713/Beany2004/perfrel.gif it is. This just sounds too good to be true especially how the gtx285 is overpriced.

 

[cory1234]

The ati 5850 can not be as good as one gtx 285? According to these results http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v713/Beany2004/perfrel.gif it is. This just sounds too good to be true especially how the gtx285 is overpriced.

The 5850 and the gtx 285 go back and forth on some games, but the 5850 wins most. The 5850 is the much better deal since it is cheaper and it supports dx11.

 

[Nashsafc]

that sounds too good to be true. I thought the 5850 was about as good as a gtx 275. it's almost like ATI has come across alien technology and used it for it's own benefit, such as getting the performance of almost a gtx 285 for much less power consumption. i can't believe it only uses 1 more watt than a GTS 250 and it's performance is more than double. ATI cards must be very efficient and in architectural terms superior to NVIDIA cards. Maybe NVIDIA has better drivers. I can't imagine what the 5870 is like. That consumes 188 watts i'm guessing. And is that on it's own actually meant to be just about as good as a gtx 295?!?!

 

[Nashsafc]

looking on ebuyer.com, it's amazing too see how much more expensive the gtx 285 is to the 5850. It would be stupid not to go for a 5850 which is £30+ cheaper.
Just about 4 hours ago on ebuyer.com there was 1 ati 5850 it's gone now lol it must be really popular.

 

[Rustyy117]

go to www.novatech.co.uk they have 5850s in stock, its where i got mine from.

You wont be dissapointed, its an absolute monster!! 3dmark06: 20763 points

 

[Nashsafc]

i only really want this card because i have Crysis lol. That explains it all. I'm not getting it because it is overkill but because i would like to see what crysis looks like on high settings. I'm not one of those people who has to have the best lol, as soon as one card comes out upgrade the gtx285 to an ati 5870 i don't see the point in people doing that lol. Unless they see computer hardware as collectables. I play on a 19inch monitor with a 1280 x 1024 resolution i thought this would be game friendly, i'm sitting right in front of the screen so i don't need a great big massive thing.

 

[Rustyy117]

Oh right. Well if you wanna see crysis on high, go to youtube

A 5800 series card would be overkill for your 19" monitor, Get a 4870 or maybe a GTX260.

Or wait until the 5700 series cards come out so that you can play DX11 games.

 

[Nashsafc]

not really. With my GTS 250 on medium settings i get about 30 to 40 fps on 1280 x 1024. But for games like Rainbow Six Vegas 2 and COD4 i get over 100 FPS average with 4 aa and 8 fsaa. Also notice that i want to try to be able to have aa and fsaa on crysis, with putting it on high settings, maybe not on ultra high though. But the thing is you see, the 5850 only uses one more watt than my current card, and i don't mind getting 70 or 80 FPS on Crysis, it means that in grapihcally intense moments it will come down and i can have the highest possible minium FPS which would be nice. I have noticed that FPS in games, does make a lot of difference especially when playing on the internet, having no lag i feel massive difference which usually brings me up to third or 2 place in the team at the end of the match if i'm playing against average players. i bught my GTS 250 for £100 yesi konw i aught to have got a ATI 4870 for that. But for me to have an upgrade, the next card has to be worth it. The ati 5850 which i have seen on the interent for £200 is very appealing especially seeing hw i can use the same psu i already have and it comes close to the GTX 285. This will hopefully be my future upgrade. It's always good to try and get an average FPS above 60 so that as i said it guarantees smooth gameplay. Turok and G.R.A.W i would also like to see some more FPS on.

 

[Rustyy117]

well nashsafc you've seemed to have made up your mind already. I don't have Crysis so i cant tell you how well a 5850 performs on that game.

Make sure your CPU can keep up, my E8400@4.4ghz bottlenecks my 5850 at 1280x1024, but at 1920x1080 everything is fine and dandy

Hope you like your new card!

 

[Nashsafc]

i have a phenom ii 720 at 3ghz. That's a three core. So you are very happy with your card then? To me 3dmark points mean nothing lol. I suppose there is a generalisation that cards that get high 3dmark points get high FPS in games as well. But i think i'll stay with the GTS 250 for sometime, i havn't got the money to spend on the 5850 yet. For most games i play also i'm getting good FPS with graphics on highest settings and some decent but not extreme aa and fsaa. It's only Crysis that i need to upgrade my card for eventually and Turok could see a bit more FPS too.

 

[Rustyy117]

Your phenom should be fine, but i would overclock it to atleast 3.4ghz if you can.

Yeah im very happy with my 5850 I can now max out company of hereos tales of valor 1920x1080 8xAA all ultra and get 49.3FPS avg, but i think my Core 2 duo is holding it back slightly. 3Dmark is good for comparing components and seeing how your current system fairs against others.

I would hold out until early 2010, the 5850 should of gone down in price by then.

 

[Nashsafc]

why would i need to overclock it. I have by 200 mhz lol. But i thought that with overclocking the performance increase is marginal. Oh and your talking about a 1920x1080 resolution. I play with a 19inch monitor which is fine and has a 1280 x 1024 resolution. I am happy with a 19 inch screen because i am sitting right infront of it, i don't need something oversized. It is game happy as well. I aught to be fine with this processor for years at 3ghz if games stay 2 and 3 core optimised? Don't you rekon. Seeing how cpu speed havn't really changed from single core times one could still get 3ghz cpus.

 

[Rustyy117]

Its just me, i like to get the maximum out of my hardware, im sure your phenom will be just fine.

I think that games coming out in 2010 will mainly be optimized to run on quads.

You might get a CPU bottleneck if you get a 5850 and game at 1280x1024. Basically you'll get huge framerates and your CPU wont be able to keep up, but its doesnt really matter that much because your framerates will be above 60. Maybe with the odd exception of crysis, which wants a very powerful CPU aswell.

If i can steal Crysis off my brother tomorrow i'll do some tests for you at 1280x1024.
Im pretty sure a 5850 will be able to max crysis at 1280x1024, not sure about AA though.

 

[Nashsafc]

i want to be realistic. eyy, your saying that my cpu isn't powerful enough to game with Crysis. According to the results here, dual cores do well at crysis - the Intel ones. Crysis is not quad core optimised. The e8600 beats quad cores at 3ghz. I have overclocked mine to 3.2ghz my phenom ii 720 shouldn't that be enough to play any game on the market regarding cpu performance (and keeping the gpu asside), and getting enthusiastic levels of FPS? I thought games anyway rely mainly on the GPU, once you have a relatively good CPU such as mine i bought for £100 (it's not cheap rubbish) games rely totally on the gpu. My ram is also 4gb so that doesn't have to be taken into concideration. But when you say bottlenecked by cpu do you mean on games i might get 300 FPS lol, such as on Far Cry (1) but if i got an i7 975 i would get 480FPS? The pii 720 does relatively well with quad cores, concerning Crysis, there won't really be any difference between a phenom ii 920 and a phenom ii 720. They are both clocked the same but the 920 is a quad core. i thought that playing crysis with an i7 920 and playing it with a phenom ii 720 with the same graphics card, the performance difference is very insignificant? When you say my cpu won't be able to keep up what do you mean by that, there will be stutter, or that my processor is only capable of getting 380 FPS in some games lol rather than 480 FPS with a game? Or that in Crysis i could be getting 72 FPS average as opposed to 60 with a more powerful processor.

 

[Nashsafc]

i have a micro atx case and a micro atx board. But the micro atx case is very well designed out, it is a tower case, and has just enough width to take any graphics card i want, and has plenty of length. it's just smaller so it cuts out the stuff i don't need. Unfortunately i can't do SLI/ CFX. I can't stick water cooling in either. But i can stick a fairly large Zalman cnps9500nt cooler in it, by pushing the hdd slightly further back and screwing just the two screws on it. I have myself quite a nice light and mobile gaming rig. I wonder what to do with my GTS 250 though, it would have been nice to buy another, but i don't know if i were to sell it, it would sell for that much.

 

[Rustyy117]

Yeah you pretty much got the idea with the CPU bottleneck, i wouldnt worry about it to much.
I've just downloaded the crysis demo so i'll test it out for you(and for me, im curious) =] i'll have my E8400@ 4ghz and my 5850 @ stock (725/1000)

I hope that micro case has good cooling, these 5850's are toasty and i have a full tower case (Coolermaster HAF932)

I'll post back with the results tomorrow

 

[Nashsafc]

yeah it's suprising. Despite it being cheap, and made out of steel. it has lots of air vents on the side. It has an air vent on the bottom of the case right next to the graphics card. it has an air vent where i have put a fan at the front where it pulls up air underneat where there is space between the desk and the case. My GTS 250 idles at about 40 degrees celcius with it's cooler, does that sound like the 5850 can be chucked in? The only place the case doesn't have an air vent is at the top of the case, but i don't think that's needed since there are basicly air vents everywhere. The one at the front is located just between the plastic cover and the case, and the metal case has space for 3 80 - 90mm fans.

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/160917/show_product_reviews#

 

[Nashsafc]

The only downfall is that i have to put the hdd in the floppy drive bay, but i don't use that for anything, since i can push it all the way in, so that the wires don't touch with the cpu cooler. It fits anyway. But my cpu idles at 30 degrees according to the "core temperature" i don't know if that is true or not. On stock it idles at 26 degrees (celcius)

 

[Nashsafc]

hmm, the phenom ii 720 aught to do better than the e8400 at clock to clock? But i think the phenom ii 720 can only overclock to 3.7ghz. But i only really intend to overclock to 3.2ghz from 2.8ghz. Also, is the 5850 as long as a GTS 250?!?! Looking at this, it looks comparably similar to the GTS 250's length? If that is the case, this card would be a dream to have in my computer. WIth the case i have i would have 3cm between the gpu and case metal to fit the pci connectors if it extended the GTS 250 length by quite bit, would they fit in? I think so if i attach them to the gpu first and then put it in the case. But then looking at this review, it shows that two of the power connectors are at the front, if that is the case then it should fit without any worries at all in the case.

 

[Rustyy117]

The 5850 is 24cm long and the 2 6pin power connectors are at the front.

I think you'll be fine aslong as you crank up the fan speed to about 40%

I just did some very quick benchmarks on Crysis, im very disappointed, maybe i expect to much from it.

Anyways. 1280x1024 Very High No AA Average: 36.02 Minimum: 21.8 Maximum: 45.16

1280x1024 Very High 16xAA Average: 30.185 Minimum: 18.84 Maximum: 36.34

1280x1024 high NoAA Average 56.91 Minimum: 33.59 Maximum: 76.37

!920x1080 High 8xAA Average : 36.225 minimum: 26.66 Maximum: 44.94


To me these seem really ***. but maybe its just because im using a beta release driver. I also get very poor results in company of hereos......

Might get a refund : /

 

[Rustyy117]

forget what i just said!

Those results were in DX10 mode

DX10 1680x1050 very high no AA average: 32.08

DX9 1680x1050 very high no AA Average: 68.73


DX10 is the devil!