Upgrade from a 5850

So I'm looking to upgrade from my Sapphire 5850 to one of the newer AMD cards. I've been looking at the 7870 and the 7950 but I'm not sure which to consider. The problem is I'm not sure which to get. I know getting the 7950 will be a better upgrade and be more noticeable but if the 7870 can provide what I'm looking for then I'll get that one and save 50 or so dollars.

1) I like to play BF3, GTA IV, Homefront, and StarCraft 2. Those are pretty much the four games I play. I can barely do High on BF3, GTA IV is rough around the edges, Homefront makes my 5850 scream at max settings with 2x AA, and it does 80 fps in Starcraft 2 at max. I wish to max out all of this games, mainly, BF3. MY normal res. now is 1920x1080 but I might upgrade to a bigger res or add more monitors.

2) I have plenty of PSU, Antec 850W and my mobo can handle it (Gigabyte 1366 UD3R with an i7 930). My Sig pretty much says it but I figured I would mention it anyways.

3) I don't want to get a 7970 or 680. They are way more than I want to spend. Even the 7950 dropping to $399 is pushing it for me, so right now I'm just looking at these two cards.

I know this is a long post but I just wan to make sure I was thorough! Any help will be appreciated!


EDIT: I almost forgot, for those that suggest I xfire the 5850. I considered this but I plan to setup a watercooling loop and the GPU I have is not a ref design so I couldn't use full cover blocks and I just love the look of a full cover block. Plus, I would rather just setup a loop with new equipment rather than piece things together.

I havent used either card so cant really tell you which would be best but all i know is that the 7950 is a good OC'er give it a bit more juice and youll be running as fast as a 7970. If you can fork out the cash for the 7950 do it.

BUT , im not sure how much of an issue this might be, but you might get a slight bottleneck from your CPU. ( someone who knows more please give more detail on this if you know.) You've got a half decent cooler which would allow you to wack you cpu up to at least 3.6ghz ( maybe even 4) Then you shouldnt have any issue at all.

Although i could be wrong about the bottleneck. Not sure how much of an issue it is nowadays. ( was an issue with my q6600 @ stock and 8800gtx's sli'd back in the day) But i would say go with the 7950 if u can fork out the cash for it.

you could also wait for the 670 which should be around $400 too. Or get a 560ti which is a pretty good bang for your buck card. The gtx 570 is nice also. Ultimately its down to how much you want to spend more than anything. The prices are pretty similar between similar performing Nvidia/ATi cards.

a 7950 is a solid card and will have no issues running all the games you like, bf3 probably on ultra. Seen as it beats a 580 and has more vram available to it. the 7870 is still a good card, but to be honest, the 7950 just has that edge on it. Will probably last longer on top than the 7870 will therefore id go for the 7950 for the extra $50.

xander89 said:

I havent used either card so cant really tell you which would be best but all i know is that the 7950 is a good OC'er give it a bit more juice and youll be running as fast as a 7970. If you can fork out the cash for the 7950 do it.

BUT , im not sure how much of an issue this might be, but you might get a slight bottleneck from your CPU. ( someone who knows more please give more detail on this if you know.) You've got a half decent cooler which would allow you to wack you cpu up to at least 3.6ghz ( maybe even 4) Then you shouldnt have any issue at all.

Although i could be wrong about the bottleneck. Not sure how much of an issue it is nowadays. ( was an issue with my q6600 @ stock and 8800gtx's sli'd back in the day) But i would say go with the 7950 if u can fork out the cash for it.

you could also wait for the 670 which should be around $400 too. Or get a 560ti which is a pretty good bang for your buck card. The gtx 570 is nice also. Ultimately its down to how much you want to spend more than anything. The prices are pretty similar between similar performing Nvidia/ATi cards.

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This is a valid point, however from memory the 920 and 930's are furnaces when you push them beyond stock speeds. Also I don't think its as big an issue as it used to be.

jameseboy said:

This is a valid point, however from memory the 920 and 930's are furnaces when you push them beyond stock speeds. Also I don't think its as big an issue as it used to be.

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I ran a 920@4ghz for around 2 years solid on air ( thermaltake ultra 120, both lapped) Had load temp at around 75-80. But never really push past 65-70 in gaming sessions etc. Sometimes it went higher when encoding.

His cooler should be able to hand at least 3.6 i would think ( based on the reviews ive seen of it)

Also the 7950 will run BF3 on ultra easy. I ran BF3 on ultra with my gtx480 soc ( which runs about the same as a 580) without any issues. My 920 was @4GHZ though. I think for an overall smooth exp ( especially when things get hectic on a 64 player map) youll need an OC on that CPU. every FPS you can squeeze out of it will be worth it.

xander89 said:

I ran a 920@4ghz for around 2 years solid on air ( thermaltake ultra 120, both lapped) Had load temp at around 75-80. But never really push past 65-70 in gaming sessions etc. Sometimes it went higher when encoding.

His cooler should be able to hand at least 3.6 i would think ( based on the reviews ive seen of it)

Also the 7950 will run BF3 on ultra easy. I ran BF3 on ultra with my gtx480 soc ( which runs about the same as a 580) without any issues. My 920 was @4ghz though. I think for an overall smooth exp ( especially when things get hectic on a 64 player map) youll need an OC on that CPU. every FPS you can squeeze out of it will be worth it.

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Fair enough, the only 920 ive ever used must have just been terrible, it roughtly gained 5C for every 100mhz you pushed in it, so i could get it past 3.1ghz without it getting close to melting. the faster you can get your cpu, the more fps you should get, then just choose a card and you should be solid for a year or so

jameseboy said:

Fair enough, the only 920 ive ever used must have just been terrible, it roughtly gained 5C for every 100mhz you pushed in it, so i could get it past 3.1ghz without it getting close to melting. the faster you can get your cpu, the more fps you should get, then just choose a card and you should be solid for a year or so

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i think i might have got lucky with my chip i got a benching OC of around 4.2 on air too, ( managed to push it to 4.4 but it got toooooo unstable ) but yer depending on your chip i think you should be able to push that cpu quite a bit.

EDIT: What mobo do you have btw Jezus? it aint in your sig

Wow thanks for the feedback so fast! It looks like the 7950 is what I'll be getting! I think I might wait for the 670 and such to come out just to see how pricing goes for the 7950. Not that I'm a fanboy or anything, but I just don't like nVidia cards. A few of my friends have had problems with them and I just never wanted to chance it. I have been planning on overclocking my CPU but I really never had a need to and I always told myself I will once I upgrade my GPU.

My mobo is the Gigiabyte x58-UD3r. Not the most powerful but a very decent board.

Nothing wrong with that board at all. Will o/c just fine. Once you get the 7950, you can always sell off the 5850 to help offset the cost.

Yeah I was planning on selling it since I don't have any other computers to toss it in.

Thanks for the help everyone!

7950 down to 429 right now, when Nvidia releases the rest of their GTX 600 lineup i expect AMD to pricecut the HD7000 series. Likely $50 cheaper on 7800 + 7900 series.

Well the price is supposed to drop to $399. And I do plan on waiting for the 600 series to be out. I usually like to wait till I know what the competition has to offer. Never know if you might be able to save a few bucks!

+1 for 7950, also prices will drop soon if they haven't begun to already...

I just checked. lowest on newegg is a Powercolor for $380. Very tempting right now that's for sure!

Quick question, how would I know if a board is reference design or not? Seeing as how I plan to water cool my card some time down the road I need to make sure it's reference so I can make sure a full cover block fits it.

Jezus53 said:

I just checked. lowest on newegg is a Powercolor for $380. Very tempting right now that's for sure!

Quick question, how would I know if a board is reference design or not? Seeing as how I plan to water cool my card some time down the road I need to make sure it's reference so I can make sure a full cover block fits it.

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maybe this will help:

http://www.techpowerup.com/159419/Radeon-HD-7950-Reference-Design-Pictured.html

Jezus53 said:

I just checked. lowest on newegg is a Powercolor for $380. Very tempting right now that's for sure!

Quick question, how would I know if a board is reference design or not? Seeing as how I plan to water cool my card some time down the road I need to make sure it's reference so I can make sure a full cover block fits it.

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rule of thumb is generally if you can see a AMD/ Nvidia logo/name above the pins ( you know where you actually plug the gfx card into the board) its a reff design. If the name is the name of the gfx card supplier (eg gigabyte) it proabably isnt a reff design.

The Below is a reff design

Personally, I spend a little more and go with a brand with a lifetime warranty. It's worth it in the long run.

i tend to find that I always upgrade before my 3 year warranty is up . Seems 3 years is ample

Recently collected my new build, its waiting for Arma3 to be released before being used.
I ran the HD7970 3gb just to see how it goes and it looks good, so pleased with that.

I have a Sapphire Radeon HD5850 2gb Toxic in my Arma2 pc, I’m not sure which the OP has, I have found this card to be very quick and oc’s very well, at present I run it at Core=840 & Mem=1175, I have ran the card upto Core=880 & Mem=1195.
Arma2 is a very heavy game, but its only heavy on gpu when the view distance is nearer, so with view distance 4000-10000 its draws from the cpu more, the gpu remains around 40-50%, run at 1000-3000 it draws from the gpu with usage going up between 80%-99% (100%) so it gives the card a good workout..

A friend has the same HD5850 2gb toxic and runs it at Core=900 & Mem=1200, taken from this (1gb), it runs really well, but I don’t need that amount of oc yet on this card, so I keep it at the clocks above.. Shows how high these HD5850 can go when overclocked..

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I've benched one of my 5850's up to 1000/1200 on air. It really is a great card. They overclock nice. Usually run them stock as I don't game much on PC anymore...

Try overclocking and see how it works out...