5850 or 5870 for 1920x1200

[zod96]

A friend of mine can't decide which card to get for his system. He games at 1920x1200 with most of the eye candy on. He doesn't do alot of gaming just some, crysis, stalker, BF2 etc. Which would be best?

 

[crisium]

Crysis and the newer Stalker games are quite demanding. If he really demands extra eye candy in those games he's gonna want the 5870.

http://techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/HD_5850/10.html

Looking at 1920 with 4x AA you can see that the 5870 brings you just above the desirable 30 fps barrier. Overall at 1920 in all games it is 17% faster:

http://techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/HD_5850/29.html

Obviously given the much cheaper price the 5850 is a smarter buy from your wallet's perspective, but sometimes that extra 15-20% can be what you need (like in Crysis) and it might be worth paying the extra cash if you can afford it.

 

[Bill Brasky]

To echo what Crisium said, your friend will need the 5870 if he really wants to play crysis with the settings on high. A 5850 is better bang for the buck IMO, but he'd have to make sacrifices in image quality.

These are averages, not minimums. He needs to be sure to check out the min FPS, because that is what he'll notice.

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