Best bang for the buck card considering OC power?

[Pray To Jesus]

Res: 1080P

What's the best card that has the cheapest
price/performance unit?

Can wait 1+ month

 

[Don Karnage]

7850

But wait a week or two. The 670 is coming and amd needs to drop prices to compete

 

[aaksheytalwar]

7850

But wait a week or two. The 670 is coming and amd needs to drop prices to compete

7850. Period.

 

[Pray To Jesus]

7850

But wait a week or two. The 670 is coming and amd needs to drop prices to compete

OK waiting is easy

 

[Silverforce11]

Regardless of the gtx670, because its pricing is in another tier. It's the 7850. You can OC to get gtx580 +10% performance on its default cooler, and its running ~150W.

But if the reference gtx670 @ $400 can reach high turbo clocks, then it will also be the best bang for buck card, just another pricing tier higher.

 

[Pray To Jesus]

I like to think of it as what's the best card that has the cheapest price/performance unit.

 

[Don Karnage]

Regardless of the gtx670, because its pricing is in another tier. It's the 7850. You can OC to get gtx580 +10% performance on its default cooler, and its running ~150W.

But if the reference gtx670 @ $400 can reach high turbo clocks, then it will also be the best bang for buck card, just another pricing tier higher.

All the 7 series cards need to be price adjusted. The 670 is going to force amd to bring the 7970 to 399.99 or face no sales

 

[Silverforce11]

All the 7 series cards need to be price adjusted. The 670 is going to force amd to bring the 7970 to 399.99 or face no sales

It should sell damn fine @ $429. Extra vram, huge manual oc potential, that alone is a big sale point, not to mention for users who want to do compute work as well as gaming.

 

[maniac5999]

7850

But wait a week or two. The 670 is coming and amd needs to drop prices to compete

Do you think that the price drops are going to flow all the way down to the 7850 tho? Nvidia can't even keep the 680 in stock anywhere. I have a HIS 7850 on the way that I got from the egg for $220 after MIR. (Stock cooler, I know, but the Asus is OOS everywhere, and everything else is $260+ for an aftermarket cooler) My old 4870 is dying, and crashes every time I start a game. Should I still decline the HIS and wait another week or two?

My gut is that AMD has no need to cut the price on the 7850 just yet, everywhere is having trouble keeping them in stock. I suspect that they're going to cut prices on the 7870 and 7950, which compete more closely with the 670, and to try to upsell more people from the 7850 to the 7870 to relieve inventory pressure on the 7850. I could see 7970 = $429, 7950 = $350, 7870 = $300, and 7850 = $250.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

It should sell damn fine @ $429. Extra vram, huge manual oc potential, that alone is a big sale point, not to mention for users who want to do compute work as well as gaming.

This

 

[Silverforce11]

I've got this 7850 knowing full well that NV is releasing a crippled gk104 as a gtx670 that will prolly end up performing ~= gtx680 with an OC (or in this case, custom cooled = better turbo).

It's still got nothing over a $250 (or less with deals/rebates) 7850 that does nearly 50% OC no sweat. Even if you're unlucky, you're gonna get a 7850 @ 1.15ghz, still faster than a gtx580 for $250 and half the power use. It's 28nm delivering on all expectations, if you go back to last year, the most common expectation is simply that, gtx580 perf, half TDP, ~$250.

 

[Jaydip]

Op it depends on ur budget actually.

 

[blastingcap]

I've got this 7850 knowing full well that NV is releasing a crippled gk104 as a gtx670 that will prolly end up performing ~= gtx680 with an OC (or in this case, custom cooled = better turbo).

It's still got nothing over a $250 (or less with deals/rebates) 7850 that does nearly 50% OC no sweat. Even if you're unlucky, you're gonna get a 7850 @ 1.15ghz, still faster than a gtx580 for $250 and half the power use. It's 28nm delivering on all expectations, if you go back to last year, the most common expectation is simply that, gtx580 perf, half TDP, ~$250.

7850 does not get 50% OC no sweat, get real. You have to have a good chip with good cooling at high voltage (1.25V+) to get there. Most of the benchers who got there had fans at obnoxiously high speeds or watercooled. At 1.1 volts with good air cooling at non-obnoxious speeds, you can expect 1.1-1.15GHz no sweat. Stock clock is 860Mhz. So I would say that you can get ~35% OC no sweat. Not 50%.

 

[Silverforce11]

Since when are we talking about stock volts when we're referring to OC. Really?? Also, this Sapphire twin fan is not noisy even at high speeds. Dunno about other brands, but I'm gonna assume Asus and MSI with their better coolers won't have an issue.

 

[blastingcap]

Since when are we talking about stock volts when we're referring to OC. Really??

You said "no sweat." I consider overvolting with fan speeds on high to be sweating. And besides, 50% oc is 1.29GHz. Even with overvolting and 100% fan speeds I doubt most 7850 chips can do that with long-term stability. (Or heck, even short term stability.)

I see you edited your post. I have a Sapphire twin-fan OC edition 7850. You can hear the noise when fans ramp up. Just because it's quieter than reference doesn't mean it's not noisy when fans are nearing max. Please stop with misinformation.

 

[Silverforce11]

"nearly 50%".

I know from reading around oc forums that 1.25ghz is quite achievable, even a bunch of reviewers hit that or above.

The thing about these custom pcb 7850s, their fans are not blower types, running at high fan speed is not detrimental to your ears.

 

[blastingcap]

"nearly 50%".

I know from reading around oc forums that 1.25ghz is quite achievable, even a bunch of reviewers hit that or above.

The thing about these custom pcb 7850s, their fans are not blower types, running at high fan speed is not detrimental to your ears.

Overvolting to 1.3V with high fan speeds to achieve 45.3% overclock (at 1.25GHz) is not overclocking to nearly 50% "no sweat." Not in my book, and I doubt in many other people's books, either.

And for the second time, I own a Sapphire 7850 dual-fan OC edition. Don't even try that line with me. It's obnoxiously loud when you ramp up the fans a lot, like to say, 100% like some of the internet forum warriors did to reach 1.25GHz@1.3V. Just because it's less obnoxiously noisy than the even-worse blower variety doesn't mean a whole lot.

 

[Don Karnage]

Overvolting to 1.3V with high fan speeds to achieve 45.3% overclock (at 1.25GHz) is not overclocking to nearly 50% "no sweat." Not in my book, and I doubt in many other people's books, either.

And for the second time, I own a Sapphire 7850 dual-fan OC edition. Don't even try that line with me. It's obnoxiously loud when you ramp up the fans a lot, like to say, 100% like some of the internet forum warriors did to reach 1.25GHz@1.3V. Just because it's less obnoxiously noisy than the even-worse blower variety doesn't mean a whole lot.

I can hit 1150 core on stock voltage. 1250 requires 1.235v not 1.3v 1300 core requires close to 1.3v

 

[aaksheytalwar]

As long as 95% of 7850s with stock custom cooling can run a speed with over volts and 100% fan and still manage 1.5 years of gaming at 1-2 hours per day, I would call it no sweat. And yes, they do 35% no sweat with 25-30% performance increase which means at par with a 580 oc

And if noise is an issue, get arctic cooling, inaudible at 100% fan and cools core better than any custom cooler

 

[blastingcap]

I can hit 1150 core on stock voltage. 1250 requires 1.235v not 1.3v

I was going by 50% overclock, but he backed off on that and is now saying 45% overclock. And yeah I can hit 1075 core stable @ 1.075V; that is not the issue, as I've said earlier in this thread, I expect a well-cooled version of the 7850 to hit 1.1-1.15Ghz at stock voltage, which varies greatly from 1.075V on up. (There is no one standard stock voltage so there is some guesswork involved.)

Btw my ASIC quality is like 85%+ so it's not exactly a dud by that metric; I consider it to be factory undervolted.

 

[blastingcap]

As long as 95% of 7850s with stock custom cooling can run a speed with over volts and 100% fan and still manage 1.5 years of gaming at 1-2 hours per day, I would call it no sweat. And yes, they do 35% no sweat with 25-30% performance increase which means at par with a 580 oc

And if noise is an issue, get arctic cooling, inaudible at 100% fan and cools core better than any custom cooler

So overvolting and 100% fan speed counts as "no sweat" nowadays?

What do you consider "sweat" then? Liquid nitrogen?

I would agree with 35% no sweat, but 50%? Even 45% is a real stretch.

And if you have to buy aftermarket coolers that just adds to the cost and reduces the bang for the buck, which OP is interested in. The extra bang is not worth the buck in many cases.

 

[Silverforce11]

No, if you read my original post, i said nearly 50%. Note the "nearly". I got mine to 1.25ghz no sweat, i havent been bothered to push it further.

The fact that it manages 35% "no sweat" by your definition stock volts is already a huge deal. By that, it's ~gtx580 performance at <150w. How is that not an awesome product?

 

[Don Karnage]

No, if you read my original post, i said nearly 50%. Note the "nearly". I got mine to 1.25ghz no sweat, i havent been bothered to push it further.

The fact that it manages 1.15ghz "no sweat" is already a huge deal.

Agreed. 870 core to 1150 core is massive.

 

[blastingcap]

No, if you read my original post, i said nearly 50%. Note the "nearly". I got mine to 1.25ghz no sweat, i havent been bothered to push it further.

The fact that it manages 1.15ghz "no sweat" is already a huge deal.

If I got a 45% oc I would call it a "45% oc," not "nearly 50%" oc and certainly not "no sweat" if I had to crank up the voltage and fan speed. But what do I know, apparently overvolting and 100% fan speed counts as "no sweat" these days.

And I have said in other threads on here that the 7850 oc headroom is even greater than the legendary 460's oc headroom which was already very impressive. I'm not talking about 35% oc headroom, I'm just skeptical of your "nearly 50%" oc claim with "no sweat."

7850 is good. Stop trying to imply that I'm saying otherwise. If I didn't think it was good myself, I wouldn't have bought one. I'm just trying to understand your claim which you have since backed off of a bit. As long as OP understands that what you really meant was "with overvolting and high fan speeds, with a well-cooled model, you may be able to hit 45% overclocks" that is fine. Or has everyone ALREADY forgotten about sickbeast's thread where he was trying to warn everyone about 7850s because his 7850 didn't oc as well as others'? I'm just trying to stop the overhype on the 7850 lest we end up with ANOTHER thread like that one.

A well-cooled version of the 7850's oc headroom is about 35% no sweat. With sweat you may be able to reach 45%+. I think that's a more accurate statement.

 

[Silverforce11]

So you want exact decimals next time? I'd call +/- 5% and doing maths percentage on top of ones head on the fly pretty damn good enough. Maybe your standards are just a bit higher, whatever.

Let's settle on amazing performance @ $250 and <150w as the best bang for buck and move on.

ps. It's 45.348%, 860 -> 1,250 or 1,250/860.