5850 at 1920x1080

[Kgen]

Hey guys,

I'd like to upgrade my 19" monitor (1280x1024) to a newer 23" one (1920x1080). Right now I'm using 5850 and it's excellent for pretty much anything this days on highest possible settings and AA/AF. With some pretty interesting games coming out next few months (BF3 and Skyrim for example), I'd still like to keep playing them on highest settings. Do you think 5850 could handle it? I've searched the forum, but couldn't get a definitive answer.

(I'm planning an upgrade when the next gen cards arrive, but that means at least 6 months until the prices drop to reasonable levels, so the card will have to hold at least that long...)

Thanks!

My specs:
i5 750@3.2GHZ, 5850 (no OC), 4 GB RAM

 

[wirednuts]

i still game at 1080p with a 4870 and an overclocked i3 1st gen. keep your gear.

 

[Kgen]

i still game at 1080p with a 4870 and an overclocked i3 1st gen. keep your gear.

The question is, can your gear handle the newest games in highest settings and produce reasonably decent fps (even without AA, not that critical for me). Because, I'm fairly sure it will work fine on medium settings on the more demanding games...but I'd rather have higher quality graphics than bigger monitor for now

Also, I realize now that I can always game with a lower resolution, but I'm not sure how that will work out. My understanding is that non native resolutions hurt quality.

 

[darckhart]

yes, i had 5850 at 5870 speeds on a 1920x1200. It worked just fine with high settings and AA. rumor has it that bf3 is a bit of a beast tho, so you mite feel it struggle. with your 6 month time frame though, it shouldn't be problem. you should definitely consider oc'ing in addition to turning down the unnecessary eyecandy settings like self shadows, DOF, etc.

 

[Kgen]

yes, i had 5850 at 5870 speeds on a 1920x1200. It worked just fine with high settings and AA. rumor has it that bf3 is a bit of a beast tho, so you mite feel it struggle. with your 6 month time frame though, it shouldn't be problem. you should definitely consider oc'ing in addition to turning down the unnecessary eyecandy settings like self shadows, DOF, etc.

Thanks for your answer, but I'm not sure if it helps. On one hand you're saying it handled a slightly higher resolution on highest settings. On the other hand, you're talking about OC and turning down eye candy which is something I'd rather not do.

At the end of the day we're talking about ~47% additional pixels (from 1280x1024 to 1080p). The question is, whether or not the performance hit will be as severe (ie ~47% lower) or it doesn't work like that and the performance stays reasonable.

 

[Silverforce11]

if you have a 5850 and you dont want to OC, its kinda holding the card back. these were made to OC, even if its just to 5870 speeds.

mine can hit 1000/1200 but the fan at 50% is loud so i leave it on 950/1200 with 45% fan.

radeons scale very well at high res, the performance drop is not too severe. similar with AA.

 

[Despoiler]

I played the BF3 beta with an AMD Phenom 2 x4 940 @ 3.4ghz with my 5850. It was as fast as BF2 yet looks better. Everything was maxed by default and I didn't have any issues. The engine is really fast.

 

[StinkyPinky]

Actually good question. I want to move from 22" 1680 x 1050 to 24" full hd on my 5850 and was wondering the same thing. I can tell you it does 1680 perfectly fine.

Mine does have a small overclock though. But only whatever the AMD drivers let me do, which is not much.

 

[TakeNoPrisoners]

I had some problems running The Witcher 2 at 1080p maxed with the in game AA (not ubersampling).

I got dips into the low twenties.

Personally I would upgrade for that resolution to either a GTX 570 overclocked to GTX 580 speeds or a GTX 580.

The reason I say that is because those cards are about as twice as powerful as a 5850.

 

[Silverforce11]

I had some problems running The Witcher 2 at 1080p maxed with the in game AA (not ubersampling).

I got dips into the low twenties.

Personally I would upgrade for that resolution to either a GTX 570 overclocked to GTX 580 speeds or a GTX 580.

The reason I say that is because those cards are about as twice as powerful as a 5850.

5850 OC to 875mhz = identical to 5870 performance.
5870 was around 10% slower than gtx480 at 1080p and up.

5850 OC to >950mhz is ~ gtx480 levels.

gtx480 perf level is fine for 1080p in most games, there are a few which struggle, but even a gtx580 would also struggle, so you need CF/SLI.

 

[Kgen]

I had some problems running The Witcher 2 at 1080p maxed with the in game AA (not ubersampling).

I got dips into the low twenties.

Personally I would upgrade for that resolution to either a GTX 570 overclocked to GTX 580 speeds or a GTX 580.

The reason I say that is because those cards are about as twice as powerful as a 5850.

Well, luckily I've got TW2, so I've decided to test this, and connected the PC to 1080p HD TV set. At 1080p the in game fps fluctuated wildly between 30 and 60 and yet stayed perfectly playable the whole time. Any dips below 30 were momentary. Obviously, low 30th are a little too low for comfort but still I was somewhat surprised at the performance. I was also surprised that the in game AA option hardly had any effect on the fps.

I also ran the game on lower resolution to see how it affected the graphics and didn't see anything wrong in particular. Maybe it's something you would notice after prolonged playing time, but from a glance I didn't see quality degradation (maybe it's noticeable on text only?).

The dilemma is still there though. On one hand, a technically advanced game (and in my eyes one of the most good looking) ran satisfactory. On the other hand, there was no safety margin, so anything less optimized or more demanding would be unplayable. On one hand, it seems like lowering the resolution wouldn't hurt the quality, but one the other hand, maybe I'm missing something...fun times :biggrin:

Any thoughts/advice would be appreciated.

 

[Silverforce11]

Any thoughts/advice would be appreciated.

OC your 5850, you can improve performance by 25% easily.

 

[Kgen]

OC your 5850, you can improve performance by 25% easily.

I have a problem doing that since the card uses powerplay to fluctuate the clocks and that causes some stuttering and black lines in 2D. I've seen some ways to overcome that on the net, but nothing worked for me.

Regardless, the question is whether or not the monitor upgrade is worthwhile. I'd rather know how the card performs on stock speeds and this resolution and base my decision on that alone.

 

[Silverforce11]

Use MSI afterburner to OC before you play games, it keeps the speed and vcore constant to avoid any problems with powerplay.

A stock 5850 is not enough for 1080p in modern games without sacrificing visuals. Something 30% faster than a 5850 should suffice.

5850 has an identical gpu as 5870 in terms of how fast you can clock them, its also got identical vram which can run at or beyond 5870 speeds. it's like buying a SB version K and not overclocking... sure, you could, but you're missing out on a lot of potential.

 

[Kgen]

I understand. Thank you for your help!

Edit: Also, your solution to OC problem I described is not perfect. The clocks are falling to 2D values even in games. For example, in TW2 it happens at the loading screens and then I get black lines and tearing. I'm using MSI afterburner.

 

[Kenmitch]

Maybe a bios mod is in order for your card? I did my 5850 ref design card and set the 2d to 400/900 and the 3d to 1000/1300 and have been running for well over a year without any issues....Of course my card has a full water block to tame the beast!

 

[Kgen]

Maybe a bios mod is in order for your card? I did my 5850 ref design card and set the 2d to 400/900 and the 3d to 1000/1300 and have been running for well over a year without any issues....Of course my card has a full water block to tame the beast!

My understanding is that it happens because I have 2 monitors connected. Apparently, if I disable one of the monitors it shouldn't happen. Have to test it yet.

Anyway, I've OC the card to 875/1200 and ran kombustor benchmark that comes with afterburner. The score improved by 12%. That's probably 4-7 more fps in games (assumption for 30 to 60fps)...I don't think that's what going to make a difference.

Can anyone confirm that playing the games on non native resolutions does not mess up the graphics? I know the text get a lot worse. I'm still trying to figure out if the upgrade is worthwhile.

 

[darckhart]

Thanks for your answer, but I'm not sure if it helps. On one hand you're saying it handled a slightly higher resolution on highest settings. On the other hand, you're talking about OC and turning down eye candy which is something I'd rather not do.

At the end of the day we're talking about ~47% additional pixels (from 1280x1024 to 1080p). The question is, whether or not the performance hit will be as severe (ie ~47% lower) or it doesn't work like that and the performance stays reasonable.

What I mean is that you can't arbitrarily crank the eyecandy settings to ultra with high levels of CSAA at 1080p unless you have a top end card. Therefore, you will need to do some tradeoffs with eyecandy. You'll have to decide which eyecandy settings you like to see and which you don't care for.

Additionally, a 5850 is begging to be OC'ed. If MSI Afterburner is not working for you, your best bet would be to mod the bios with RBE. (I did that successfully with my 5850s. Adjusted voltages and max 3d clocks while maintaining the downclock settings for 2d.) If you are uncomfortable with this, then yes, I would say your best bet is to hold out the few months for the nextgen cards by turning down the appropriate visual settings.

 

[Bill Brasky]

I understand you have an opinion about graphics settings over resolution, but imo resolution is a significantly better upgrade. I have a 5850 at your rez, and even though I can't crank the AA, I wouldn't
*ever* go back to 1280. To give you an example, in BC2 I used 2xAA and everything else at high, and my absolute minimum framerate was 41 while averaging 55-60 (i5 750). BF3 beta was considerably more taxing, but it was also a beta...

To answer your question, no a 5850 can't handle that rez with everything maxed. I'm a little nutty about fps mins (40 is the absolute minimum I can tolerate), so 2x-4x AA is all I use.

 

[Kgen]

I understand you have an opinion about graphics settings over resolution, but imo resolution is a significantly better upgrade. I have a 5850 at your rez, and even though I can't crank the AA, I wouldn't
*ever* go back to 1280. To give you an example, in BC2 I used 2xAA and everything else at high, and my absolute minimum framerate was 41 while averaging 55-60 (i5 750). BF3 beta was considerably more taxing, but it was also a beta...

To answer your question, no a 5850 can't handle that rez with everything maxed. I'm a little nutty about fps mins (40 is the absolute minimum I can tolerate), so 2x-4x AA is all I use.

I understand we have an identical gpu/cpu combo. Great, exactly what I've been looking for
I'd appreciate it if you could describe perhaps in slightly more detail how different games run for you at 1080p. As a matter of fact, AA is really not that important for me, but texture quality, shaders and filters/effects are.
Also, if you ever had to lower the resolution to play, did it affect the graphics somehow that you weren't playing in native resolution. Thanks!

 

[Vesku]

I have good results using Sapphire TRIXX to overclock my 58xx series cards. Should see if it works any better for you than MSI Afterburner.

 

[StinkyPinky]

Is there any way to unlock the driver so we can do proper overclocking through there? At the moment it only allows for about a pathetic 5% overclock. Why bother offering it at all.

 

[Bill Brasky]

I understand we have an identical gpu/cpu combo. Great, exactly what I've been looking for
I'd appreciate it if you could describe perhaps in slightly more detail how different games run for you at 1080p. As a matter of fact, AA is really not that important for me, but texture quality, shaders and filters/effects are.
Also, if you ever had to lower the resolution to play, did it affect the graphics somehow that you weren't playing in native resolution. Thanks!

Unfortunately, I have a small set of games I actually play (Portal 2, L4D2, BC2, BF3 beta), but have tried others.

If you're ok w/o AA or just 2xAA, then you shouldn't have any problems with most games. I have to finish running errands at the moment (browsing on my phone), but I'll try to answer your questions more thoroughly tonight.

 

[Silverforce11]

If you dont care about AA, a 5850 is enough for almost every game at 1080p. I've played BF3 beta heaps with fraps or msi monitoring fps.

 

[WMD]

The 5850 is fine for BF3 high settings at 1080p resolution. Just remember to use post AA medium instead of MSAA. 5850 @ 875/1200 is about the same as a 5870. Bump voltage to around 1.25v to try for 1000mhz. Furmark is a horrible benchmark to check oc performance. Use stalker cop benchmark. I measured over 30% speed gain there.