rishwin

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Today i bought a 30" Samsung 305T, however as expected, my aging 8800GT is having problems running games... well.

Looking at the 4890 as an upgrade, do you think that would be enough to play at the monitor's native resolution of 2560x1600? I don't want everything max + max AA, i just want to be able to play games (Bioshock 2 at the moment) at at least "High" settings.

Been waiting for months now for the 5830 but it's taking too long, i need a card within the next few days. One with a HDMI port is preferred.

Also, exactly how much of a performance increase is there between the 5850 and the 4890? Please completely ignore the fact that it has DX11, i want to know from a pure performance POV. If there is not ALOT of difference, i may get the 4890 and get a 2nd one for x-fire sometime in the near future.
 

rishwin

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Well having just bought a 30" monitor, spending more cash is the last thing i should be doing right now... If 2x 4890 is better than a 5850 then i would rather do that.

Over here a 4890 is $250 AUD and a 5850 is $400 AUD. Even if 2x 4890 are an extra $100, i'd still rather do that so i can spread the cost of it out across several months.

Like i said, i only want to be able to play at High in native resolution, i'm not wanting to play Crysis on max with 8x AA. The most GFX intensive games i play are Bioshock, GTA4, Half Life 2, burnout Paradise, Batman Arkham Asylum, and GRID Racedriver.

The only reason i want to play at the native resolution is because of my eyes, having all images stretched to fit the screen is giving me a huge headache.
 
I would recommend the HD5850. At the stock voltage it OCs to around the speed of an HD5870 but if you up the voltage it can get over 1ghz which should rival crossfired HD4890s while using much less power and without crossfire scaling/compatibility issues as well as possible heat problems. It will also leave a slot open for crossfiring in the future and at that resolution it's something to consider.
Also spending a large amount of money on video cards and ignoring DX11 is a mistake at this point imo.
 

rishwin

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Jesus Christ, you guys are relentless. But i guess that's a good thing, you have convinced me to go for the 5850 :p

Will be getting the Sapphire card, it's $30 cheaper than the Asus and $60 cheaper than the XFX. You guys think it should be able to play things at 2560x1600 with decent settings?
 

Well 2 HD 4890s perform better but they consume more power and produce more heat so i would choose HD 5850 it runs cooler and has lower power consumption and extra features like DX11,eyefinity etc