HD5850 or 2xHD5777 (CrossFire)

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FaNIX

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Which one will you choose?

You can get 2xHD5777 for the price of one Hd5850.

Running the HD5777 in Crossfire does produce better benchmarks, but AFAIK the HD5850 is more than capable of running most games on full settings. So I really can't decide...

Whats nice about buying the HD5850 is that I can always buy another one later and run that config in Crossfire... I'm not worried about getting 300fps in games, anymore over 60fps on full settings is fine with me...
 
5850, you have the option of upgrading to another one. If i could do it over i would have rather bought a 5850/70 over the 2 5770, i have no upgrade path now :(. Not that i am not unhappy with 5770 crossfire but ya :D.
 
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There is no varying performance gain with crossfire, it basically doubles the performance. Crossfire is remarkable compared to sli. Scales so much better you get basically double the FPS where as sli you only get about a 30% increase.

Very few games do not take advantage of crossfire, 99% of all new games are crossfire/sli capable.
 
+1 for the 5850, it provides a nice upgrade path if you have a crossfire capable board. By the time you'll need it, 5 series card will be dirt cheap
 
http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/crossfire_vs_sli/25.htm

So what did we learn from this little exercise? I learned that SLI is the more mature multi-GPU solution currently. In each of the three classes, the Nvidia technology and their video cards lost no more than four times out of 40 tests, with all things being equal - this being in the quad GPU class. Each of the other classes delivered a 37 to 3 margin of victory for team Green.
Click to expand...


1x5850 is the clear choice - remember you'll need an xfire board + bigger psu + higher power bill to run the 2x5770 setup.
 
killadoob said:
There is no varying performance gain with crossfire, it basically doubles the performance. Crossfire is remarkable compared to sli. Scales so much better you get basically double the FPS where as sli you only get about a 30% increase.

Very few games do not take advantage of crossfire, 99% of all new games are crossfire/sli capable.
Click to expand...

I beg to differ. I have had many games not work with my 4870X2 untill AMD released driver updates. And double the frames?? That will not be for every game. Only game i have seen get near double FPS is in GRID.
 
I was in a similar boat but figured rather take the safer route with the 5850 since I was spending so much $. 5770 in xfire will be faster with newer games but there is the headache of drivers, heat issues, power issues etc.
 
Monkey101 said:
I beg to differ. I have had many games not work with my 4870X2 untill AMD released driver updates. And double the frames?? That will not be for every game. Only game i have seen get near double FPS is in GRID.
Click to expand...

Yea that is just because amd are a bit slow to release the profile. They are far better these days.

I just used this which basically shows almost a doubling up in FPS when 2 5770/50 are in crossfire. http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-5750-review-crossfirex/13

So it may not be 100%, if you look there most of the time it comes really close to doubling, 80%-90% is better than sli can offer and pretty damn impressive if you ask me. Maybe when the 4890x2 was released it was not really as good as crossfire we have today although i am not sure about that :D.

I have searched google but maybe you guys can tell me how much performance gain would i get by adding a 3rd 5770 in a 4x pci e port? Not worth it?
 
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Would you guys pay R1000 extra for an HD5870? I mean is it really worth it, since you can easily overclock an HD5850 to match that of the HD5870?

I can buy the HD5870 for R3777 in oz...
 
I really hate the logic of 'I can overclock x card to match the performance of x higher priced card' - because frankly you can overclock anything, certainly the 5870 will have at least as much headroom as a 5850. So yes if i had r4k to spare I'd buy a 5870.
 
Wait for fermi dude.

Not long now, you may be able to pick up 2 5850's for the 4k if fermi hits the good spot :D.
 
5850. Single GPU setup is better and i doubt you'll notice a difference (in smoothness of gaming) unless you benchmark the cards.

If you can get a 5870 then get it!
 
The 5770 uses very little power.

I'd say get X-fire.
 
Well the main reason i'd get the 5850 is so that i can add another later on and two 5850s are > 5770 xfire.

Think about it, a 5850 will max out almost every (maybe all?) game out there at 1920. By the time that 5850 runs out of juice, the 5770 xfire setup will too (might take a few months more to "run"out).

With the xfire setup you'd have to replace both the cards to get good performance again as three way and four way SLi/xfire gives you minimal gain in performance, whereas with the single 5850 you can just add another and game on...

Edit
Reminds me of the 4770x2 vs 4890 thing. The 4770s beat the 4890 but you didn't see people recommending the 4770 setup over a 4890 as you could add another 4890 later on and it would rape the 4770s.
 
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There is another view on it by the time a 5770 CF does run out of juice there should be 2 cheapish cards that will beat a 5850 crossfire setup. These dx 11 are still entry level compared to what will come i think. It is a really tough choice because no doubt the 5770 setup is better than a 5850 and actually competes with the 5870. So either one will not be bad a choice. I don't really intend on buying another vga card for about a year at least, 5770 CF should hold up til then.

The 5770 though is the better setup right now than a 5850 for roughly the same money. I mean if you think about the 5770 can compete with a 5870 for less money. Good value setup.
 
Silverlight said:
Well the main reason i'd get the 5850 is so that i can add another later on and two 5850s are > 5770 xfire.

Think about it, a 5850 will max out almost every (maybe all?) game out there at 1920. By the time that 5850 runs out of juice, the 5770 xfire setup will too (might take a few months more to "run"out).

With the xfire setup you'd have to replace both the cards to get good performance again as three way and four way SLi/xfire gives you minimal gain in performance, whereas with the single 5850 you can just add another and game on...

Edit
Reminds me of the 4770x2 vs 4890 thing. The 4770s beat the 4890 but you didn't see people recommending the 4770 setup over a 4890 as you could add another 4890 later on and it would rape the 4770s.
Click to expand...

Well I learnt that if you don't buy everything at once, or in a very early stage of upgrades, you usually get left with out dated goods. Makes more sense to me to get the crossfire setup and save yourself +/-R1000 when compared to a 5870.

Edit: +1 to killadoob's post above.
 
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