new card

[dominicr]

I havent looked at the engineers yet....im trying to wait until closer to release date to really get into it incase something excites me and it changes.

 

[dominicr]

for the new 6850 card which brand would you go with...i can go to the local microcenter store and get a gigabyte..or order from newegg/tiger direct and get a his, msi, powercooler, or saphier....how would you guys rate those in terms of quality?

 

[GaiaHunter]

for the new 6850 card which brand would you go with...i can go to the local microcenter store and get a gigabyte..or order from newegg/tiger direct and get a his, msi, powercooler, or saphier....how would you guys rate those in terms of quality?

Depends of the particular models and your tastes.

I have a gigabyte, GV-R685OC-1GD, with the windforce cooler. Can't complain about this card. Never had problems with MSI and I really like my powercolor 4850 pcs+. Never personally owned a sapphire or HIS.

If the prices are similar (and if cooler options of the online cards aren't much better) and you are close to the microcenter I would just grab the gigabyte. It should make it less painful to return in the scenario your PSU is creally crappy.

 

[dominicr]

the gigabyte card is a r685oc-1gd...170 bucks with a 20 dollar rebate...sounds decent enough

 

[GaiaHunter]

the gigabyte card is a r685oc-1gd...170 bucks with a 20 dollar rebate...sounds decent enough

That is the one I own.

I'm happy with mine - runs cool and it is quiet, only slightly audible (if I get my ear right by the box) over the CPU fan, a Xigmatek Gaia, which is quite quiet on its own merits.

 

[dominicr]

what games do you play and what kinda settings and frames are you getting on them? will this card be held back playing anything?

 

[GaiaHunter]

I play at 1680x1050.

If you toss at this card high levels of tessellation and some other crazy IQ filters, it will tank, But even much more expensive cards do that as well.

Other than those particularly settings I can play the large majority of games at the very high settings with some AA tossed in (mostly 4xAA) and 16xAF.

Although I didn't play extensively, I tried this card with Crysis 2 and very high+high res textures would be above 50 fps. Extreme it would go down to around 30. Dragon Age 2, with all whistles, is also quite playable unless you activate DoF (if I'm not mistaken, been a while).

I also have skyrim as a gift but haven't fiddled with it.

Other stuff like GW, WoW, FiFa, Starcraft 2 runs very good.

I'm on a Phenom II X4@3.6, so your processor is quite faster, so you should get a bit more performance as well.

 

[dominicr]

how much faster do you think the 6850 is from the 6450 i have in there currently? also i think im on 19xx by 10xx for my resolution of my monitor or atleast thats what it defaults to when i load the games. I tried changing the resolution in game to a lower setting but it makes everything look elongated and uglier than shit.

 

[GaiaHunter]

how much faster do you think the 6850 is from the 6450 i have in there currently? also i think im on 19xx by 10xx for my resolution of my monitor or atleast thats what it defaults to when i load the games. I tried changing the resolution in game to a lower setting but it makes everything look elongated and uglier than shit.

Yeah running at a non native resolution makes stuff look ugly.

At that resolution the 6850 is going to be much much much faster.

Compared to the resolution I play you probably will have to drop AA a bit or run 0xAA. Maybe play with some setting at high instead of very high. This of course for demanding games. The games you listed+Guild Wars 2 and Diablo 3 should play good (by good I mean close to 60fps or at a speed that keeps the game fluid, some games can be fluid even if running at 30-40 fps).

 

[dominicr]

whats the aa stuff? never heard of that before...sorry for all the questions but its nice actually learning stuff. thanks for all the help by the way.

 

[GaiaHunter]

No problem, glad to help.

AA is antialiasing. Basically AA makes the polygons edges smoother instead of jagged.

For example.

This second set of images by the way use a special AA mode - some people don't like it cause it might blurs some stuff. Let me dig better images.

 

[Arkadrel]

how much faster do you think the 6850 is from the 6450 i have in there currently? also i think im on 19xx by 10xx for my resolution of my monitor or atleast thats what it defaults to when i load the games. I tried changing the resolution in game to a lower setting but it makes everything look elongated and uglier than shit.

On avg? techpowerup has those aroudn the 9xx% gains compaired to your card.
So around 9-10 times faster, but I swear it ll feel like more than that.

Differnce between running ~5-10 fps, and running ~50-100+ fps.

Thats basically what you ll experiance.

whats the aa stuff?

Something you ll get to enjoy with a 6850

 

[dominicr]

the aa stuff makes it look alot crisper....never knew about that. now im pretty stoked to go get this new card...just gotta find some time to get to microcenter to buy it

 

[dominicr]

went to the store last night to buy the video card and the people at the store tried to talk me into getting a gtx 560 instead of the 6850. i didnt know if it was worth the extra 30 bucks so i thought id ask you guys and then just go back tonight and get the better one. both the 560 and 6850 say they need 500w psu which is what i have so what do you guys think for performance.

 

[gregulator]

I don't really follow the industry anymore, but I bought a Gigabyte 6850 based on recommendations here and couldn't be happier. I really only use it for BF3 and I run 1680 x 1050 on high. I haven't checked FPS, but it looks great and runs smoothly (i5 2400 8gb ram). I am using a 430w thermaltake power supply, and I have no issues (but 12v rail is the most important thing). So I would say save the $30. You can keep playing the spend a little more, get a little more performance game, but really, it sounds like you just need to make the jump from the dumpy card realm into the decent card realm.

At the end of the day, buy a card and don't look back. Just enjoy your purchase!

 

[GaiaHunter]

I assume it is the GTX560. There is also the GTX560 Ti and the GTX560 Ti 448 cores.

The GTX560 will be somewhat faster (compared to a reference 6850, that gigabyte is faster than base), depending on the games and the clocks of the GTX560 (the GTX560 doesn't really have a reference card and it is basically an OC'ed GTX460).

The problem is this.

Sure your processor will be consuming less power than the i7 920 of this review, but still I don't trust oem PSU. (EDIT: The second chart is using a i5-2500K like yours, although OC'ed to 4 GHz).

Additionally the Gigabyte card actually recommends a 400W PSU, http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3630#ov.

GIGABYTE Ultra Durable VGA Series

GIGABYTE Ultra Durable VGA Series
Powered by AMD Radeon HD 6850 GPU
Integrated with the first 1GB GDDR5 memory and 256-bit memory interface
Features Dual-link DVI-I / DVI-D / HDMI / DisplayPort
Overclock to 820 MHz
Support CrossFireX™ , Avivo™HD, Eyefinity and EyeSpeed
System power supply requirement: 400W

Ignoring your PSU, and looking at your processor and resolution I would actually recommend a 6950 or a GTX 560 Ti as more suitable matches. But that would require a GPU that is on the $230-250 range + a new PSU, so that upgrade would be $300 or more.

With that PSU I wouldn't risk to go over a 6850.

And in fact I would probably buy a 6870 over a GTX560 anyway if PSU wasn't a problem.

 

[dominicr]

thanks for the responses guys. is a 6870 that much better than a 6850 and you think my current psu would be fine with the 6870?

 

[GaiaHunter]

thanks for the responses guys. is a 6870 that much better than a 6850 and you think my current psu would be fine with the 6870?

At the actual prices generally a 6870 is the smarter buy. When I bought my 6850 the difference was like €40-€50.

To give you a answer to that question you need to open your case and see the PSU label and tell us the 12V rating and model.

As someone said before, looking at the picture the PSU is an Allied 500W. If that is the same model as the one from johnyguru review (12V1 18A, 12V2 18A), I'm not even sure it can handle a 6850...

Performance (40% of the final score)

The Allied does earn a few words of praise here, believe it or don't. Capacitor selection, while admittedly cheap, was adequate to allow this power supply to control ripple quite well. It's just too bad they didn't help the unit regulate better, and... oh yeah... keep it from exploding. Out comes the sledge, and I hereby smack the Allied with a 3.

Functionality (20% of the final score)

The cabling was the best thing about this power supply, as is usually the case with something out of the Deer factories. It even included a PCI-E connector, and some weird looking adaptor I can't seem to find a use for. But, the wiring is pretty thin guage, so I'll give this puppy a 6.

Value (30% of the final score)

I can't seem to find a price on this particular Allied model, but other similarly rated Allieds are going for around $75. You've got to be kidding me. With Asia-X capacitors, and the performance of a terrible 350W unit? Out with the sledge again. 4.

Aesthetics (10% of the final score)

It's ugly. But it does have decent fan grillage. I say 5.

So, the total for this unit is a depressing and embarrasing 4. Not recommended, and please don't load one down really hard if you happen to be in the same room with it.

 

[96Firebird]

As someone said before, looking at the picture the PSU is an Allied 500W. If that is the same model as the one from johnyguru review (12V1 18A, 12V2 18A), I'm not even sure it can handle a 6850...

I'm willing to bet it is the same on, as this is listed under the specs...

Power

Power Supply - 500W
Combined +12V Rating - 432W (36A)

 

[dominicr]

i can buy a new psu...thats not hard and im sure i can put that in....they arent that expensive or atleast it doesnt look that way...looks like microcenter has a bunch of them in the 500w range and up

 

[GaiaHunter]

I prefer PSU with big single 12V rail but I guess if you can find some with multiple 12V rails that is fine as well.

I would go for >30A (decent quality brands) on a single rail (most likely 34-36A) and if multiple 12V rails at least 25A on an individual rail, preferably the one with the pci-e connectors.

But if someone has more precise advice listen to them - not much a specialist on PSU except low quality PSU are can be a pain in the neck.

Then you have my blessings to buy 6850/6870/6950/GTX560/GTX560 Ti, whatever rocks your boat. And then you can even have fun overclocking your CPU and GPU.

 

[96Firebird]

Rather than replacing parts in your newly bought computer, any chance you can return it and then build your own? It really isn't hard, and can save you quite a bit of money (or, use the save money toward more powerful hardware). I'm not sure what the return policy is at MC though...

 

[dominicr]

im not to sure what their return policy is....the computer is only a week and a half old but ive already got about 150k worth of cad software loaded on there. if i could keep the hard drive out of that one id do it in a second.

http://www.microcenter.com/single_pr...uct_id=0371616

what do you guys think of this supply?

 

[Corporate Thug]

im not to sure what their return policy is....the computer is only a week and a half old but ive already got about 150k worth of cad software loaded on there. if i could keep the hard drive out of that one id do it in a second.

http://www.microcenter.com/single_pr...uct_id=0371616

what do you guys think of this supply?

Stay away from that.
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/12/17/diablotek_phd650_650w_power_supply_review/9

I would buy this:

http://ncix.com/products/?sku=59616&vpn=P1650SNLB9&manufacture=XFX

 

[GaiaHunter]

If you want to buy at MC have a look at this one.
http://www.microcenter.com/single_pr...uct_id=0348766