Best upgrade from Radeon 4850 for $200?

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jakobjkraft

Member
Mar 11, 2009
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My current Radeon 4850 512MB, which has performed very well for just over 2 years, has started to crap out on me. It could just be the fan that is failing and causing artifacting to happen in games where it never happened before. But maybe I should just use this as a reason to upgrade my card altogether.
On a budget of $200, what's the best vid card upgrade from Radeon 4850? I would prefer another ATI card, but am not dead set against Nvidia either.
This looked good, but almost seems too cheap! - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150447
Any info would be greatly appreciated -- thanks!
 
D

dguy6789

Diamond Member
Dec 9, 2002
8,558
3
76
That card will work fine, but it's pretty much identical to your 4850 in terms of performance. The benefits of it are lower power consumption and full DirectX 11 support.
 
RaistlinZ

RaistlinZ

Diamond Member
Oct 15, 2001
7,470
9
91
5770 is not much of an upgrade from a 4850, although it will give you DX 11 support. If your 4850 runs all or your current games at decent frame rates then a 5770 would do jut fine. If you're looking for something to last down the road though your next best option is a 5830 at $240.00.
 
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v8envy

Platinum Member
Sep 7, 2002
2,720
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The 5830 is too neutered to justify a $230 price tag. It's 10-15% faster than a 5770 (and sometimes slower than a 4890). For $70-90 more than a 5770 it's an absolutely terrible value -- anything that's too slow for a 5770 is going to be too slow on a 5830.

I'd say vulture a hot deal on a GT250 or 4850 and keep going how you've been going. Now is a terrible time to be needing a video card.
 
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jakobjkraft

Member
Mar 11, 2009
77
0
66
v8envy said:
The 5830 is too neutered to justify a $230 price tag. It's 10-15% faster than a 5770 (and sometimes slower than a 4890). For $70-90 more than a 5770 it's an absolutely terrible value -- anything that's too slow for a 5770 is going to be too slow on a 5830.

I'd say vulture a hot deal on a GT250 or 4850 and keep going how you've been going. Now is a terrible time to be needing a video card.
Click to expand...

In that case, I guess I'll just do my best to get my 4850 up to snuff. Hopefully I just need to get an additional fan on it or something...even though artifacting at 85 degrees celsius isn't generally normal, right? I thought GPUs could handle that sort of heat...
 
GodisanAtheist

GodisanAtheist

Diamond Member
Nov 16, 2006
8,328
9,711
136
Clean out fan dust and regrease the GPU. While ATI designed its cores to run well above 85 degrees, other components on your card might not be as forgiving.

You really shouldn't be upgrading to anything less that a 5850, so just wait till that makes it to the ~$200 mark.
 
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vmarkx3

Member
Sep 19, 2001
163
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76
Grab a used 4890 locally for ~ $120, much faster then 5770 and even 5830 by 7-10%. DX11 wont matter for another year even if it catches on. Dont think future proof.
 
RaistlinZ

RaistlinZ

Diamond Member
Oct 15, 2001
7,470
9
91
vmarkx3 said:
Grab a used 4890 locally for ~ $120, much faster then 5770 and even 5830 by 7-10%. DX11 wont matter for another year even if it catches on. Dont think future proof.
Click to expand...

Who do you know that is selling a 4890 for $120.00? And to the other poster, it's going to take a long time before the 5850 reaches $200.00.
 
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bunnyfubbles

Lifer
Sep 3, 2001
12,248
3
0
happy medium said:
Asus 5770 voltage tweak edition for 169.00$ shipped is the best deal out there.
Almost a garuntee 1000 core 1400 mem overclock. That should = a 4890 performance.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121363
Click to expand...

I seriously doubt the 1400MHz memory clocks are stable. IIRC, all these 5000 series cards are getting the same GDDR5 chips and all of them are pretty much rated to 1250MHz. Sure, they can hit higher, and the memory error correction will keep performance stable even if the memory is not, the problem is performance won't match the overclock. Performance @ 1400MHz might be lower than say 1300MHz even if 1400MHz isn't giving artifacts or crashes.

The only way to tell if your overclocks are good requires more steps now - not only do you need to check for stability (artifacts) you also need to benchmark performance and make sure performance goes up.
 
happy medium

happy medium

Lifer
Jun 8, 2003
14,387
480
126
bunnyfubbles said:
I seriously doubt the 1400MHz memory clocks are stable. IIRC, all these 5000 series cards are getting the same GDDR5 chips and all of them are pretty much rated to 1250MHz. Sure, they can hit higher, and the memory error correction will keep performance stable even if the memory is not, the problem is performance won't match the overclock. Performance @ 1400MHz might be lower than say 1300MHz even if 1400MHz isn't giving artifacts or crashes.

The only way to tell if your overclocks are good requires more steps now - not only do you need to check for stability (artifacts) you also need to benchmark performance and make sure performance goes up.
Click to expand...

Ahh my 5750 does 1365 memory stable with NO extra voltage!

Tested it with FAr Cry 2 till I wasn't getting any more performance from the error correcting.

Take a look.....

http://www.guru3d.com/article/asus-radeon-hd-5770-voltage-tweak-review/3

And another review..

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...5770-1gb-voltage-tweak-edition-review-21.html
 
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bunnyfubbles

Lifer
Sep 3, 2001
12,248
3
0
happy medium said:
Ahh my 5750 does 1365 memory stable with NO extra voltage!

Tested it with FAr Cry 2 till I wasn't getting any more performance from the error correcting.

Take a look.....

http://www.guru3d.com/article/asus-radeon-hd-5770-voltage-tweak-review/3
Click to expand...

Well I'm not surprised your 5750's memory can hit that high, like I said, all the cards have been getting the same memory chips but 1365 isn't 1400. 1300-1350 has been the more realistic upper limit. Claiming otherwise to help push someone to buy a card just doesn't feel right to me.

Maybe I'm wrong and newer cards are being given faster memory chips, but until I see more people like you who know what they're doing achieve similar results, I'm not going to trust the newegg reviews.
 
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Absolution75

Senior member
Dec 3, 2007
983
3
81
This is about the only situation would I would really suggest just dropping in another HD 4850/4870/4890 into CF - assuming your motherboard supports it.

ATI didn't really drop prices when they launched the 5 series, they just raised the top end and kept everything else mainstream. nVidia isn't really competing either ATM.
 
happy medium

happy medium

Lifer
Jun 8, 2003
14,387
480
126
bunnyfubbles said:
Well I'm not surprised your 5750's memory can hit that high, like I said, all the cards have been getting the same memory chips but 1365 isn't 1400. 1300-1350 has been the more realistic upper limit. Claiming otherwise to help push someone to buy a card just doesn't feel right to me.

Maybe I'm wrong and newer cards are being given faster memory chips, but until I see more people like you who know what they're doing achieve similar results, I'm not going to trust the newegg reviews.
Click to expand...

But thats with no voltage increase and a 5750. I wish I had a voltage tweak option, I would think my card could do 1000 core ,1400 memory.
It does 910, 1365 with no voltage.

Most stock 5770 do 960 core ,1300+ memory.
 
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bunnyfubbles

Lifer
Sep 3, 2001
12,248
3
0
happy medium said:
But thats with no voltage increase and a 5750. I wish I had a voltage tweak option, I would think my card could do 1000 core ,1400 memory.
It does 910, 1365 with no voltage.

Most stock 5770 do 960 core ,1300+ memory.
Click to expand...

software voltage tweaks affect only the GPU, not the memory, if you want to overvolt the memory, you'll have to mod your card
 
J

jdjbuffalo

Senior member
Oct 26, 2000
433
0
0
GodisanAtheist said:
Clean out fan dust and regrease the GPU. While ATI designed its cores to run well above 85 degrees, other components on your card might not be as forgiving.

You really shouldn't be upgrading to anything less that a 5850, so just wait till that makes it to the ~$200 mark.
Click to expand...

This.

I've been having trouble with my 4850 too. The fan was starting to make a lot of noise and was 80C at idle and 105C at load.

Since the card is out of warranty and 2 years old, I figured I had very little to lose by removing the heatsink. I cleaned the old thermal paste off and used some Arctic Silver 5. Initially my temps went up (85C, 110C) but then I took a closer look at what I had done. I didn't completely tighten the 4 screws to clamp down on the GPU core. When I tested my temps again everything came down to reasonable levels (70C, 90C). So, make sure you fully tighten all the screws.

Also to those saying that the 5850 won't be at $200 for a while. I've got to disagree. But most of it will depend on how strong Nvidia comes out with their new Fermi GPUs If the rumors of them being on par or only slightly better than ATI then the prices will move very little for the ATI graphics cards. However, if they provide at least a modest improvement (even if only in performance) then you will see ATI drop prices significantly.

Don't forget that ATI is charging us a lot more than they were planning to. They increased their MSRP because of a lack of competition from Nvidia. I expect within the next 3 months to see ATI prices around $170 - 5830, $210 - $5850 and $299 - 5870.
 
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blanketyblank

Golden Member
Jan 23, 2007
1,149
0
0
5770 is an upgrade for a 4850. I've done it and I'm happy with the performance.
It's only one step up I'll grant you, but it is quiet and cool unlike a 4870 or 4890.
This is a good chart to see how the cards stack up in a good number of games.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GeForce_GT_240/30.html
4850 = 155% of a GTS 240
5770 = 202% of a GTS 240

So that means the 5770 is about 30% faster than the 4850 at stock.
A 5850 = 290% of a GTS 240
So it's about 87% faster.
 
tweakboy

tweakboy

Diamond Member
Jan 3, 2010
9,517
2
81
www.hammiestudios.com
So many responses very nice thread. Most people I saw said 5830.

Can he do 5850 ,, find a deal plus rebate. Try going to Fry's if yall have it there, also spend closer to 300 dollars and I thilnk you will be happy with the extra 100 you spend ya know...

Soo ya I say 5870 .

gl
:eek::eek:
 
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