HD5850 owners, roll call!

[justin4pack]

5870 that I bought when it came out for about $400 still going strong. Nothing has put it to a crawl at all. At first I thought BF3 did, but it was actually my RAM/HDD bottlenecking it. Upgraded that and I run on Ultra beautifully. Im also only on 1900x1200..

I cant see anything in the near future that would even ask me to upgrade it. WoW graphics arent getting better, SWTOR runs fine, etc etc. I almost feel like finding a used 5870 and xfiring it.

HA! thats exactly what i was thinking. Cheaper to get another 5870 then to buy a 7xxxx. Wonder how the benchmarks would compaire xfire. What kinda PS you think would be needed?

 

[pmurgs]

Bought myself a second 5850 for $125 four months ago to tide myself over to a 79XX with BF3. With the 79XX prices atm, I think my second 5850 was a great buy.

Wish ATi would support the 5XXX series properly. Get 25 fps in Skyrim with both cards in crossfire, 60 fps with only one card

I'm hoping Nvidias upcoming cards push the 7XXX prices down quite a bit.

But yeah 5850 was clearly an awesome buy when they came out, for the performance we still get out of them today compared to the newer cards.

 

[OCGuy]

5850 was the "2nd best" card for a very short time, if at all.

 

[Zanovar]

Been a brilliant card for me for a few years,fan is on its way out though:S.

 

[codyray10]

I just picked one up here recently in the FS/T forum for less than $100 to run BF3. OC'ed to 830/1125, all settings high, on 1080p resoultion. Always 40+ frames. Also, while I'm here, it's a VisionTek non-reference card, is it possible to mod the bios so that I can have voltage control?

 

[KingFatty]

I just picked one up here recently in the FS/T forum for less than $100 to run BF3. OC'ed to 830/1125, all settings high, on 1080p resoultion. Always 40+ frames. Also, while I'm here, it's a VisionTek non-reference card, is it possible to mod the bios so that I can have voltage control?

Do you have a picture of the circuit board?

If it's like the sapphire boards, then you may be in luck even if your board lacks software adjustable voltages (I don't know if that's the case, perhaps the hardware is present and you just need the software and/or bios to unlock voltage control).

On the non-reference sapphire boards, that lack voltage control hardware, you can use a graphite pencil to draw some shading between pins on the circuit board, thereby increasing the voltage to the chip and allowing you to get better overclocks.

 

[exar333]

5870 here. I've had it since within a few weeks of the launch back in 2009. So approximately 2 years and 4 months and I'm currently playing Skyrim at 1920x1200, 4xAA, 8xAF, Ultra + tweaks for siginficantly better draw distance. And it runs at 40-60 FPS. To be honest, I don't think I've ever gotten this much value out of my hardware. On the other hand, it's quite clear that the evolution of graphics has slowed down very significantly. One could blame the consoles, but judging by the rather modest increase in performance between the HD 58XX launch and the HD 79XX launch (averaging around 70%), I'd say that we can blame the semiconductor industry as well.

There is some blame on the consoles, but crappy display tech is really what is limiting advancement. Most games are still being developed for 1080P or less. There is only so much detail you can add to 1080P, and coding for a higher resolution as optimal is really diminishing-gains at this time.

Hopefully display tech and consoles advance so we can get past displays with resolutions we enjoyed a good 20 years ago. Crazy when you think about it...

 

[hardhat]

I love my 5850. It's been great ever since my 8800gt. I don't plan to upgrade it until I can't run at 1080p on high settings in a game. My x3 720 definitely needs a replacement, though.

 

[xpender]

Still uses my HD 5850 for all my games running at full resolution and Eyefinity @ 5760x1080. Thinking of buying a second one.

Need for speed: the run
Deus Ex
Starcraft II

my rig:
Asus Maximus III Formula
i7-860 2.8GHz, oc at 3.98GHz air cooled
Corsair 16GB RAM 1600 XMP
ATI HD 5850
3 x Western Digital 1TB Black
Corsair 850W PS
Antec 900 Black Steel
3 x Asus 24" monitors

 

[Mir96TA]

I still have 5850 on my self
Great Card; Had no problem what so ever

 

[KingFatty]

Anyone with the reference cooler on their 5850 (or 5830/5870), here is a question:
Does your reference cooling fan make a wobbling/grumbling sound at low/idle RPMs? Have you ever disassembled the fan and applied grease to the axle or brass bushing, and did that make the sound go away?

I've changed to an aftermarket cooler now, so it's very quiet, but I'm wondering if I ever revert back to the stock cooler (e.g., to sell the card) if it's better to never apply bearing grease, or to add some then reassemble it?

 

[Chiropteran]

5850 was the "2nd best" card for a very short time, if at all.

True, you could argue it was the 1st best card, if price matters to you.

 

[Mir96TA]

True, you could argue it was the 1st best card, if price matters to you.

so what would be first or second ?

 

[psolord]

Anyone with the reference cooler on their 5850 (or 5830/5870), here is a question:
Does your reference cooling fan make a wobbling/grumbling sound at low/idle RPMs? Have you ever disassembled the fan and applied grease to the axle or brass bushing, and did that make the sound go away?

I've changed to an aftermarket cooler now, so it's very quiet, but I'm wondering if I ever revert back to the stock cooler (e.g., to sell the card) if it's better to never apply bearing grease, or to add some then reassemble it?

Still occasionally running my two 5850s, one XFX one Sapphire, both reference (occasionally due to being replaced by a couple 570s since November 2011) and I have never heard any weird sound coming from them.

Still great cards and I will try my best not to depart with them, even after the arrival of the new 670s.

 

[NatePo717]

CF 5850's here. Paired with a 2600K. Cards are the best cards I've ever owned. Game at 1080p. Game on one monitor. Movie or another game on the second monitor. Can have both maxed out easy enough. I mostly play MMO's though. Champions Online or STO. TOR sometimes as well.

As for upgrading? I'm waiting to see what big kepler brings to the table before I make any decisions. I'd like to go with just a single slot solution. I've been having a hard time finding comparisons of CF 5850's to what's out now.

I've had issues with the latest drivers from AMD though. Anything after 12.1 seems to really gimp my performance. Won't let me run two games at the same time on two separate screens. With 12.1 I can no problem.

 

[Zanovar]

Anyone with the reference cooler on their 5850 (or 5830/5870), here is a question:
Does your reference cooling fan make a wobbling/grumbling sound at low/idle RPMs? Have you ever disassembled the fan and applied grease to the axle or brass bushing, and did that make the sound go away?

I've changed to an aftermarket cooler now, so it's very quiet, but I'm wondering if I ever revert back to the stock cooler (e.g., to sell the card) if it's better to never apply bearing grease, or to add some then reassemble it?

Yeah kingFatty my fan is getting so bad atmo its trying to comminicate(joke)guttural sound grumbling and occasional farts,once a a day it will squeek juts to do my head in,all at low rpms, gonna wack 2 SE 120s with zip ties.As for greasing the original fan,hmm,ill pass as these amd blowers are cack.

as kf has mentioned anyone fixed a fan from one of these?

 

[KingFatty]

I've taken my cooling fan apart, it's easy and just snaps apart/snaps together to expose the bearings and axle, either of which are very easy to apply grease to when disassembled:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2236256&highlight=

I will hold off in hopes I may hear something from someone, but if I don't hear anything, I'll put new bearing grease on my fan and see if that stops the noises.

 

[Zanovar]

I've taken my cooling fan apart, it's easy and just snaps apart/snaps together to expose the bearings and axle, either of which are very easy to apply grease to when disassembled:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2236256&highlight=

I will hold off in hopes I may hear something from someone, but if I don't hear anything, I'll put new bearing grease on my fan and see if that stops the noises.

forget me ,heavy evening

 

[Ventanni]

Word up, brothas!

My 5850 is easily the best $150 I've ever spent, and by the end of the month, I plan on pairing it with a brand new Ivy Bridge setup.

(My sig my still say Geforce 285 though)

 

[Zanovar]

Word up, brothas!

My 5850 is easily the best $150 I've ever spent, and by the end of the month, I plan on pairing it with a brand new Ivy Bridge setup.

(My sig my still say Geforce 285 though)

Yeah great card imo(price wise att ).
not much faster in lots of tiles than your 285 though

 

[Silverforce11]

Was tempted to jump on a gtx680 but the prices here are ~$699 USD... no way paying that much for a mid-range product.

I'm playing BF3 on high which looks 99% similar to ultra and running capped 60 fps with my OC 5850. Skyrim, ME3? Too weak. What's the next big game out soon? Diablo 3? That would not even challenge GPUs. At some point, the pay-off for getting a super GPU setup just to play games at absolute max vs 99% close to max is just not worth it.

 

[Rvenger]

5770 here on my bulldozer rig. Play BF3 at 1920x1080 at low settings. Still looks great too.

 

[Nemesis13]

Had 2 in CF since release never had a problem, granted i need a better monitor. I wont upgrade till next year when the whole pc is overhauled.

 

[stag3]

so i increased the voltage on my card to 1.2

i'm stable @ 950/1200 now. wonder if i can hit 1ghz

 

[Ventanni]

Yeah great card imo(price wise att ).
not much faster in lots of tiles than your 285 though

Not a whole lot faster, no, but it doesn't take a nuclear reactor to power either