Should I buy the ATI 5850 or 2x 4850s in Crossfire mode?

[Sgt_Strider]

I'm looking to get a new videocard in the next couple of days. I basically need a videocard to power a display with a resolution of 1920x1200. The 5850 seems like an obvious choice at this point in time, but it's currently over $300. A quick search on Google shows that I can get 2x1GB 4850s for about $260 before tax.

I don't really care all that much for DX11. Eyefinity may come in handy when I get my 3rd LCD. I don't want to buy something for the sake of futureproofing my system since I pretty much upgrade my computer on an annual basis. I'm creating this thread because I'm trying to figure out which option gives me the best bang for the buck. I'm trying to make a rational decision here.

So what should I do?

[Particle]

I get a better experience out of my 5850 than I did with my 4850s in XF. I imagine the same will be true for you. It just isn't worth investing that much in last-gen hardware when the price differential is so small.

[gOtVoltage]

I was on the same boat..

I grabbed two 5750's to see how Xfire does... a 5850 or two 5750's will be night and day...

Drivers will mature as always.

[Boulard83]

5850 allll the way.

[HelixPC]

5850 no contest

[jaredpace]

5850

[s1nykuL]

I just got an Asus 5850. My CPU is the cards bottleneck, so some benchmarks are not particularly impressive. But that doesn't mean I can't enjoy the post processing goodness. It plays everything I have inc Crysis at 1680x1050 with the highest possible details in all games and at least 4xaa and 16af.

So even with a lowly CPU the card delivers at least at my native resolution.

After viewing a couple of ATI DX11 demos, I think you will want to move to DX 11, especially when more titles are developed. I would say go 5850, but then again I am biased although very pleased with the 5850.

[zalbard]

Yep, 5850 is amazing price/performance wise, too, not to mention the new features.

[Necetra]

5850. Godly overclocking.

[jaredpace]

269 out the door plus free shipping

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814161302

[Necetra]

I'm still using the stock XFX bios but MSI afterburner. If I had better cooling, I could push more voltage to this chip and probably overclock higher.

[zen3]

5850 fur sure.

A friend of mine has it!
Just wonderful.

[Can support up to 3 monitors at once]

[breakfromyou]

5850. Godly overclocking.

But it isn't needed! Not at 1680x1050 at least, lol. I bumped my card up for the hell of it, and then clocked it back down because I didn't care about the extra performance. It already screams through everything I throw at it.

Another vote for the 5850--crossfire is just too flaky, and when it comes time here in a year for you to upgrade, imagine how hard it would be to get rid of 2 4850's as opposed to a single 5850...

And even though this is XS and nobody seems to care about power consumption. Just look at the numbers for the 5850.

[Razrback16]

I'd get the 5850. But that's me. Just a tad more $$, DX11 (even though I know you said you don't care about DX11), and when prices drop you can get another 5850 for cheap and have even better performance.

[RoadconeTuning]

guess whos about to order that HIS that was just posted with a rebate!

<--- this guy.

[Razrback16]

guess whos about to order that HIS that was just posted with a rebate!

<--- this guy.

lol. Congrats.

[WrigleyVillain]

Yeah, 5850. I will pull the trigger myself on one when AvP comes out.

[Sgt_Strider]

Thanks for all of the suggestions guys! I think I'm going to wait at least 1.5 more weeks before I pull the trigger since AMD is suppose to be releasing the 5830 soon. If the 5830 proves not to offer much value, then I'll get the 5850.

[SocketMan]

I basically need a videocard to power a display with a resolution of 1920x1200. The 5850 seems like an obvious choice at this point in time, but it's currently over $300. A quick search on Google shows that I can get 2x1GB 4850s for about $260 before tax.

Just get the cheapest dx11 card (5650/5750 ?),5830 btw will be a few extra weeks
Not too long hopefully.

[Particle]

If he's willing to spend the money, I'd say keep in line with the 5830/5850 line. He may not care much about gaming at the moment, but he's likely to care about something GPU-accelerated (such as Flash 10.1, Photoshop CS4, Acrobat 8, AMD's video transcoder, PowerDirector 8, and more every day) before he's ready to toss it for newer hardware. The slower cards will work, but they won't give quite as good of an experience as the card he is already willing to buy.