Good NVIDIA replacement for a broken 5850

wahjahka

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hey guys, keep this short, my 5850 broke (not under warranty, my fault)
i was happy with the 5850 but i want to go back to nvidia, so my question is, what would be a good nvidia replacement for my 5850? 4xx series preferred.

thanks!!
if you need any more info just ask.
 

jonnyboyC

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i would agree, a highly overclocked 460, is about the same or slightly better then a stock 5850, then of course theirs the 470 which is really faster at stock, can overclock to, but not to the ridiculous levels of the 460
 

Actually the 470 often OCs to the same general area(850mhz) but starts at a lower stock speed(607 vs 675mhz.) So it is actually an even better overclocker.
 

jonnyboyC

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i've heard of overclocks like that, but i hears it's more hit or miss with gf 100, where some people might hit a wall at like 700mhz, it seems like 820-40 is a guarantee with the 460, and can be pushed harder with alittle voltage boost, not that if you get a lucky a 470 would transform into a freaking monster, just it doesn't seem to be consistent as the 460's
 

notty22

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I agree. Out of the Fermi cards the 460 is the best o/c. From what i've read best o/c , order , 460, 465, 470, 480.
edit: thats not the order for best value/oc/price. The 465 has a deactivated cluster compared to the 470 and a little more stock V, so it tends to clock higher than the 470.
 
I'd say the GTX470 is a good replacement for a HD5850, its slightly faster in almost all games, where as the GTX460 is slower, I personally wouldn't want to downgrade if I'd broken a GPU.

As for overclocking, I wouldn't say "get X card because it can do xxxMhz" Just because the OP may end up with a card that can't overclock very well at all.

The GTX470 is the safe bet, the GTX460 is alittle risky but you may end up with a good overclocker and end up matching the speed of the HD5850.

Your choice.
 

Don't all the GTX 400 series cards have voltage control?
 

jonnyboyC

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i believe so at least, with reference pcb cards, so i think pretty much any card will allow afterburn to up the volts, and probably got alittle over enthusiastic about the 460, thinking about it even if it was a slight decrease in performance i still would have that meh feeling paying money for less performance, so 470 it is
 

It's not quite that simple IMO. Let's take both worst case scenarios you are presenting. Let's say you get a 460 that maxes out at 820mhz. That would be a 21.5% OC over the stock speed of 675mhz. Now let's say you have really bad luck and get a 470 that maxes out at 700mhz. That would be a 15.3% OC over the stock speed of 607mhz. However the 470 is 23% faster than the 460 at stock speeds at 1920x1200(per techpowerup*.) Meaning that the added performance should be similar to an 18.9% OC of the 460. So even as you are describing it the OCs would be extremely close. I also do believe that 700mhz is an exceptionally poor OC of the 470, well below any I've read about.


* http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Zotac/GeForce_GTX_460_1_GB/31.html
 

notty22

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The gtx 460's are not coming through with a voltage ic that allows software voltage control. The models that allow this have vendor supplied software that works with their bios that is allowing increases in certain increments. Do these cards have a physically different IC ?, I'm not sure.
But I know it is different than the IC voltage controller that comes in the reference 58XX and reference 480's , 470's. Those use a more standard IC that MSI AB has been programmed to recognize.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GeForce_GTX_460_Cyclone_OC_1_GB/4.html
vreg.jpg

OnSemi's NCP5388 is a reasonable priced voltage regulator, unfortunately it does not support I2C interface for voltage control. NVIDIA however exposes an API for voltage changes via VID in their NVAPI.
 

jonnyboyC

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I'm not saying it's the norm by any means, just that there are a few more bad apples in the gf 100 core then the the more tuned for TSMC 40nm gf104's, i guess i'm saying your just taking a bit more of a with your overclock with a 470
 

jonnyboyC

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was not aware of this, well at least msi and asus have there over volting, and i believe evga is in the process of implementing it's own
 

notty22

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I think each vendor would have to write its own program to go with its bios. This is what I'm understanding.

I will say that on the picture for the MSI 768 460 box on newegg, there is a graphic showing voltage adjustment.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ImageGallery.aspx?CurImage=14-127-511-TS&ISList=14-127-511-V01&S7ImageFlag=1&Item=N82E16814127511&Depa=0&WaterMark=0&Description=MSI%20N460GTX-M2D768D5%20GeForce%20GTX%20460%20%28Fermi%29%20768MB%20192-bit%20GDDR5%20PCI%20Express%202.0%20x16%20HDCP%20Ready%20SLI%20Support%20Video%20Card
BUT its not present on the cyclone o/c gpu box ?
We are just going to need user input , once people get the cards.
The launch review overclocks were all done WITHOUT voltage tweak , except for the few that explicitly pointed that procedure out. I think in part to highlight the gpu's headroom.
 

wahjahka

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Thats what i plan on doing now, i hear they scale well in SLI.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3810/nvidias-geforce-gtx-460-part-2-the-vendor-cards/7

pretty good. i will prob get one gtx 460 1 gb EE version then get another one down the road

long story behind the death of my 5850, keep it very short: WC loop FAIL hahahaha

edit: im looking at this one, and getting a second one in october for SLI:
http://www.evga.com/products/moreInfo.asp?pn=01G-P3-1373-AR&family=GeForce%20400%20Series%20Family&sw=
 

jonnyboyC

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i'm actually buying the exact same card if you were referring the EVGA's EE, and it's external exhaust was one of the key reason, since i bought two, so they both wouldn't slowly turn my case into a sauna
 

wahjahka

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thats what im referring to, and thats they key reason for me as well, plus i love where the power connecters are located,
heres a pic of my pc:
http://img689.imageshack.us/i/rapel.jpg/
thats a pic before i sold one of the 5850's (had 2, sold one, one died in a terrible WC accident).
the picture isnt the best quality, but you can see how i have the power cable coming straight outta the mesh, thats why i love how some cards have the power connectors there, looks much nicer
 

wahjahka

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