Trying to figure out which video card I want, about to buy the parts

[silvernova0]

..I am dead set between two graphics cards, both same brand/warranty/heatsink. The 5770 for 159.99 or the 5850 for 309.99, if I am going to be playing on a 1680 x 1050 looking to play games such as farcry 2, maybe crysis, starcraft 2, WoW, AvP, and world at war.

Is the $150 dollars worth it?

I want to go with a card with at least a 5 year warranty, and I am using Tigerdirect.com or Amazon, not using newegg because I have to pay sales tax.

 

[rolli59]

For Crysis yes, the others HD5770 is fine.

 

[mactronix]

Depends on what you want really. Do you need to play the games with everything maxed out or are you happy to have decent settings say 75% of whats possable ?
Some games will need the quality settings turned down a little with a 5770. Take a look here http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/HD_5770_HAWK/1.html


Mactronix

 

[jerreece]

Generally for 1680x1050 the ATI 5770 is perfectly suited. However, AvP being a newer DX11 title, the ATI 5850 would perform a lot better than the ATI 5770 if you use the DX11/Tessellation.

Also, it would be more suited to future titles (next year +) if you want to continue at max settings as games get more advanced. For your other game titles the ATI 5770 is perfectly fine though.

I like to build a system based on the future, and not just today. Otherwise you end up being behind the curve fairly quick. If you can afford the ATI 5850 without pushing your budget too much, it's an awesome graphics card. If it's a budget strain, do the ATI 5770 and you can always add another one to Crossfire later on if you want/need.

Keep in mind that the GPU is generally what has the most influence in gaming performance.

 

[silvernova0]

Thank you both. I am still going to have to do some thinking, and I want to wait for next month's deals but I just don't know.

 

[jerreece]

I think we should see some price decreases on ATI 5850's to be honest. I think the GTX 470's are about to come down (considering they're all on sale this last week) and MSI just had a weekend sale over at NewEgg.com ($50 off plus $25MIR = $75 off).

So if the GTX 470's drop in price, the ATI 5850's will have to purely from a "performance" aspect. Keep an eye on the 4th of July sale events.

 

[silvernova0]

I really like that idea jerreece, and if the 5830 a card I should look at, I want to make sure one day I can set this thing up for crossfire, and just worried that those would probably go to the wind like nvidia gtx 285 where you just can't find them anymore and they aren't that old

 

[jerreece]

I'd imagine (thought I'm not certain) that the 5830 is sort of a go between card. Therefore I don't think it's as popular. Folks usually go budget (ATI 5770) or performance (5850). So the ATI 5830 I'd imagine, won't be available in the same quantities, or for as long term. That's just my guess though.

Ultimately, if you Crossfire two ATI 5770's you'll get about the same performance as an ATI 5850. So you have to balance what level of performance you want, and for how much. As of right now, a single 5850 costs about the same as 2 x 5770's. So it's comparable. In theory, you could buy a single 5770 for say $150 now, and in 6 months or more get a second for $100. Then you'd have 5850 performance for $250.

Then again, in 6 months or more the 5850 could be $250 for all we know.

If you spend the $300 now for a single 5850, you can still upgrade performance by adding a second 5850, without replacing everything. Once you have 2 x 5770, to do any better you end up replacing both cards.

 

[silvernova0]

yea...I was shooting for a thousand dollars for this build..but it looks like it will be 1050-1200 dollars x.x

 

[killerchickens]

Two 5770 in crossfire are about as fast as a 5870 not a 5850.

 

[silvernova0]

I thought they were just a little more powerful then a 5850 and still a decent step down from a 5870

 

[jyjjy]

Nope, crossfired HD5770 actually tend to give average frame rates a bit higher than an HD5870 although the minimum frame rate suffers a bit(due to the 128-bit bus.) Here is a good article on the subject;
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/radeon-hd5770-hd5750-crossfirex.html
That is what I would recommend. Just get an HD5770 for now. Really it is quite good for 1680x1050. You wont be able to max out every current game but you will be able to on most and on most of the others you will just need to turn down anti aliasing. There's only a small handful of games that you'll probably want to lower settings other than AA(Crysis, Metro 2033, Stalker.)
I would just get one of those for now. If/when you decide you need something better grab another for crossfire. Just make sure you are getting a motherboard were both slots work at at least x8 when crossfiring. x4 is to be avoided.