Hd 5850 CF or Not ?

[rahulyo]

Hello friends ...

I have Sapphire HD 5850 Game Edition GPU . I m thinking to CF 5850 . Is this a right time for CF ? I read lots of users facing problem in games with CF , Is it true? Will i face problem like Microstuttering,flickaring etc. with HD5850 CF ?

My System Spec:-
Processor: AMD X6 1090T BE
Motherboard: Gigabyte FXA890-UD5
Cooling: Thermalright Archon
Memory: Gskill Ripjaws X 2*2Gb 1600MHz
Video Card: Sapphire HD5850 stock
Hard Disk: Seagate 500Gb 7200.12
Monitor: Samsung SyncMaster 2233SW
Case: Cooler Master HAF 912 Adv.
PSU: Corsair 450 VX

 

[Cilus]

I am using CF of HD 6870. Now currently Crossfire of HD 5850 is not a good idea as the card has already reached its EOL and three generations (HD 6800 series, HD 6900 series and HD 7000 series) of new cards have been released after that. Also 5000 series does not have very good Crossfire scaling, on the other hand HD 6000 series provides almost 2X scaling in CF. 2ndly the price of HD 5850 is also very high and on that price you can get better cards like HD 6870 or HD 6850.
IOf you can find one within 10K then CF of 5850 might be a good option but VX450 is simply not enough to handle CF of any of the cards mentioned above. You need at least a premium 650W PSU.

 

[Skud]

Better to get a newer card, for improved tessellation performance and lower power consumption if nothing else.

 

[dibya_kol]

personaly i don't like cf or sli setup, they always had some issues. And amd's driver is even worst for cfx setup. And as per other's said, ur psu is too weak to handle that setup(i think ur psu don't have power connector for 5850 cf as well).
IMO, sell ur corrent card, and buy new gen card. BTW, which res do u game at ?

 

[Skud]

Guess its fullHD.

 

[Cilus]

personaly i don't like cf or sli setup, they always had some issues. And amd's driver is even worst for cfx setup. And as per other's said, ur psu is too weak to handle that setup(i think ur psu don't have power connector for 5850 cf as well).
IMO, sell ur corrent card, and buy new gen card. BTW, which res do u game at ?

Buddy, just blaming AMD for driver support in multi-gpu platform is actually not right. The problems with Multi-GPU setup you are referring are not at all specific to any specific brand, in most cases they are common to both the camps.

An Driver support for AMD has been improved a lot now a days. With the recent 12.X driver updates, they are providing the option to create custom Crossfire profile too. Also check out the scaling of HD 6000 series, they actually provides 1.9X to 2X scaling in most cases.

I am using a Tri GPU setup..HD 6870 CF + GT 240 PhysX for quite some time and there is no such worst case till date.

 

[dibya_kol]

yes, sceling in some games is very good and 12.x drivers r better in recent days. But amd has tendency, to fix 1 issue but rising another issue. U never gonna satisfied in cfx setup, don't u ?(even sli has some issues as well) And every month there is 3-4 drivers(whql, preview, beta, performance). But single gpu is ok. And u also know, drivers of green team is much better than red's.

@OP, i think ur 5850 is still good enough at 1080p. But u need to lower down AA in some titles.

PS: i also use 240gt as my physx card.

 

[Skud]

yes, sceling in some games is very good and 12.x drivers r better in recent days. But amd has tendency, to fix 1 issue but rising another issue. U never gonna satisfied in cfx setup, don't u ?(even sli has some issues as well) And every month there is 3-4 drivers(whql, preview, beta, performance). But single gpu is ok. And u also know, drivers of green team is much better than red's.

@OP, i think ur 5850 is still good enough at 1080p. But u need to lower down AA in some titles.

PS: i also use 240gt as my physx card.

AMD's drivers are not necessarily worse than nVIDIA. I am on preview drivers (different versions) for almost 2-3 months now, yet to face any problem because of drivers. And CF scaling in 6xxx and 7xxx series is much better than SLI.

 

[dibya_kol]

Amd yet to release a proper driver for 7xxx serise .. And i noticed in some forum that some guys r nt happy with BF3 performence with cfx. And being a amd user i am happy with amd drivers. But always i need to keep myself update with newer drivers ... I am nt fanboy though, but i must say nvidia's drivers r lot better than amd.
BTW @skud, which driver u r using ?

 

[Skud]

12.2 preview. Earlier on 12.1 preview and before that 11.10 preview.

 

[dibya_kol]

12.2 preview. Earlier on 12.1 preview and before that 11.10 preview.

12.2 jan 20(8.940.0) ? Used that one, but lost avg 3-5 fps in bf3 and batman AC. So gone back to 11.12 whql. Have u chked 12.3 RC jan 31(8.950.0) ?

 

[Skud]

No, yet to download. Unfortunately, have neither BF3 or Batman to test.

 

[ico]

But amd has tendency, to fix 1 issue but rising another issue.

Nope.

 

[topgear]

Amd yet to release a proper driver for 7xxx serise .. And i noticed in some forum that some guys r nt happy with BF3 performence with cfx. And being a amd user i am happy with amd drivers. But always i need to keep myself update with newer drivers ... I am nt fanboy though, but i must say nvidia's drivers r lot better than amd.

Just a myth

You may or may not face issues with any drivers - but that depends upon a lot of things as well.

Current AMD drivers are pretty good - I had a small issue with monitor resolution and frequency but it fixed nicely with 12.1 driver - as for nvidia I had issue with running soldier of fortune platinum but that also fixed by applying a tweak - so apart from these ( which can be fixed easily ) minor issues both of them make good and stable drivers

 

[digitaltab]

I am using CF of HD 6870. Now currently Crossfire of HD 5850 is not a good idea as the card has already reached its EOL and three generations (HD 6800 series, HD 6900 series and HD 7000 series) of new cards have been released after that. Also 5000 series does not have very good Crossfire scaling, on the other hand HD 6000 series provides almost 2X scaling in CF. 2ndly the price of HD 5850 is also very high and on that price you can get better cards like HD 6870 or HD 6850.
IOf you can find one within 10K then CF of 5850 might be a good option but VX450 is simply not enough to handle CF of any of the cards mentioned above. You need at least a premium 650W PSU.

and i'd like to suggest that better sell your card and psu, and get a new one by adding the amount you've got and the amount you'll get by selling it,
as i think, it will be enough to buy a GPU+PSU like 6950 2GB twin frozer edition with a Corsair GS600, or better than that,
or 6850 in CF mode...

 

[rahulyo]

So most of users said NO to 5850 CF.
K i skip this idea for now will get bettr gpu like HD7950 / GTX 670 + PSU.

 

[VilioGrove]

I rather get a new card like HD6870 than HD5850 again. HD6870 is very expensive anyway

 

[dibya_kol]

Nope.

Release notes and known issues tells the story ..

Just a myth

You may or may not face issues with any drivers - but that depends upon a lot of things as well.

Current AMD drivers are pretty good - I had a small issue with monitor resolution and frequency but it fixed nicely with 12.1 driver - as for nvidia I had issue with running soldier of fortune platinum but that also fixed by applying a tweak - so apart from these ( which can be fixed easily ) minor issues both of them make good and stable drivers

I bought 5770 (which i am still using) in july of 2010. Installed 10.4,which was very good, even 10.5/10.5a also very good. But after then (10.6/7/8/9/10) faced lots of stutteing during games. Yes, gained some fps though.
Then another issue started, ( it was fixable through colour adjustment) called 'pink colour issue', amd took 3-4 months to fix it properly. Games like 'rage' comes to market. In early 11.5/6/7 was nt upto the mark for rage, also have mouse lag problem. Amd fix it in 11.10 prev 2 and prev 3(but prev 3 lost fps in rage) .. Now bf3, amd still working on it. But yes, last few driver is performing well .. I am nt blemming amd, nvidia has also issues with drivers, but they fix it very soon. it is hard truth, and u guys also know it, that's why u also told 'current amd drivers r preety good', And it's nt a myth. Amd gpus r awesome but driver for cfx is nt so good.

 

[topgear]

I've not used AMD gpus in Multi GPU config so can't say for sure about driver support for CFX but from my personal experience I can tell AMD drivers never created any issues in games ( like stuttering , lags, crash etc. ) in xp or even in vista and win 7 - same is true with nvidia drivers

So most of users said NO to 5850 CF.
K i skip this idea for now will get bettr gpu like HD7950 / GTX 670 + PSU.

get custom cooled version of HD7950 but wait for the release of custom cooled GTX 670 too sp you can get better deals

I rather get a new card like HD6870 than HD5850 again. HD6870 is very expensive anyway

^^ I think OP has decided what he wants to get but HD6870 is not a very expensive but a very good VFM card and so is HD6850 whuch when OCed can easily perform neck to neck with it's bug brother in almost every games which makes it more sweet

 

[the1337est]

I'd say wait for HD79xx series, save a little more and when they are out, sell your HD5850. HD5850 is still good enough to handle games like BF3 and Crysis 2.

HD79xx will be having a faster XDR2 memory instead of GDDR5, twice as fast as GDDR5. So, HD79xx or corresponding Nvidia card should be your move.