5850 at 1920x1080

[Kgen]

I have to finish running errands at the moment (browsing on my phone), but I'll try to answer your questions more thoroughly tonight.

Thanks!

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.

Funny enough, the 875/1200 I've got tested for 15 minutes under burn-in, didn't hold in TW2. The ATI driver started crashing and recovering almost immediately but funnily enough the game didn't crash, just froze and waited for the driver to recover I've took the memory clock back down to 1000Mhz and this behavior stopped. I've read that the memory OC isn't that important as the gains are small anyway.

 

[OptimumSlinky]

Interesting thread. I also have a 5850, and was thinking about upgrading it. But since the majority of my friends play on Xbox Live, and my system already demolishes StarCraft II which is the only game we regularly play on PC, I think I'll just just get new, high-quality fans for my case and over-clock my 5850.

 

[Kgen]

Interesting thread. I also have a 5850, and was thinking about upgrading it. But since the majority of my friends play on Xbox Live, and my system already demolishes StarCraft II which is the only game we regularly play on PC, I think I'll just just get new, high-quality fans for my case and over-clock my 5850.

About that overclocking, I'll throw in some numbers, in case anyone cares...I've found out my sapphire card does not allow core voltage changes. In my case it means 900/1100 is the highest I can go. I've took the WMD advice from last page and tested the whole OC deal using the Stalker COP benchmark. I found out that OCing my card to the aforementioned clock frequencies raised my fps by ~18%. On the other hand, the resolution change from 1280x1024 to 1080p caused a loss of ~34% in performance. And finally, the combined affect of both OC and raising the resolution caused a -23% loss in fps. I suppose it's not a bad result, loosing 23 percent in fps by raising the number of pixels by 58%.

 

[happy medium]

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.

The 5870 is no match for a gtx480 in BF3, in fact the gtx560ti is beating a 6870, 5870,and 6950 in BF3 @ 1080p ultra setting HBO enabled and 4xaa.

I would sell the 5850 and grab a gtx560ti and overclock it to gtx570/6970 speeds. Best bang for the buck so far.

 

[RussianSensation]

If you waited this long without an upgrade, you might as well wait for GTX600 and HD7000. Upgrade the monitor and go from there. You can always get a new card later on. It shouldn't stop you from upgrading your monitor since you'll likely keep the monitor for 3-5 years+. A mildly overclocked 5850 will be as fast as an HD5870 and a heavily overclocked HD5850 will be even faster. There isn't a good $200-300 upgrade from that level of performance today outside of getting a 2nd HD5850 or 2x HD6870s. You'll really need to spend a lot more (such as getting a GTX580 and overclocking it). Of course HD58xx series is very slow with Tessellation, but other than that it's still a very fast card.

 

[RussianSensation]

5870 was around 10% slower than gtx480 at 1080p and up.

I am amazed that this still gets thrown around on our forum.

GTX480 is about 22% faster on average than HD5870 is at 1680x1050 4AA/16AF and about 15-18% faster at 1920x1080 4AA/16AF. The only time GTX480 was only 10-15% faster was during the first 1-2 months of release. Since then GTX480's drivers improved and DX11 games became more prevalent (i.e., GTX480 performs better in DX11 which allowed it to extend the lead further). Not to say anything of GTX480s overclocking which puts it at GTX580 level of performance while HD5870 has hardly any overclocking room.

Now GTX480 for $500 representing a horrible value vs. a $350 HD5870, that's another story

 

[Kgen]

If you waited this long without an upgrade, you might as well wait for GTX600 and HD7000. Upgrade the monitor and go from there. You can always get a new card later on. It shouldn't stop you from upgrading your monitor since you'll likely keep the monitor for 3-5 years+. A mildly overclocked 5850 will be as fast as an HD5870 and a heavily overclocked HD5850 will be even faster. There isn't a good $200-300 upgrade from that level of performance today outside of getting a 2nd HD5850 or 2x HD6870s. You'll really need to spend a lot more (such as getting a GTX580 and overclocking it). Of course HD58xx series is very slow with Tessellation, but other than that it's still a very fast card.

I'm not considering upgrading my video card. I'm pondering upgrading the monitor and the consequences on my near future gaming I will upgrade in 6 month or so, when the new generation of cards will settle down price wise. So far I've seen some positive comments here, although my own benchmarking was less than stellar and apparently my overclocking is also very limited (no core voltage control). I'm still undecided, although I'm thinking about getting the monitor and playing the heavy games on non-native resolution. :hmm:

 

[WMD]

I am amazed that this still gets thrown around on our forum.

GTX480 is about 22% faster on average than HD5870 is at 1680x1050 4AA/16AF and about 15-18% faster at 1920x1080 4AA/16AF. The only time GTX480 was only 10-15% faster was during the first 1-2 months of release. Since then GTX480's drivers improved and DX11 games became more prevalent (i.e., GTX480 performs better in DX11 which allowed it to extend the lead further). Not to say anything of GTX480s overclocking which puts it at GTX580 level of performance while HD5870 has hardly any overclocking room.

Now GTX480 for $500 representing a horrible value vs. a $350 HD5870, that's another story

True but many of those old games in that article (example spellforce, serious sam2) skew heavily towards Nvidia. The advantage is comparing 200fps - 300fps. Overall it kind of depends which review webpage the benchmarks are based on. There are 2 other German review websites that put them closer to 10% apart.

http://ht4u.net/reviews/2011/xfx_radeon_hd_6950_xxx_dual_fan_test/index30.php

http://www.tweakpc.de/hardware/test...rce_gtx560_ti_oc/benchmarks.php?benchmark=pfd

 

[happy medium]

I am amazed that this still gets thrown around on our forum.

GTX480 is about 22% faster on average than HD5870 is at 1680x1050 4AA/16AF and about 15-18% faster at 1920x1080 4AA/16AF. The only time GTX480 was only 10-15% faster was during the first 1-2 months of release. Since then GTX480's drivers improved and DX11 games became more prevalent (i.e., GTX480 performs better in DX11 which allowed it to extend the lead further). Not to say anything of GTX480s overclocking which puts it at GTX580 level of performance while HD5870 has hardly any overclocking room.

Now GTX480 for $500 representing a horrible value vs. a $350 HD5870, that's another story

But a brand new gtx480 for 200$ no rebate is much better.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...&SID=u00000687

 

[Silverforce11]

The 5870 is no match for a gtx480 in BF3, in fact the gtx560ti is beating a 6870, 5870,and 6950 in BF3 @ 1080p ultra setting HBO enabled and 4xaa.

I would sell the 5850 and grab a gtx560ti and overclock it to gtx570/6970 speeds. Best bang for the buck so far.

I'm calling GameGPU's BF3 complete bullshit.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/10/03/battlefield_3_open_beta_performance_image_quality/2
[H] > GameGPU.

Russian, 5870 has hardly OC headroom? Its default is 850mhz, these cards run 1ghz if you can vcore tweak. My own 5850 run 1ghz. Performance delta 5870 to gtx480 in newer games is close to 10%.

 

[Silverforce11]

About that overclocking, I'll throw in some numbers, in case anyone cares...I've found out my sapphire card does not allow core voltage changes. In my case it means 900/1100 is the highest I can go. I've took the WMD advice from last page and tested the whole OC deal using the Stalker COP benchmark. I found out that OCing my card to the aforementioned clock frequencies raised my fps by ~18%. On the other hand, the resolution change from 1280x1024 to 1080p caused a loss of ~34% in performance. And finally, the combined affect of both OC and raising the resolution caused a -23% loss in fps. I suppose it's not a bad result, loosing 23 percent in fps by raising the number of pixels by 58%.

900 is pretty good without vcore tweaks, usually with no vcore changes 5850s can only get 875 tops. still, nicely done and definitely go with 1080p, higher resolution overall gives you better IQ and a gaming experience.

Try pushing memory to 1175.

 

[WMD]

About that overclocking, I'll throw in some numbers, in case anyone cares...I've found out my sapphire card does not allow core voltage changes. In my case it means 900/1100 is the highest I can go. I've took the WMD advice from last page and tested the whole OC deal using the Stalker COP benchmark. I found out that OCing my card to the aforementioned clock frequencies raised my fps by ~18%. On the other hand, the resolution change from 1280x1024 to 1080p caused a loss of ~34% in performance. And finally, the combined affect of both OC and raising the resolution caused a -23% loss in fps. I suppose it's not a bad result, loosing 23 percent in fps by raising the number of pixels by 58%.

That is a great overclock without vcore increase. You are only seeing 18% because of only 10% increase on memory bottlenecking it somewhat. See if you can get the memory higher. But still great results. Try using trixx for voltage increase.

 

[OptimumSlinky]

Some questions...

1- Anyone have any experience with this card? $219 for a 560 Ti ($200 with mail-in) sounds like an SLI deal to me.

2- If SLI'ing, is it worth getting a 560 Ti over a plain-jane or a eVGA Superclocked base 560?