5850 for bf3?

[ibob]

Hey guys,

With battlefield 3 on the tip of the iceberg, I'm trying to figure out the best route for me to take. I'm trying to figure out if i should swap over to crossfire or upgrade my card.

Specs:

GIGABYTE GA-890GPA-UD3H AM3 AMD 890GX HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor

CORSAIR DOMINATOR 8GB (4 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)

ATI RADEON 5850 1G DDR5


I run my games at 1920X1200 resolution on highest settings possible.


What I'm looking to find out from you all is: can this tackle max bf3 settings, should i crossfire 5850 ( would be awesome if anyone knew what the replacement/equivalent for the 58 for this is since no one sells the 5850 and if i could crossfire a 5850 with a new model)


ANY HELP IS HIGHLY APPRECIATED!!!!!

 

[ibob]

ok, but should i go the crossfire route or upgrade the card? that's the ultimate question here and with what cards.

 

[ibob]

the question is what card for crossfire


i cant find a 5850 for less then 200, yet the 6850 is only 150. is the 6850 not equivalent?

 

[jjb8675309]

you cannot crossfire a 5850 with a 6850 if that is what your asking and from my personal expirience I would avoid midrange crossfire altogether bc of the terrible microstuttering and horrible minimum fps I expirienced with my 6870 crossfire setup of the past.... Id go for a beefier single gpu or what for the next round...

 

[ibob]

so would a 5850 and a 6870 crossfire?

 

[jjb8675309]

no def not

 

[jjb8675309]

you can crossfire a 6850 and a 6870 (which is dumb) or a 5850 with a 5870 (which is also a dumb move imo)... best to pair it up with a matching card you cannot crossfire 5 and six series and I personally wouldn't recommend crossfire for anything less then 6950s bc of the inherent microstuttering and overall poor drivers for midrange dual gpus from AMD ... nothing wrong with amds single gpu configs but like I mentioned above, the 6870 crossfire setup I had, the microstutter was unavoidable...

 

[ibob]

that's unfortunate, considering a 5850 at this point is 50 bucks more then a 6870 considering they are identical.


looks like a single beefy card it is. Gonna toss this up on ebay and see what i can fetch.



So for the single beefy card, would a 6950 2g be what i need for max setting?

This??? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161372

 

[jjb8675309]

I wouldnt say max but it will def be playable with some nice graphics imo... really to make the upgrade worthwhile Id grab a gtx 580... considering the 6950 is basically the 5870 with more vram it will be marginally better then your single 5850 so really for a single gpu I think its the 580 or maybe a 570 oc'ed would suffice if the game is not to taxing on vram I guess, in the end its all speculating so I'd get the best gpu you can afford or wait for the refresh; which is a game you will never quite win, in the end you have to settle or blow big cash lol..

 

[jjb8675309]

^that is a nice 6950 you have linked although I cannot say precisely if it would be "worth" the upgrade to obtain it... that my friend is up to you

personally I noticed a big jump in BFBC2 going from a single 6870 to a single gtx 560ti with a 1ghz oc it practically runs like a gtx 570/6970.... but thats BFBC2... oh btw I only paid 210 for an Asus DC2 model so Im happy for now until I possibly go sli or bigger gpu down the road

 

[raymarv]

Here is a Graphics Card Hierarchy Chart:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-performance-radeon-geforce,2997-7.html

 

[jjb8675309]

^thanks and as you can see a 6950 is only a one tier jump while a 580 is a 3 tier jump which according to toms constitutes a "worthwhile" upgrade although at times I could disagree this is fairly accurate

 

[ibob]

as being a college student, money is kinda tight and idk if i can justify another hundred for a 580.

thanks for the help but i think im going to rock the 5950, never had to much luck with nvidia

 

[renz496]

maybe you can just wait until the game out before deciding which card to get. if you're comfortable with your current 5850 maybe you will just keep it as it is and do your upgrade when the next gen card comes out. but if you not then maybe its time to find used 5850 (if you want it cheap) or getting new card altogether

 

[jjb8675309]

^yeah then just wait it out

 

[spentshells]

5850 and 5870 480/470 are not on downside of the graphics market you are still doing just fine, max settings doubt it but enjoyable yes for sure

 

[ibob]

interesting enough, according to that chart a 4870 x2 is equiv to a 6970 and the best part of it all is that a 4870 x2 is only around $ 100.

thats a 2 tier jump from the 5850 for 100 bucks

heres my new question: How much better is a 5850 x2 then a 4870 x2. the 5850 x2 is not even listed on the chart, which leads me to believe that for $50-100 more i could blow bf3 outta the water.

Update: dice just annouced that you will need 580 x2 for ultra settings =(

 

[jjb8675309]

a 4870x2 is on par with a 5870 you will not see too much of a jump not to mention that you will lose dx11 support, not a good idea

 

[ibob]

a 4870x2 is on par with a 5870 you will not see too much of a jump not to mention that you will lose dx11 support, not a good idea

Good Call on the dx11, didn't even think of that.



So does another 5850 justify itself for crossfire?


god knows i don't have enough for sli 580's

 

[spentshells]

another 5850 is a good idea, likely can be found on the cheap

 

[jjb8675309]

yeah but I wouldnt expect it to be so hot in the microstutter dept considering it runs rampant with a pair of 6870s which is basically the same performance of a 5850
all I can say is I had a pair of 6870s and they were horrible

 

[spentshells]

i wouldn't jump to any conclusions about microstuttering ie 5970 crossfire on card for example which simply has 320 more shaders.

 

[jjb8675309]

ok well personally I wouldnt try it, maybe im wrong, but with 6870s it was bad

 

[spentshells]

I dont remember hearing a lot about it with the 58xx or 57xx cards or 280x260
but yeah I suppose you have a point

 

[ibob]

i think im going to wait to see how the new drivers preform on bf3 and check the benchmarks to see if i should stay ati or go nvidia.