500W PSU enough para 4890? and 5850?

[temp9300]

I'm going to upgrade my graphics card, the best price/performance option right now seems to be the ATI/AMD 4890, but that is if i don't have to take into consideration a PSU upgrade as well!! :??:

I have a 500W psu (Bequiet BQT-E5 500W). I heard that 500W psu might be tricky with the 4890. Do you have any idea if this PSU (i think it has 34A on 12v) will be enough? (running e8400, 4gb ram, 2hds, 1dvd)

If it's not enough or not recommended, would it be enough if the card i chose was the 5850?

Thank you in advance.

 

[crisium]

It'll work on that. The 5850 still might be a better choice because of DX11 and lower power consumption = lower electricity bill, but if you get the 4890 you will be able to power your system just fine.

 

[exar333]

That PSU should be fine for either the 4890 or the 5850 with your current setup.

 

[crisium]

Another thing I forgot is the 5770 which should be out in about a month. It should have comparable performance and price to the 4890, but have lower power consumption and DX11 support. I don't want to advocate playing the waiting game too much because you can always choose to "wait", but if you are willing and able to wait then you might want to wait for the 5770 to see how it really compares to the 4890.

 

[temp9300]

thanks for all your help, i'm going to try and wait but i don't know if i'll make it!

I'm still leaning towards the 4890 because it looks enough (i have a 1680x1050 monitor) and at least it would loose value slower.

 

[cbn]

Originally posted by: temp9300
thanks for all your help, i'm going to try and wait but i don't know if i'll make it!

I'm still leaning towards the 4890 because it looks enough (i have a 1680x1050 monitor) and at least it would loose value slower.

I don't think Hd4890 will lose value slower.

HD5850 will definitely hold value longer.

#1 it is DX11
#2 when overclocked it is almost twice as fast as Hd4890 for only about 30%-40% more money.

 

[jlee]

Originally posted by: Just learning

Originally posted by: temp9300
thanks for all your help, i'm going to try and wait but i don't know if i'll make it!

I'm still leaning towards the 4890 because it looks enough (i have a 1680x1050 monitor) and at least it would loose value slower.

I don't think Hd4890 will lose value slower.

HD5850 will definitely hold value longer.

#1 it is DX11
#2 when overclocked it is almost twice as fast as Hd4890 for only about 30%-40% more money.

5850's are going for $210?

 

[cbn]

Originally posted by: JLee

Originally posted by: Just learning

Originally posted by: temp9300
thanks for all your help, i'm going to try and wait but i don't know if i'll make it!

I'm still leaning towards the 4890 because it looks enough (i have a 1680x1050 monitor) and at least it would loose value slower.

I don't think Hd4890 will lose value slower.

HD5850 will definitely hold value longer.

#1 it is DX11
#2 when overclocked it is almost twice as fast as Hd4890 for only about 30%-40% more money.

5850's are going for $210?

No they are about $260.

If you are really looking for a bargain I would bypass hd4890 and look at the HD4870s.

Cheapest hd4890 I can find is $185 with $15 MIR.

Cheapest hd4870 1 GB on newegg is $140 with $20 MIR and free shipping.

 

[T2k]

Originally posted by: JLee

Originally posted by: Just learning

Originally posted by: temp9300
thanks for all your help, i'm going to try and wait but i don't know if i'll make it!

I'm still leaning towards the 4890 because it looks enough (i have a 1680x1050 monitor) and at least it would loose value slower.

I don't think Hd4890 will lose value slower.

HD5850 will definitely hold value longer.

#1 it is DX11
#2 when overclocked it is almost twice as fast as Hd4890 for only about 30%-40% more money.

5850's are going for $210?

yeah, where is it happening?

 

[StinkyPinky]

I wouldn't get a series 4 ATI card anymore.

Either get a 5850 or wait for the 5770.

 

[temp9300]

Originally posted by: Just learning
I don't think Hd4890 will lose value slower.
HD5850 will definitely hold value longer.
#1 it is DX11
#2 when overclocked it is almost twice as fast as Hd4890 for only about 30%-40% more money.

#2 is wrong, the benchmarks i've seen so far average around 17% faster than the 4890 so it's quite unlikely it will be twice as fast when overclocked... and you can also overclock the 4890.
DX11 is still quite new and there won't be any real advantage of having it for the next months.

I'm guessing that in 1 year time both will be worth half their current value, since the 5850 is more expensive, it will loose value faster.

 

[temp9300]

Originally posted by: Just learning
If you are really looking for a bargain I would bypass hd4890 and look at the HD4870s.
Cheapest hd4890 I can find is $185 with $15 MIR.
Cheapest hd4870 1 GB on newegg is $140 with $20 MIR and free shipping.

I consider the performance of the 4890 to be my starting point to make it worth upgrading from my 8800GT. less than that and i won't notice that much difference.

 

[cbn]

Originally posted by: temp9300

Originally posted by: Just learning
I don't think Hd4890 will lose value slower.
HD5850 will definitely hold value longer.
#1 it is DX11
#2 when overclocked it is almost twice as fast as Hd4890 for only about 30%-40% more money.

#2 is wrong, the benchmarks i've seen so far average around 17% faster than the 4890 so it's quite unlikely it will be twice as fast when overclocked... and you can also overclock the 4890.

TFLOPs (graphics processing power) are almost double with OC'd HD5850 compared to OC'd HD4890.....but that does not mean frame rates will come close to doubling.

It only means that the Video card itself is almost twice as fast with respect to processing times of graphics related tasks.

Video card processing times + CPU/memory processing times + hard drive (in some cases like Crysis) determines streaming frame rates.

So when comparing these benchmarks take into consideration what processor they are using. An overclocking Core i7 will show greater gains % wise with HD5850 than one at stock speeds.

 

[cbn]

Originally posted by: temp9300

Originally posted by: Just learning
If you are really looking for a bargain I would bypass hd4890 and look at the HD4870s.
Cheapest hd4890 I can find is $185 with $15 MIR.
Cheapest hd4870 1 GB on newegg is $140 with $20 MIR and free shipping.

I consider the performance of the 4890 to be my starting point to make it worth upgrading from my 8800GT. less than that and i won't notice that much difference.

What CPU do you have? What speed do you run it at?

 

[temp9300]

Originally posted by: Just learning
What CPU do you have? What speed do you run it at?

E8400 @3,6Ghz

 

[temp9300]

Originally posted by: Just learning
Video card processing times + CPU/memory processing times + hard drive (in some cases like Crysis) determines streaming frame rates.
So when comparing these benchmarks take into consideration what processor they are using. An overclocking Core i7 will show greater gains % wise with HD5850 than one at stock speeds.

Right, but i took an average from the benchmarks done here on Anandtech
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3650&p=3
they used: Core i7-920 @ 3.33GHz with Intel X25-M SSD (80GB) so i guess this part was as good as it gets and not a bottleneck.

 

[temp9300]

Originally posted by: StinkyPinky
I wouldn't get a series 4 ATI card anymore.
Either get a 5850 or wait for the 5770.

It depends on the price of the 5770, while they still have both the 4890 and the 5770 i'm guessing the 4890 will always be cheaper.
DX11 support is not an issue for the next months or maybe a year.

 

[cbn]

Originally posted by: temp9300

Originally posted by: Just learning
What CPU do you have? What speed do you run it at?

E8400 @3,6Ghz

How much strain does that OCing put on your PSU?

You might also want to consider HD5770 when that comes out in 2 weeks. ($199 DX11 and more energy efficient than HD4890)

 

[cbn]

Originally posted by: temp9300

Originally posted by: Just learning
Video card processing times + CPU/memory processing times + hard drive (in some cases like Crysis) determines streaming frame rates.
So when comparing these benchmarks take into consideration what processor they are using. An overclocking Core i7 will show greater gains % wise with HD5850 than one at stock speeds.

Right, but i took an average from the benchmarks done here on Anandtech
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3650&p=3
they used: Core i7-920 @ 3.33GHz with Intel X25-M SSD (80GB) so i guess this part was as good as it gets and not a bottleneck.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3650&p=4

Yep from this graph here we can see the diminishing returns of doubling TFLOPs on the GPU side of things.

HD4890 is ~ double TFLOPS of 8800 GT and yields impressive gains.

But then double TFLOPs yet again by going from HD4890 to HD5870 and the percent improvement is far less. (increasing CPU clocks would help a lot though)

I would wait for the $199 HD5770.....that card is supposed to be 1.6 times faster than the HD4770 which would put it ~ 20% faster than HD4890 as well. (not to mention being easier on your PSU with OC E8400)

 

[jlee]

Originally posted by: Just learning

Originally posted by: JLee

Originally posted by: Just learning

Originally posted by: temp9300
thanks for all your help, i'm going to try and wait but i don't know if i'll make it!

I'm still leaning towards the 4890 because it looks enough (i have a 1680x1050 monitor) and at least it would loose value slower.

I don't think Hd4890 will lose value slower.

HD5850 will definitely hold value longer.

#1 it is DX11
#2 when overclocked it is almost twice as fast as Hd4890 for only about 30%-40% more money.

5850's are going for $210?

No they are about $260.

If you are really looking for a bargain I would bypass hd4890 and look at the HD4870s.

Cheapest hd4890 I can find is $185 with $15 MIR.

Cheapest hd4870 1 GB on newegg is $140 with $20 MIR and free shipping.

My Vapor-X 4890 was $160 AR - definitely a bit faster than a 4870. Benchmarks say that an overclocked Vapor-X 4890 is GTX 285-ish speeds, which will do just fine for the time being.

4870's are a great budget card now, though!