dragonfire321123

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Jun 23, 2011
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I want to upgrade one of our computers that still had integrated graphics but it has a limited power supply. It's a Dell refurbished XPS 8300, 6 gigs of ram and an i5 2300 quad core. I know it's not the fasted thing around but compared to what we used to have it's great. The power supply is 460 watts. My Dad called Dell and they told him that the highest graphics card the psu would support is a 5850. I didn't know if the 6850 has a comparable power consumption or not or if I should just go for the 5850?


P.S And if I get one, will the cpu be a bottleneck for gaming? I won't be doing anything to extreme with it.
 
5850 uses a maximum of 150 watts. 6850 uses a maximum of 128 watts. Outside of DirectX11 the 5850 is about 10% faster than the 6850, on par with the 6870. In DirectX11, particularly with tessellation, the 6850 would probably fare slightly better than the 5850. 6850 also has better Crossfire scaling, but that wouldn't be an option unless you got a better PSU, and I doubt your mobo would support Crossfire.
 

jijoslin

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Mar 22, 2010
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It's kind of hard to find brand new 5850's right now,and if your like me a warranty is important, Newegg is offering the 6850 for like$139.99 after mail in rebate, and with some models a free game, pretty enticing if you ask me.