GTX 260 to 5850 worth it?

C

Camberwell

Gawd
Joined
Jan 20, 2008
Messages
947
Rig is in sig (1680x1050 res). I got the GTX 260 (216) second hand for a good price a while back, but newer games are maxing it out (BFBC2 and even MW2 when things get busy in MP!) and later in the year I'll be looking to get a 24" or 26" monitor so I want something with a bit more juice.

The 5870 is too expensive, as is Fermi, but I'm also reading mixed things as to whether a 5850 is enough of a step up in performance from a GTX 260 to justify the extra outlay. I won't be buying for another month or so, hopefully if there are to be any price drops with the release of Fermi, they will have happened by then. I'm looking for a single card option as my mobo doesn't support Xfire or SLI....

Any thoughts?
 
personally i'd run with the 260/216 until i got the new monitor, then see what the GTX480 or HD5870 runs when you NEED to upgrade. Not worth playing the price premium right away when you don't need it.
 
RADEoN said:
personally i'd run with the 260/216 until i got the new monitor, then see what the GTX480 or HD5870 runs when you NEED to upgrade. Not worth playing the price premium right away when you don't need it.
Click to expand...

I agree, upgrade your monitor before upgrading your card. That 260 will handle things just fine at your current res.
 
No. My GTX260 (when it was in my rig) ran everything I threw at it at 1920x1200 maxed out (minus crysis).
 
At 1680x1050, that GTX260 will be fine. If you start thinking about a larger monitor, or going triple-monitor, then look at the HD5850.
 
Agreed. My 192 core GTX 260 played most games fine at 1920x1200. The only reason I jumped on the 5850 bandwagon was for Eyefinity. 5040x1050. aww.. yeah!

Stick with the 22" LCD and buy two more with a 5850. You won't be sorry.
 
unless you want to play with eyefinity, get a second for sli. these cards are quickly becoming underrated for their current cost/performance ratio. in a year or so when dx11 is actually useful to have and the cards are better/cheaper, that's when you have a good time to get something new and exciting
 
I'm gaming on the 5850 right now and it's great... I love how it's nearly dead silent under gaming.
 
RADEoN said:
personally i'd run with the 260/216 until i got the new monitor, then see what the GTX480 or HD5870 runs when you NEED to upgrade. Not worth playing the price premium right away when you don't need it.
Click to expand...


completely agree with this.. for the time being overclock your GTX 260 216 core to 600/1350/1161(it should be able to run these clocks at the minimum) or if you have a good card try 620/1404/1200 or 620/1458/1200.. these clocks worked fine on my GTX 260.. should give you about 10-15fps more in crysis.. and 15-20fps more in other games..
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
completely agree with this.. for the time being overclock your GTX 260 216 core to 600/1350/1161(it should be able to run these clocks at the minimum) or if you have a good card try 620/1404/1200 or 620/1458/1200.. these clocks worked fine on my GTX 260.. should give you about 10-15fps more in crysis.. and 15-20fps more in other games..
Click to expand...
why such weird overclocks on the gtx260? a gtx260 core speed can go way higher than that yet most of them cant handle shaders or memory much higher than you have suggested. in fact plenty of gtx260 cards will not run 2400 memory and be stable.

and that oc you mentioned most certainly wont net you 10-15 more fps in Crysis so that was a silly exaggeration.
 
cannondale06 said:
why such weird overclocks on the gtx260? a gtx260 core speed can go way higher than that yet most of them cant handle shaders or memory much higher than you have suggested. in fact plenty of gtx260 cards will not run 2400 memory and be stable.

and that oc you mentioned most certainly wont net you 10-15 more fps in Crysis so that was a silly exaggeration.
Click to expand...

because my cards a pos and doesnt overclock for anything.. i cant exceed 620mhz on the gpu and MWLL(crysis mod) wont run anything over 600mhz on my gpu but makes no difference.. about a 2fps gain in any game from 600 to 620.. at 1680x1050 10-15fps isnt that big of an exaggeration.. because it really depends on what settings hes using.. from stock to 600/1404/1200 i gain 12fps with everything on high with dx10 @ 1920x1200 in windows 7 but i dont use AA in any of my games.. so my numbers may be a little different then others.. i gave numbers based off what i run my games at since he didnt say exactly what settings he uses in any of his games.. for all we know hes running everything on low settings @ 1680x1050..

and im sure there are a lot of cards that dont run 1200mhz.. because i friggin own one of them.. ive only gotten 2 games to run with my memory at 1200mhz which is ET:QW and Eve online.. which is why i run at 1161 99% of the time because thats the next step on the memory.. goes 1200 then 1181 then 1161.. so on and so on.. shaders run in 54mhz steps 1350 1404 1458 1512 so on and so on..
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
because my cards a pos and doesnt overclock for anything.. i cant exceed 620mhz on the gpu and MWLL(crysis mod) wont run anything over 600mhz on my gpu but makes no difference.. about a 2fps gain in any game from 600 to 620.. at 1680x1050 10-15fps isnt that big of an exaggeration.. because it really depends on what settings hes using.. from stock to 600/1404/1200 i gain 12fps with everything on high with dx10 @ 1920x1200 in windows 7 but i dont use AA in any of my games.. so my numbers may be a little different then others.. i gave numbers based off what i run my games at since he didnt say exactly what settings he uses in any of his games.. for all we know hes running everything on low settings @ 1680x1050..

and im sure there are a lot of cards that dont run 1200mhz.. because i friggin own one of them.. ive only gotten 2 games to run with my memory at 1200mhz which is ET:QW and Eve online.. which is why i run at 1161 99% of the time because thats the next step on the memory.. goes 1200 then 1181 then 1161.. so on and so on.. shaders run in 54mhz steps 1350 1404 1458 1512 so on and so on..
Click to expand...
well I ran the benchmarks at stock gtx260 speeds and oced to 620/1453/2400 and it made less than 4 fps difference at 1920x1080 on all DX10 high settings and no AA. now how could you possibly get 3 times the improvement? its mathematically impossible to oc your card by 15% and get what would have to be a 40% increase since a stock gtx260 gets less than 35fps on those settings to begin with. :confused:

576/1242/1998
min 24.21
avg 34.78

620/1453/2400
min 25.05
avg 38.69
 
Last edited:
but you could resonably expect upper 40s on a second card with both of them clocked that in sli... which for 1680x1050 means he's pretty set. from here he can just wait to upgrade when he decides to get a bigger monitor.
 
My cpu oc and gpu oc are in my sig, SLI is not an option as I am not replacing my mobo until I go i7 or equivalent, which is not for a couple of years......running most settings on high, usually 4xAA (except for Metro 2033, that's at normal with vsync forced on but I still get bad tearing).
 
Camberwell said:
My cpu oc and gpu oc are in my sig, SLI is not an option as I am not replacing my mobo until I go i7 or equivalent, which is not for a couple of years......running most settings on high, usually 4xAA (except for Metro 2033, that's at normal with vsync forced on but I still get bad tearing).
Click to expand...

vsync is the devil. also, get the 5850. it kicks ass.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top