3870 x2 --> 5850 What do you think?

[Rhoxed]

I currently have a machine with 2 3870's. Sold one recently(had 3... need to change sig), my brothers 8600GTS died, he needed a replacement card so i gave him one for cheap.

This is for my girlfriends machine (we have lived together for 4 years) which is the second rig in my sig. She plays alot of games with me including boarderlands, bioshock 1 & 2, titan quest, sims 3, crysis, SHIFT, L4D, ME 1 & 2, battleforge and so on.. I built this rig for her and it has done well, still gets great fps in almost everything maxed.

Now, I can sell both my 3870's for 150$, would it be worth it to jump to a 5850 for 150$?
I have a machine with 3 4850's also (my main rig) that doesn't struggle with anything i have tried, i know the 4850's will out perform the 5850, but will i be dissapointed going from the 3870's?

Justify the purchase for me guys lol

*** BTW she plays on a 23" 1920x1080 display

 

[LtGoonRush]

I think the performance difference will blow your collective minds Here's the Anandtech review comparing the 3870 X2 to the 4870, and here's the review comparing the R5850 to the 4870. You also get full DirectX11 support.

 

[crisium]

3870 Crossfire is around 4850 speeds. 4850 Crossfire is around 5850 speeds. So it's a good boost.

 

[evolucion8]

When the HD 4800 series debuted, the HD 3870X2 often outperformed both, specially in games where the scaling was good, but with recent driver optimizations and games, the HD 4800 showed better performance due to their architecture tweaks. So the HD 4850 comparison is quite accurate, it might be faster, it might be slower.

 

[jtisgeek]

Since you have the crossfire boards maybe do 2 5770's that would be better than the 5850 ? Same money in the long run.

 

[bryanW1995]

yes, that's the point. he basically now has a poor man's 4850 with potential microstutter/multi gpu issues, but he can upgrade to a significantly faster card for only $150.

I hate to say it rhoxed, but now is a shitty time to upgrade. if she is really doing great with everything maxed anyway, I'd stick with what you have and see what comes out in the fermi/5xxx refresh round or maybe even fermi II/NI round.

edit: thinking about it, you might look at selling the 2x3870's and getting gtx 260 or possibly even a used 4890. that would be a signficant upgrade over the 2x3870's and would probably be free to you.

 

[TemjinGold]

yes, that's the point. he basically now has a poor man's 4850 with potential microstutter/multi gpu issues, but he can upgrade to a significantly faster card for only $150.

I hate to say it rhoxed, but now is a shitty time to upgrade. if she is really doing great with everything maxed anyway, I'd stick with what you have and see what comes out in the fermi/5xxx refresh round or maybe even fermi II/NI round.

edit: thinking about it, you might look at selling the 2x3870's and getting gtx 260 or possibly even a used 4890. that would be a signficant upgrade over the 2x3870's and would probably be free to you.

While that is true, if the OP waited, he'd also get far less than $150 for his 3870s (probably next to nothing.) Unless you believe the 5850 can drop $100 in the time it takes for Fermi to release, I'd say waiting isn't worth it.

 

[evolucion8]

yes, that's the point. he basically now has a poor man's 4850 with potential microstutter/multi gpu issues, but he can upgrade to a significantly faster card for only $150.

I hate to say it rhoxed, but now is a shitty time to upgrade. if she is really doing great with everything maxed anyway, I'd stick with what you have and see what comes out in the fermi/5xxx refresh round or maybe even fermi II/NI round.

edit: thinking about it, you might look at selling the 2x3870's and getting gtx 260 or possibly even a used 4890. that would be a signficant upgrade over the 2x3870's and would probably be free to you.

The HD 4890 isn't much faster than the HD 3870X2 (Except when there's scaling issues), to see a good difference in performance, he would need an HD 5850.

 

[DeathSniper]

I went from my 3870X2 who had the fan die on me to a 5850 and haven't looked back since. Had Crysis w/ Natural Mod & custom ultra high settings. With the 3870x2 I had an average of approximately 10 fps @ 1680x1050, with the 5850 I rarely see it dip below 30. Pretty impressive. I also had an interm 4850 while waiting for the 5850 and I can attest that the performance of the 4850 and 3870X2 was quite close.

I'm also currently playing it with max settings on BioShock 2 and AvP and haven't had any hitches. Granted, I don't normally turn on AA as I see very little use for it when playing MP - a habit from tweaking configs to get max fps/performance when playing competitively; pretty graphics aren't going to get you a win haha