Upgrading from XFX 5850

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Sort by date Sort by votes
The Halo Don

The Halo Don

Distinguished
Apr 24, 2011
623
0
19,010
Cant the 5850 already do that?

It has to be one of the most beautiful cards IMO, well anyways, upgrading to a GTX 560 Ti probably wouldn't give you that much, so I'd go with the GTX 570/6970 for an extremely noticeable difference.

Don't get me wrong, you'll still get a great performance boost from the 560 Ti.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
geofelt

geofelt

Titan
Oct 9, 2006
54,295
4,145
174,240
If you upgrade your graphics card, make it a jump of several tiers or you will be disappointed if you do not see major improvement.

Your 5850 is a good card, but it is only a bit slower that a GTX560ti.

You should be looking at a GTX570 or 6970 at least.
Perhaps even a GTX580 or 6990.
Your 700w psu will run any single card if it is of decent quality.

An oc to your cpu might help also. Try it.

To help clarify your options, run these two tests:

1) Run your games, but lower your resolution and eye candy.
If your FPS increases, it indicates that your cpu is strong enough to drive a better graphics configuration.

2) Limit your cpu, either by reducing the OC, or, in windows power management, limit the maximum cpu% to something like 70%.
If your FPS drops significantly, it is an indicator that your cpu is the limiting factor, and a cpu upgrade is in order.

It is possible that both tests are positive, indicating that you have a well balanced system, and both cpu and gpu need to be upgraded to get better gaming FPS.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Supernova1138

Supernova1138

Illustrious
Mar 22, 2011
5,340
54
37,690


Unless you have a very high budget to work with, don't bother trying to max out Crysis 2 with DX11 and ultra settings. If you read the recent articles here on Tom's benchmarking Crysis 2's DX11 and ultra upgrades, it indicates you would need at least 2 6950s or 2 6970s in crossfire or equivalent to get smooth gameplay at maximum at 1080p. Crysis 2 has become like its predecessor, it makes all but the most powerful graphics configurations cry.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
dalauder

dalauder

Splendid
Aug 30, 2010
4,361
187
23,490
5850 compared to the GTX 560Ti: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/330?vs=295

It's a difference, but not enough to be worth an upgrade. It's worth noting that they're supposed to be competing on the same tier. The 5850 rivaled (and decisively lost) to the GTX 470--which is pretty much the GTX 560Ti. It's like upgrading a 2010 Nissan Altima to a 2010 Toyota Camry. Yeah it's better, but you're not gonna do anything new.

As far as your RAM--I assume that's 2x4GB + 2x2GB? Just run the two 4GB sticks, it'll be quicker--unless you're running a bunch of virtual machines or something. Run Memtest86+ from a USB stick to verify the throughput change.

I agree with everyone above that you'll need a pretty big upgrade to notice a difference. I think you should either buy a second 5850 to get the performance of roughly the GTX 460's in SLI (see iam2thecrowe's link) or...no--that's what you should do. Buy a second 5850. That or throw down $500 for a GTX 580.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
M

megamanx00

Splendid
Sep 3, 2008
8,216
2
31,465
Too bad you got an odd P55 board with one 16x and one 4x PCI-E slot. Even so you might want to just try adding a second 5850 for more performance. If you're going to stick with a single card then only a GTX 580, an overclocked 6970, or a dual GPU card would really be considered a measurable upgrade. Powercolor just released a 6870X2 after all. Anyway, it's up to you.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
dalauder

dalauder

Splendid
Aug 30, 2010
4,361
187
23,490

Nope, I was wrong. It's the chipset that lacks SLI support, right?

Basically, NVidia doesn't license chipsets for SLI that are less than 8x/8x. At least I haven't seen one, but I've seen plenty of 16x/4x that are Crossfire certified.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Mousemonkey

Mousemonkey

Titan
Sep 3, 2006
59,466
17
92,965

That seems a lot more likely as I cannot recall seeing any SLi motherboards that x16/x4 or x8/x4 in recent years but that doesn't that there aren't older ones out there.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
dalauder

dalauder

Splendid
Aug 30, 2010
4,361
187
23,490
There's actually plenty of evidence suggesting 16x/4x will run SLI just fine: http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/08/25/gtx_480_sli_pcie_bandwidth_perf_x16x16_vs_x4x4

That's why Radeons allow it. I think that PCI-e 1.0 got people hating on the slow 4x speed though (because it was half as fast then), so NVidia doesn't allow it. But I don't think that's to their advantage since people with 16x/4x motherboards now just buy Radeons. Actually, all these restrictions on SLI licensing has hurt NVidia--especially with the majority of AMD CPU customers choosing Radeons for future CF.

Back to the initial 16x/4x comment:

OP, your 16x/4x mobo will run dual 5850's very well (and tessellation with kill them). You'll be more limited by your i5-750 running at stock speeds.

Tessellation--at least in Metro 2033, I don't notice much of a difference with Tessellation On/Off. I mean, I know there's a difference--but is it better? It doesn't make oil drums any rounder (still polygons viewed from top instead of round)--I guess I'll have to wait for a good implementation of it rather than a novelty one.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom