Help making a decision

Im torn between getting an ssd or another hd5850 ( to xfire) what would you recommend

Largely up to you and your needs, but personally I would choose the SSD. I'm curious to see the performance improvements and ambient temperature drop if I were to put one in.

I second the vote for the SSD. It's the biggest improvement I have ever made. Most SSD users would tell you the same thing.

Ok , I am lucky enough to own a ssd , it's certainly one of the best purchases I have made for my pc in the last couple of years , things run real fast , boot times are amazing!

I also own a HD5850 and made the decision to buy another one a couple of weeks ago to crossfire it.

I ordered it from aria , delivered the next day and I was well excited , the excitement soon turned to misery as the card turned out to be dead on arrival!

I am still waiting for a refund 2 weeks on so I can't even order a new one , but I have noticed there are very few around at a decent price now.

Infact the only one that is reasonably priced is on overclockers.co.uk and its still £20 more than what they were selling it a few weeks back.

The next cheapest I can find is like £160 , it seems stocks of the HD5850 are running dry at the moment.

I am not sure what to do really , might try and sell my powercolor pcs+ 5850 and buy a gtx 570 or may hang fire and see if a few more 5850's come back onto the market.

It's tricky.

2x 5850's in crossfire return some excellent fps , dirt 2 for example on max settings , 1 card will see around 60fps , 2 cards in xfire will see nearly 120fps.

I am sure I have just totally messed with your head now and you are proberly even more unsure of what to do pmsl but hey ho

Paul.

The 5850's are being phased out because the 6000's are already out and the 7000's are soon to be out. That puts us with 5000 serise cards 3 generations behind. But, I have to ask myself how long will it be before the 5000's are no longer supported.

Yeah I know what your saying essenbe , and am only too aware of it.

I guess this is something the OP should bear in mind in his decision too really , as if he is to go for a SSD by the time he wants to crossfire his 5850 they may be obsolete.

paulpicks21 said:

Yeah I know what your saying essenbe , and am only too aware of it.

I guess this is something the OP should bear in mind in his decision too really , as if he is to go for a SSD by the time he wants to crossfire his 5850 they may be obsolete.

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As you have already pointed out, they almost already are. Sapphire, for one, has said that they were dumping their 5000 serise cards. I almost bought one of the last 5850's for $120.00. I didn't and now they are gone.

It's reasons like this that if I were planning on doing SLI or CrossFire...or dual processors that I always buy them right at the start rather than attempting to upgrade to it down the road.

I just did a quick check. Here there are no 5850's I could find. There is 1 5830 and 1 5870. But for the same price of a 5870 you can get a 6970.

Missed out for sure , but hey the 6870 is very cheap now and slightly better performance than the 5850 , unfortunatly that don't help me and OP out lol as I keep telling the etailer on the phone each time I phone regarding my RMA.

Imagine when I opened up the box on my brand new XFX HD5850 Black edition (which I might add was the last one on their site), to reveal the lovely new shiny card with all the nice little extras , I gently caressed it into the slot pmsl , fired it up and was greeted with a black screen , followed by nothing followed by lots of swearing followed by testing in another pc followed by lots more swearing lol.

essenbe said:

I just did a quick check. Here there are no 5850's I could find. There is 1 5830 and 1 5870. But for the same price of a 5870 you can get a 6970.

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There are a couple of sites in the uk that still have the 5850 , £120 is the cheapest , but the 6870 is only £125 here!

Next cheapest is £160!! So not worth it.

I think after our discussion , the best advice I can recommend to the OP is to get a nice SSD and then start saving for a nice current generation graphics card. It seems to be the best option in my opinion and tbh I think I will more than likely be doing the same now. New card for xmas maybe.

By then the 7000's may be out and the 6000's a lot cheaper. But, I'm for the SSD, great improvement in normal usage. But, then again, I'm not a gamer.

paulpicks21 said:

start saving for a nice current generation graphics card.

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I would think the 5850 is still a current generation card. I know that AMD released the 6000 series lineup....but generally speaking a 6850 gets beat by a 5850...so I'm not usually onboard with calling the 6000 series an upgrade. Now me personally, I'm running a 9800GTX+....I'm not current.

Many of the companies are dumping the 5000 serise cards. go to Newegg and see how many 5850's they have. The answer is 1. They are supposed to be coming out with the 7000 serise cards soon and i think that is why the better 5000 serise cards are in short supply. The lower end cards like mine (5770) are still around but I don't think there is but 1 5830 there. You can buy a 6970 for about the same price as a 5850 I think.