Is the 7850 worth it?

[rdsn]

System Specifications:

I. AMD Phenom II X6 1055T


II. XFX 4770


III. 1920 x 1080


IV. Antec Truepower Quattro 850 (1 year old)


V. Antec Three Hundred Two Mid Tower Gaming Case


Purchase Details:

I. Below $250CDN and even that is stretching the budget


II. No preference although I have a grudge against Sapphire from my last card


III. Plan to crossfire or sli the card in a couple years when I need more power, mobo can do both


IV. Looking at the Powercolor Radeon HD 7850 860MHZ for $242.08
ASUS Radeon HD 7850 860MHZ ($253.34) and MSI Radeon HD 7850 OC Twin Frozr III 900MHZ ($260) also options

V. I will be playing the total war series mostly but I want the card to run pretty much anything max except Metro and other games with ridiculous requirements


VI. Will probably do a mild overclock

Additional Notes

As you can see, I am looking to replace a rubbish card which I have because my Sapphire 5850 broke, long story. Anyway, I am looking for low noise and reliability. A good rma service will also be nice in case I need to send it in. I will be hopefully keeping this card for the next 4 yrs so it would be nice to get one which will be able to keep up with the latest titles until my next big upgrade. Thanks for helping!

 

[Stuka87]

The 7850 isn't a bad card. It mostly beats a 6950 for the same price as a 6950.

It will run most any game at high settings. I have never had any issues with PowerColor, but if you can find the Sapphire for the same price (new egg has it a bit cheaper) go for it as it has a better cooler setup.

 

[FalseChristian]

The 7850 is about equal with a GTX 570 and supports the new DirectX 11.1 API.

 

[blastingcap]

Your system is a lot like mine, haha.

The 7850 at current prices is a mediocre value. It's basically a 6950 2GB that's slightly more power efficient and about the same cost. The GTX 560 Ti is a good card as well, and it's not far from a 6950 or 7850 in terms of speed, yet costs significantly less. You can get a GTX 560 Ti on sale for $200 after rebate if you wait for sales.

None of the cards above will last you 4 years. I think 2 years from now and they will be considered low-to-midrange, and 3 years from now lowish. Four years from now it will be low-end. However, all of the above cards will let you max out many games and have fairly high settings for the rest, at least for 2012.

There is basically no difference between DX11 and DX11.1 from a practical perspective; no developer is going to write DX11.1 exclusive stuff that has a significant impact... heck, most games are still written for DX9 or DX10, not even DX11 yet.

Your best course of action may be to wait till Nvida issues a competitor to the 7850. Prices should fall on all 28nm GPUs within a few months if TSMC fixes its 28nm supply constraints.

 

[StinkyPinky]

Your system is a lot like mine, haha.

The 7850 at current prices is a mediocre value. It's basically a 6950 2GB that's slightly more power efficient and about the same cost. The GTX 560 Ti is a good card as well, and it's not far from a 6950 or 7850 in terms of speed, yet costs significantly less. You can get a GTX 560 Ti on sale for $200 after rebate if you wait for sales.

None of the cards above will last you 4 years. I think 2 years from now and they will be considered low-to-midrange, and 3 years from now lowish. Four years from now it will be low-end. However, all of the above cards will let you max out many games and have fairly high settings for the rest, at least for 2012.

560ti does have less vram though which may be an issue in the future. Especially with high res texture packs

 

[blastingcap]

560ti does have less vram though which may be an issue in the future. Especially with high res texture packs

It might be better to upgrade in two steps rather than hope a 7850 will last for four years.

 

[Dark Shroud]

A 7850 also has DX11.1 compared to the 560 Ti.

 

[AtenRa]

As said before, HD7850 performance is between the HD6950 and HD6970. With a little OC it can catch the GTX580. You can see how an OCed HD6950 at 885MHz can run Total War in my CPU budget gaming evaluation (link in my sig bellow).

Personally i believe the HD7850 is the best performance/price card for 1080p gaming when OCed right now.

 

[Lyfer]

HD7850 is an OC beast. Superbiz has em for $235 ATM. (after $20 coupon code)

 

[bononos]

...... As you can see, I am looking to replace a rubbish card which I have because my Sapphire 5850 broke, long story. Anyway, I am looking for low noise and reliability. A good rma service will also be nice in case I need to send it in. I will be hopefully keeping this card for the next 4 yrs so it would be nice to get one which will be able to keep up with the latest titles until my next big upgrade. Thanks for helping!

Were you oc'ing your 5850 when it failed?

 

[RussianSensation]

A 7850 also has DX11.1 compared to the 560 Ti.

This has been repeated over and over now. DX11.1 has no benefits over DX11 whatsoever other than stereoscopic 3D support. There isn't a single line of new code in DX11.1 over DX11. It's even more of a worthless marketing gimmick than DX10.1 or Direct 8.1 were. At the same time next generation DX11 games with full blown depth of field, HBAO, Tessellation will bring HD7850 to its knees in no time. So the future proofing argument cannot be made either.

OP, if I was your shoes, I'd get an HD6870 for $140, pocket $110-120 and then upgrade in 2 years. I can't get myself to recommend someone a $260 videocard that's barely better than an HD6950 from 14 months ago.

HD7850 is 16% faster than HD6870 at 1080P for $100 more. That's awful price/performance scaling for mid-range videocards. However, if you are dead set on spending $250, HD7850 Oced is the best card by default with its 2GB of VRAM, lower power consumption and decent overclocking headroom.

V. I will be playing the total war series mostly but I want the card to run pretty much anything max except Metro and other games with ridiculous requirements

That's not going to happen unless you have an overclocked 7970 or GTX680. GTX580 only gets 35 fps in Shogun 2 at 1080P and that falls to 27 fps with 8AA.

 

[Borealis7]

step 1: buy 7850
step 2: o/c
step 3: ???
step 4: Profit!

i think you should get it and overclock it till it screams.

 

[bigsnyder]

And from the site you linked only about 12-13% slower than a HD6970. From most benches I have seen, 7850 is a large jump over 6870.

This has been repeated over and over now. DX11.1 has no benefits over DX11 whatsoever other than stereoscopic 3D support. There isn't a single line of new code in DX11.1 over DX11. It's even more of a worthless marketing gimmick than DX10.1 or Direct 8.1 were. At the same time next generation DX11 games with full blown depth of field, HBAO, Tessellation will bring HD7850 to its knees in no time. So the future proofing argument cannot be made either.

OP, if I was your shoes, I'd get an HD6870 for $140, pocket $110-120 and then upgrade in 2 years. I can't get myself to recommend someone a $260 videocard that's barely better than an HD6950 from 14 months ago.

HD7850 is 16% faster than HD6870 at 1080P for $100 more. That's awful price/performance scaling for mid-range videocards. However, if you are dead set on spending $250, HD7850 Oced is the best card by default with its 2GB of VRAM, lower power consumption and decent overclocking headroom.




That's not going to happen unless you have an overclocked 7970 or GTX680. GTX580 only gets 35 fps in Shogun 2 at 1080P and that falls to 27 fps with 8AA.

 

[rdsn]

Yeah I am pretty much riding on the fact that 7850 crossfired will be powerful enough to keep up. The reason I did not chose the cheaper 6870 or 560ti were because I think 2GB of ram will be needed to keep frame rates up at high resolutions. Skyrim still runs fine at medium settings on the 4770 so I don't expect the 7850 to fall behind too quickly. By the way, which version of the card would you chose? Is it worth buying the custom cooler versions or would I be better off with the stock Powercolour

Were you oc'ing your 5850 when it failed?

No everything was stock. The fan started buzzing loudly so I sent it to NCIX for RMA. It took two months for Sapphire to tell me I have two options, accept a 6770 or take $100 in cash. I think we all know which option I took.

 

[lifeblood]

I'm in the same shoes as you as well. You've got a faster CPU but I'm sporting a faster GPU. My 4830 has been a trooper but it can no longer keep up. I'm really trying to decide if I should get a 560TI OC or a 7850 OC at $250. I was hoping the release of the 680 would cause a price drop and make it an easy choice but that just hasn't happened yet and I'm tired of waiting.

I think we might be able to squeeze 3 years out of the 560TI or 7850, but not 4. Once the next-gen consoles come out supporting DX11 we can expect games to really start stressing today's cards.

 

[RavenSEAL]

I'm in the same shoes as you as well. You've got a faster CPU but I'm sporting a faster GPU. My 4830 has been a trooper but it can no longer keep up. I'm really trying to decide if I should get a 560TI OC or a 7850 OC at $250. I was hoping the release of the 680 would cause a price drop and make it an easy choice but that just hasn't happened yet and I'm tired of waiting.

I think we might be able to squeeze 3 years out of the 560TI or 7850, but not 4. Once the next-gen consoles come out supporting DX11 we can expect games to really start stressing today's cards.

Ugh, I think you might wanna upgrade to an X6 while you're at it. That X3 will put a choke on anything you upgrade to.

 

[blastingcap]

Ugh, I think you might wanna upgrade to an X6 while you're at it. That X3 will put a choke on anything you upgrade to.

Maybe, maybe not. Check out what even a cheapo $60 CPU can handle these days.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1877/7/

 

[RavenSEAL]

Maybe, maybe not. Check out what even a cheapo $60 CPU can handle these days.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1877/7/

That's SB though.

 

[RussianSensation]

And from the site you linked only about 12-13% slower than a HD6970. From most benches I have seen, 7850 is a large jump over 6870.

12-15% average increase is not a large jump in performance, not when 7850 costs at least $100 more. In the mid-range level, that's terrible price/performace scaling. Considering HD7850 performs similarly to HD6950/GTX570 but is a card that came out 14-15 months later, the fact that AMD is asking $260-270 for it shows how poor of a value it really is.

I would either wait until GTX670/670Ti drop in April/May and see if they force price drops, or grab an HD6870, pocket $100 and just upgrade again next year. With AMD CPU, he may not even see the 15% higher speed of the HD7850. In my eyes, the HD7850 isn't worth its almost $300 price tag after taxes in Canada. Not even close. Picking up a used $180-200 HD6950 2GB and unlocking it or a slightly used GTX570 would be a far better option. This is one of the worst times to buy a new mid-range GPU since the consumer is subsidizing 28nm ramp at the beginning of its cycle. You are basically paying last generation prices for 15% more performance on average, 14 months later.

Actually, looking at AT's bench, HD7850 even loses to a stock GTX570. HD7850 should have been $199.

 

[blastingcap]

That's SB though.

The same principle applies to AMD too. I'm not disagreeing with you, just that CPU bottlenecks are overblown sometimes, because few games can really take advantage of multiple cores. See, e.g.: http://www.techspot.com/review/458-battlefield-3-performance/page7.html An AMD Phenom II X2 560 (3.3GHz) was enough to keep up with much costlier CPUs. And this is not a wimpy game, either.

His X3 CPU (NOT yet unlocked) was tested here: http://www.guru3d.com/article/athlon-ii-x3-435-processor-review-test/14 It's not that bad of a CPU to require upgrading from, imho, unless he games at lower resolutions.

 

[mkmitch]

I opted for a 2gb 6870, cost me $163 on sale and AR at Newegg. Play a little skyrim and not much else. For the time being suits me fine. I don't see anything I want to play that this card doesn't handle. And the nice part is if anything comes out that I do want I don't have much of an investment in the current card. I'd set a price match at newegg on the xfx card as it probably will go on sale again.

 

[rdsn]

12-15% average increase is not a large jump in performance, not when 7850 costs at least $100 more. In the mid-range level, that's terrible price/performace scaling. Considering HD7850 performs similarly to HD6950/GTX570 but is a card that came out 14-15 months later, the fact that AMD is asking $260-270 for it shows how poor of a value it really is.

I would either wait until GTX670/670Ti drop in April/May and see if they force price drops, or grab an HD6870, pocket $100 and just upgrade again next year. With AMD CPU, he may not even see the 15% higher speed of the HD7850. In my eyes, the HD7850 isn't worth its almost $300 price tag after taxes in Canada. Not even close. Picking up a used $180-200 HD6950 2GB and unlocking it or a slightly used GTX570 would be a far better option. This is one of the worst times to buy a new mid-range GPU since the consumer is subsidizing 28nm ramp at the beginning of its cycle. You are basically paying last generation prices for 15% more performance on average, 14 months later.

Actually, looking at AT's bench, HD7850 even loses to a stock GTX570. HD7850 should have been $199.

I would generally agree with you. However, the Sapphire Radeon HD 7850 OC 975MHZ I am looking at costs $254.88. Any new 6950 or 570 I could get would be over that price and any that come close would be 1GB only. I don't buy used because there is no warranty or support. I was going to get the 6870s but I figured it would be obsolete way too soon due to less power + 1GB only. You are probably right about waiting for 6xx series to come out though.

 

[lifeblood]

Ugh, I think you might wanna upgrade to an X6 while you're at it. That X3 will put a choke on anything you upgrade to.

One thing at a time! Video card first. Besides, the CPU is unlocked & overclocked to an X4 @ 3.2 GHz and holding its own. Once Piledriver comes out I'll upgrade to that if its worth it, or toss the MB & CPU and go with an Intel rig if its not (I do incremental upgrades).

 

[RussianSensation]

I would generally agree with you. However, the Sapphire Radeon HD 7850 OC 975MHZ I am looking at costs $254.88.

1) HD7850 isn't fast enough to take advantage of 2GB of VRAM. By the time games actually need 2GB of VRAM, we'll need a card 2x faster than HD6950/HD7850 to run them.

2) Did you check out the benchmarks?

1080P 4AA
HD6870 = 100% ($160)
HD7850 = 116% ($255)

HD7850 costs 59% more than HD6870 and only has 16% more performance. Usually in the mid-range from $150 --> $250, the price/performance scales much better than this.

I would say when HD6870 is too slow to play next generation games, so will HD7850.

Generally speaking once next generation games arrive, all the cards that perform within 10-25% of each other are going to be too slow for them. This happened every time in the last 10 years.

For example, check out 4890/GTX275/GTX285. In today's games, they are all "equally" too slow. This is exactly why I recommend upgrading more frequently rather than buying to future proof. However, if you have a hard budget where you can only upgrade every 3-4 years or so, then HD7850 @ $250 is a good card among the $250 cards available right now.

 

[iCyborg]

1) HD7850 isn't fast enough to take advantage of 2GB of VRAM. By the time games actually need 2GB of VRAM, we'll need a card 2x faster than HD6950/HD7850 to run them.

Skyrim at 1080p according to Anandtech review:
HD6870 = 100%
HD7850 = 438%

And it's a pretty major difference between basically unplayable (23.2 fps on 6870) and very playable (78.3fps on HD7850). It's also more than 2x 560Ti (36.4fps). Now add another 10% for his 975MHz version.
So we already have some games where 2GB makes a large difference even on mid-range 7850.
I'm not saying 7850 is better bang for the buck than 6870, but there is some value to 2GB and that 15% difference today will probably be larger in 1-2 years. Just as 4890 1GB is quite a bit better than 4870 512MB even if they are both slow today when maxing everything...