Thoughts and O/C Results for Asus 5850

So I've had this shiny new Asus 5850 in my rig for about a week - always like to give hardware a week or so to settle in before I start overclocking.

First thoughts about this card:
- I like the fact that it's almost exactly the same length as my mobo in width
- I like the power connector placement / my 5870's connectors were on top
- Asus uses a box that's way too big - shesh folks, save some packaging
- It might be smaller than the 5870, but still has plenty of weight to it.


Eh, who cares about first thoughts? On to overclocking!!

These are 10.2 driver results, except for the last two results - those are 10.3 preview drivers.

I picked Asus because they allow overclocking to a higher degree than CCC allows by default, thanks to a tweaked bios. That right there is reason enough for me to pick up the Asus over another brand. If you want "easy" overclocking, it doesn't get any easier than this.

I primarily wanted to see: A, how the 5850 performed at default settings; B, how much I could overclock on default voltage with no additional fan speed; and C, if I could match the speed of an HD5870.

Also plan to do some voltage tweaks and see what a 1GHz core clock yields - besides a lot of fan noise.

Like about every other 5850, the Asus comes with stock settings of 725 core and 1000 memory. Good enough for most, and more power than most need.

Vantage P Results: CPU - 25677 GPU - 14254 Marks - 16047

Good score, but not anything to write home about. I know this card has much, much more to give. So I grab the slider bar in Overdrive and apply settings of 850/1200 - I'm expecting big gains.

Vantage P Results: CPU - 25855 GPU - 16615 Marks - 18245

I know from reading dozens of reviews the core is going to hit the wall on stock voltage not a whole lot more above 850MHz, but I figure there's probably a bit more speed in the DDR5. So I apply 850/1250 in Overdrive and run Vantage one more time.

Vantage P Results: CPU - 25801 GPU - 16719 Marks - 18332

Curious about temps? - I kept CCC open while running Vantage and saw pretty consistent 65-67c load temps. Idle temps for 850/1250 is 36c. These temps are with the fan speed set to "auto" mode.

Edit: Okay - based on Rattle's comments, I thought I'd go for a bit more core speed, still on stock voltage. So here's Vantage P results for 875/1250

Vantage P Results: CPU - 25898 GPU - 17072 Marks - 18662

One thing I did notice with these settings is that I actually heard the fan spool up pretty good this time around using CCC and the 'auto' fan setting.

Edit - back with more results!

Armed with Afterburner, which is really a great little piece of software, I bumped the core voltage from 1.087v to 1.225v and increased the settings to 1000/1250 - then re-ran Vantage P again!

Vantage P Results: CPU - 25871 GPU - 18875 Marks - 20243

Another edit

Thought I'd update some scores with the new 1.3 Preview driver as they provide a pretty good boost (especially for just a driver update).

Settings on 5850 via MSI Afterburner: voltage: 1.225 core: 1000MHZ Memory: 1250MHz

Vantage P Results: CPU - 25636 GPU - 19621 Marks - 20844

600 point gain over my last run with same clocks is pretty substantial; I'm hearing good things about FPS improvement in many games as well.

If you're curious about temps with these settings, I have a fan profile built in Afterburner that keep the core at ~36c idle and ~62c load. It's not an aggressive fan profile at all; max fan speed I noticed was just over 40%.

One final update:

I thought I'd see what kind of increase in voltage it would take for the core to reach 1050MHz - answer 1.287v

I ran Vantage Performance one more time with 1050/1250 overclocks

Vantage P Results: CPU - 25943 GPU - 20334 Marks - 21496

And Vantage Performance again with 1050/1275 settings

Vantage P Results: CPU - 25633 GPU - 20417 Marks - 21512 **This result is 29th in the World on HWbot

If you don't want to mess with voltages and fan settings, running 850/1250 is a great way to go; essentially equal to a 5870 at stock settings. I run these settings (850/1250) 24/7 with stock fan settings, default voltage, and it performs just perfectly. There is simply no need to run such aggressive overclocked settings unless there's testing and benchmarking going on - maybe for some games, but still overkill for most.

IMO, the HD 5850 is the biggest 'bang for your buck' graphics card produced to date given the enormous overclock potential.

Yessir, I had a 5870 and they are nice, but if you can score a nice deal on a 5850 like recently at CC for $263 after bing its a no brainer. Mine does 875/1200 on stock volts and I never missed a beat from my 5870 @ 1920x1200 even in bc2 with max settings dx11 even with 4xAA. Not to mention its smaller and do to 1.0875 3d volts runs way cooler than a stock 5870. I can play nicely at 900/1300 or 950/1200 with 5870 volts but meh not worth it for 24/7 use. mines a sapphire.

I have never actually run a futuremark program with it rofl, aside from that crappy dx10 game they had a free weekend on steam for

Nice info, thanks for taking the time. I'm interested in what results you get with 1GHz core. BTW, what drivers did you use? The 10.3 preview drivers gave me about 800 point boost.

5850 bang for the buck with OC.
play using 900/1100.
the main difference is a 100mhz between this and a 5870.
I can run 1ghz+ but dont need it as far.
any eyefinity for me has been flawless except Bc2 at high.

Yeah Vantage is Vantage - only using it because it's about the easiest for me to do a comparison with.

Im sure you already know, any other brand that uses a reference PCB can be OC'd past the CCC limits with a simple config file tweak using MSI afterburner...
As far as fan noise.. I hear you. Did you turn up the fan speed manually at all? I have found this helps stabilize OC's greatly Should be at least 50% right off the bat, but above 75% the results start to diminish, just adds noise.

I like the fact that the 5850 is shorter in lenght, and that the power connectors are on the end as well. It is by far the best bang/buck card right now, but that pesky GTX285 is right there in performance, and it lets you fold like a mother

Gaming wise the gtx 285 isnt even close, folding is another story, trust me i have had all the nvidia cards.

my fan never has to go over 45% to keep temps 65 max/

mxthunder said:

Im sure you already know, any other brand that uses a reference PCB can be OC'd past the CCC limits with a simple config file tweak using MSI afterburner...
As far as fan noise.. I hear you. Did you turn up the fan speed manually at all? I have found this helps stabilize OC's greatly Should be at least 50% right off the bat, but above 75% the results start to diminish, just adds noise.

I like the fact that the 5850 is shorter in lenght, and that the power connectors are on the end as well. It is by far the best bang/buck card right now, but that pesky GTX285 is right there in performance, and it lets you fold like a mother

Click to expand...

Yeah, knew the thing about afterburner - just nice to have the card ready to overclock right out of the box without any additional software.

I have not set the fan manually yet. I tried 50% for about three seconds and was not happy with the noise. My computer doesn't make much noise at all, and 50% on the 5850's fan was quite loud.

Updated 1000/1250 Vantage P results.

Thought I'd update some scores with the new 1.3 Preview driver as they provide a pretty good boost (especially for just a driver update).

Settings on 5850 via MSI Afterburner: voltage: 1.225 core: 1000MHZ Memory: 1250MHz

Vantage P Results: CPU - 25636 GPU - 19621 Marks - 20844

600 point gain over my last run with same clocks is pretty substantial; I'm hearing good things about FPS improvement in many games as well.

I bumped my voltage up to 1.162v and got like 975/1220 100% stable. Then I went to 1.200v which is a pretty huge increase and I couldn't even get 1000 stable so I figured if it needs that big a boost I'm not going for it and I'll stay at 1.162v. For me the heat/fan noise doesn't add up to the 25 mhz..

One final update:

I thought I'd see what kind of increase in voltage it would take for the core to reach 1050MHz - answer 1.287v

I ran Vantage Performance one more time with 1050/1250 overclocks

Vantage P Results: CPU - 25943 GPU - 20334 Marks - 21496

Results added to original post.

mattspalace said:

One final update:

I thought I'd see what kind of increase in voltage it would take for the core to reach 1050MHz - answer 1.287v

I ran Vantage Performance one more time with 1050/1250 overclocks

Vantage P Results: CPU - 25943 GPU - 20334 Marks - 21496

Results added to original post.

Click to expand...

Ah cool, if I have the courage tonight, I'll try bumping it to 1.287v and see how far I can get!

Have you tried the 10.3 drivers yet? I saw a 12 fps gain in dirt 2 and a solid 150 points in vantage. I have not tried to step down my volts to keep my 1ghz clock yet.

I'm using the preview drivers right now, so technically I'm not using 10.3, but I'm expecting about the same performance.

One thing's for sure, the 10.3 drivers make for some great boosts across the board in performance.

Mattspalace.... What program/s did u use to do these overclocks on ur 5850. i just got a 5850 and im interested in a overclock.

could u care to shed some light..

thanks

MSI afterburner is what I use. It's a great little program and you don't have to be running an MSI card to use it.

thanks bud... i just tried it tooday... great lil program there. but however its not letting me play with my voltage.. i think its cos i have a gigabyte hd5850....

this has really really annoyed me.

only got the card yesteryda.. now i feel like selling and and getting an ASUS version... damn computer shops were sold out of asus everywhere and the only one i can find was gigabyte.... and i picked it cos of a 3 year warranty otherwise, i would to stuck to my trustd brand, ASUS..

Can you provide a link to the 5850 you have?

Thats some impressive performance. Just from my results mind you Physics enabled im scoring roughly P16617 as my best run. Not sure if my GPU score is affected by physics though but its 13543, but this was run so long ago on Vista lol. Just noticed its been over a year since I ran it!

Still though very impressive and this is one of the cards I've been eyeing up myself.