Did I make a mistake ordering this card? (sapphire 5850)

[Modded Dilaudid]

http://www8.ncix.com/products/?sku=5...cture=SAPPHIRE

First of all I find it suspicious there are no reviews. And I've been reading that if there's a problem with the card after the first 30 days I have to deal with Sapphire in Hong Kong, and it takes month to get a replacement.

I'd rather get an Asus, but they're sold out. Should I cancel my order before it's too late and just wait for the Asus card to restock? I'd lose the deal on my powersupply and hard drive if I did that though. Hmm.

Anyone have any experience with Sapphire products and support?

 

[Apocalypse23]

Where do you live? If you are in Canada, then you get a shitty 1 year warranty from Sapphire, secondly you have to change the bios of this 5850 to oc it to the max. Asus has stock OC to the max capability, a better package, 3 year warranty, what can you not miss?

BTW: If you live in Canada, you can buy the Sapphire 5850 for $299. goto shopbot.ca and pricematch it.

 

[Schmide]

I RMAed a card in the US and I sent it off to CA. There is a canuck office so I doubt it.

http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/company/?cid=2&psn=000302

 

[apoppin]

Sapphire charges you an additional $15 in the US just for the privilege of a "RMA application"
i think more for Canadians

 

[Modded Dilaudid]

Where do you live? If you are in Canada, then you get a shitty 1 year warranty from Sapphire, secondly you have to change the bios of this 5850 to oc it to the max. Asus has stock OC to the max capability, a better package, 3 year warranty, what can you not miss?

BTW: If you live in Canada, you can buy the Sapphire 5850 for $299. goto shopbot.ca and pricematch it.

Yeah, I did the price match for $300 already.

So cancel my order huh? Le sigh.

I'm in Quebec, btw.

 

[Schmide]

Sapphire charges you an additional $15 in the US just for the privilege of a "RMA application"
i think more for Canadians

They didn't charge me anything? It was Jan 2009 BTW

 

[Modded Dilaudid]

Where do you live? If you are in Canada, then you get a shitty 1 year warranty from Sapphire, secondly you have to change the bios of this 5850 to oc it to the max. Asus has stock OC to the max capability, a better package, 3 year warranty, what can you not miss?

BTW: If you live in Canada, you can buy the Sapphire 5850 for $299. goto shopbot.ca and pricematch it.

I thought all reference cards were the same OC-wise though? Like all these 3rd party companies do when it's a reference card is slap their sticker on it.

That's not true?

 

[Modded Dilaudid]

I'm also gonna lose a great deal on corsair power supply and western digital hard drive if I cancel this order.

This sapphire card is still good outside of the warranty, right? :/

 

[Apocalypse23]

I thought all reference cards were the same OC-wise though? Like all these 3rd party companies do when it's a reference card is slap their sticker on it.

That's not true?

The reference cards have a stock bios that needs to be changed to allow you to oc past the limits. As far as I know, only Asus and MSI offer enhanced Bioses that allow maximum oc without any modification.

 

[Modded Dilaudid]

The reference cards have a stock bios that needs to be changed to allow you to oc past the limits. As far as I know, only Asus and MSI offer enhanced Bioses that allow maximum oc without any modification.

Can you still get close to 5870 speeds within the reference card's bios limit?

 

[Modded Dilaudid]

thanks for the info, btw.

 

[apoppin]

They didn't charge me anything? It was Jan 2009 BTW

http://www.infoworld.com/d/adventures-in-it/rma-processing-fees-448
http://www.google.com/search?client=gmail&rls=gm&q=sapphire RMA $15 application fee

maybe they got rid of that horrid rip off policy
- i hope so. But check to be sure if you are going to buy one.

 

[Number1]

I'm also gonna lose a great deal on corsair power supply and western digital hard drive if I cancel this order.

This sapphire card is still good outside of the warranty, right? :/

I have owned several Saphire cards trough the years and never had any problems. Ill usually use a card 2 or 3 years at the most.

 

[Apocalypse23]

Can you still get close to 5870 speeds within the reference card's bios limit?

you can expect something like this "xfx 5850"

Then you have to use a tool like MSI afterburner to see if you can change any voltages and further cross these caps, I think they used some tool to change the bios, but I really wouldn't recommend it as you basically void your warranty. Many people on here have switched their bioses though and seem to be doing fine.

I'm sure some other non Asus/Msi 5850 owners could tell you what their limits are at, and what they modified in order to exceed them. I like to personally believe that Asus and MSI have cherry picked cards, since Anandtech mentioned this in their 5970 overclock review:

Radeon 5970 Overclocking: The VRM Temperature Bottleneck by Ryan Smith:
"Our second thought is that cards from vendors with custom overclocking utilities will be better able to maintain 5870 speeds at all times. These are cherry-picked chips, so there’s no reason why they absolutely need 1.1625v core voltage to run at 850MHz; we suspect that they could do with less. Since voltage is our main enemy here, even a small drop in voltage should have a noticeable impact on VRM temperatures. But you’re going to need a utility with a full suite of voltage options to take advantage of that." -- http://www.anandtech.com/show/3590

If you have to pay an extra 10-15 bux for an MSI or Asus one, then go for it.

 

[sandorski]

If you don't Overclock, the Warranty shouldn't matter. If you do Overclock you should consider a better Warranty and/or better Stock Cooling setup. I have never had to RMA a Video Card, but have had a few cards die after a few years at Stock Speeds.

 

[Modded Dilaudid]

Hmm. Interesting, Apocalypse23.

But yeah, I wasn't really planning on OCing tbh. Maybe a bit down the line when the card would start falling behind.

I could be waiting for weeks for that Asus card to get back in stock. Who knows how long it'll take. I'm kinda in a rush to build my new system and play a few games that my gpu can't handle now.

Unless Sapphire cards are prone to failure or something I think I'm gonna keep the order.

Thanks for the input.

 

[Kingbee13]

I don't know about that card but with my xfx 5850 all I did was download msi afterburner and it overclocks and overvolts just fine, all I had to do was to enable unlock voltage control in afterburner and I haven't changed the bios

 

[Apocalypse23]

I don't know about that card but with my xfx 5850 all I did was download msi afterburner and it overclocks and overvolts just fine, all I had to do was to enable unlock voltage control in afterburner and I haven't changed the bios

What about in CCC, what are your limits at when you try ocing with CCC?

 

[Kingbee13]

the limits and sliders in ccc still show stock but the speed (within ccc) shows the overclock set with afterburner, I'll upload a screenshot...


http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/phot...authkey=Gv1sRgCL36yvX2mb6juQE&feat=directlink

 

[Yuriman]

"Built by Ati" was Sapphire.

They are as good as any manufacturer, they just aren't anything special.

 

[MagickMan]

If you can use Afterburner to change the voltage, and OC further, just keep the Sapphire. Same thing goes if you're not going to OC. I do think that I got an above average chip on my 5850, but I've not seen enough ASUS 5850s to know if they're all "special".

 

[brandonb]

Sapphire is fine. I've had one out of the box issue with Sapphire, where I had artifacts, got a prompt replacement (from NewEgg) and had no issues with the replacement or any other Sapphire cards I've had since... I think you will be fine.