Solved Purchase upgrade HD6850 should I buy?

[chris1neji]

So I have reach to a point where i can no longer enjoy my games or play new games on high/ultra settings. I can play older RTS games or most online MMO's and such. A lot of games have came out this year. Battlefield 3 for example with my current hardware no way i can play in high settings

Last time i was playing the witcher 2.... even with low settings it wasn't playable, i was very dissapointed...

I was getting 10fps avg.

It doesn't help that today i am now running duo monitor setup, both running at 1440 X 900.

Anyways I know it's not something i need but something i want. Should I buy the 6850, or should I get it wait?

WIll it be enough for me to play recent games like The Witcher, Battlefield 3, Batman, and recent rpgs on ultra settings.
What about doing all of that with Eyefinity 2 monitor setup?

 

[M1GU31]

It should be able to but if you can save more money I would go with a 6870,would be like a highly overclocked 6850.Anyways here's a bench of the two cards being compared playing the same games at the same settings.
AnandTech - Bench - GPU11
If the 6850 performance is enough for you then get a 6850.It's a good card overall but like I said I would save a bit more and go with a 6870.I am able to max my games like the witcher 2 at 1080p at 45-50fps avg on my rig with the 6870 with just uber sampling disabled.I think the 6850 should have no problems maxing games like diablo 3 and such but the 6870 would do better most likely in bf3 with some more settings tweaked up, probably on high. Though in the end it's up to you to choose what is closer to your expectations and needs. some bf3 benchmarks Benchmark Results: AMD Graphics Cards, High Quality : Battlefield 3 Performance: 30+ Graphics Cards, Benchmarked

It's like a 10-15% increase in performance I believe it's totally worth it unless your going to overclock the 6850 close or at 6870 settings but then you got to worry about temperatures and stability of the video card overclock and so on.

 

[Fluffy]

You can get two 6850's for the price of a 6970 if you shop around.

 

[chris1neji]

Yeah I do not think I will be doing gaming on both monitors ... especially not BF3 on high settings... i would effectively be running at 2880 by 900(is that how is done??) and the review 2560 by 1600 only gets about 24fps.

I think i will need to compromise on some games and play single screen only.

Thanks fluffy but I don't think I have enough power to feed 2 gfx or the motherboard to equip them.

 

[Zepher]

I don't know if you'd want to try to play across 2 screens, especially fps games since your crosshairs would be dead center between the monitors.

 

[chris1neji]

I never though of that, It's settle a 6850 will do just fine.

 

[chris1neji]

So i am planning to buy a HD 6850, now i dont know the difference between brands and such.
XFX? Saphire? or Gigabyte
Amazon.com: GIGABYTE ATI Radeon HD6850 1GB DDR5 2DVI/HDMI/DisplayPort PCI-Express Video Card GV-R685OC-1GD: Electronics
Gigabyte GV-R6850C-1GD

Should i buy from amazon or newegg is there a difference?

I never really put much though into buying a card, last time I bough mine i order from newegg and didnt research much.

I always been a big fgan of XFX but am i paying extra money for no difference what so ever? Also on newegg there is 2 XFX one is 5 dollars more expensive why? 685A-Zcfc vx 685X-zdfc?

What i am really asking is for someone to pick for me, i mean they all seem the same and for most part is like 5-7 dollars more.

 

[chris1neji]

Anyone ? newegg or amazon?
Gigabyte or XFX?

 

[M1GU31]

The difference with XFX offers double the life time warranty though be aware this does not apply to the 7000series cards.Quote "- Cards with Double Dissipation (Double D) or whose product number ends in “R”: Lifetime warranty if registered within 30 days. All other cards (ex: HD 7970 Core Edition; FX797ATNFC): 2 Year Warranty"

Also when you receive your video card you must register it between the 30 days or you get only the limited warranty.

Sapphire only offers a 2 year warranty and gigabyte offers 3 year warranty.

So xfx has a life time warranty on their cards as long as it's not a 7series card from amd.You can read more about the warranty here.
Warranty Information

 

[Solarstarshines]

Honestly I would go with Diamond i had no issues doing an RMA on a previous Hd6870 that went Kaput they took it back and gave me a new one and i did it right before the 3 year mark like a month before

they have a 3 year warrenty still good enough if you take care of the cards

 

[chris1neji]

thank you, miguel,
Amazon was cheaper and no tax but the seller was circuit city although i trust them, They had a 4 star reviews because they didnt get the order right a few times.

Also i get Dirt3 as a bonus and I will support newegg. Order was placed just now!

Sorry didnt see diamond post

 

[QuackPot]

Don't gigabyte have the nice dual fan HSF on their cards. They're certainly my vote when it comes to GPU and motherboards anyway.

 

[chris1neji]

I installed it now i am testing it out with games and such. Anyways I decided to enable eyefinity and its nice, I will prbably activate it on a few games RTS mainly. Anyways When i make a window full screen it goes full screen on both, I download and install Hydravision and it wont show up anywhere on my desktop/programs. ANyone have experience

 

[chris1neji]

mark as solved
Also Eyefinity looks awesome even with 2 monitors, it doesnt put my middle portion of my game/crosshairs in between my bezel portion of my screen. Gaming has never look better Playing Deus Ex Evolution