5850 or 5870 for opteron 185

[maximiza]

Is it worth dropping the coin on a 5870? 5850 might still get bottleneck-ed by a old socket 939 system Using 24" at 1200 x 1900.

 

[sayantan]

certainly there would be a bootleneck..go for i5 or pHIIx4

 

[maximiza]

i5??? what video card is that. I don't want to update whole system just video card.

 

[YJ2k2]

I wouldn't bother getting a 58xx series card. I'm running on an Opteron 165 @2.6GHz (939 as well) and I'm getting severely bottlenecked by my CPU with a 5750.

Just to give you an idea, my friend gets about 14k in 3dmark06 with his Q6600 @ 3.2GHz and a 9800 GT, while I get about 9900 with a Opteron 165 and 5750.

 

[jay2tall]

Ok I am going to actually answer the OP's question. Honestly the 5850 is a great card for the money. For $100 the 5870 is an awesome card, but isn't as much of a value as the 5850 is. I tend to steer people to the 5850, but if you have $100 (US) extra you can spend on more performance, go for the 5870. It is really what you are looking to get out of it. I bought the 5870 because I wanted a sweet card and I was willing to pay for it. So the call is really yours, either are amazing cards.

In regards to the bottlenecking comments, sure you will have a bottleneck. My 4GHz i7 is a bottleneck, just less of one. Those old Opteron's pack a punch though. My buddy has a dual 165 setup with an 8800GTX and still runs anything we throw at it. It's his server/spare gamer.

3dmark is not a GAME, no one plays 3dmark06. It's a nice benchmark to compare at times, but doesn't give actual performance in game. Run a game benchmark on those two systems above, you will be surprised what you find.