looking for a replacement for my 8800gt

**craziii** · June 15, 2010, 08:57 PM

I got a new 1080p monitor and game with it :() my 2.5 years old 8800gt just bite the dust, not exactly dead, but near it. 5850? or the 470? I need your opinions. I was also looking at a fanless 5770. I hate noisy cards now, my 8800gt at 100% fan is like a jet engine. need something quieter. help me.

**mrcrusty** · June 15, 2010, 09:05 PM

Well, it depends on what you think is necessary, but the HD 5850 is quieter and/or cooler than the GTX 470. The HD 5770 would probably be quieter (or be the same, it's the same cooler), but it would struggle at 1080p in demanding games at the highest settings, so the HD 5850 would be my choice.

Of course, you can just buy a custom cooled video card, or buy an aftermarket cooler and install it yourself.

**Ishan** · June 15, 2010, 09:29 PM

Originally Posted by mrcrusty

Well, it depends on what you think is necessary, but the HD 5850 is quieter and/or cooler than the GTX 470. The HD 5770 would probably be quieter (or be the same, it's the same cooler), but it would struggle at 1080p in demanding games at the highest settings, so the HD 5850 would be my choice.

Of course, you can just buy a custom cooled video card, or buy an aftermarket cooler and install it yourself.

I concur

**craziii** · June 15, 2010, 10:24 PM

which custom after market cooler would you recommend?

**mrcrusty** · June 15, 2010, 10:48 PM

Well, each of them has their ups and downs. The stock cooling on the HD 5850 is actually quite sufficient, but the noise at higher levels may become noticable.

The PowerColor HD 5850 PCS+ is among the coolest and quietest, as well as among the cheapest. But it doesn't allow voltage regulation so you have limits for overclocking. PowerColor also isn't the most well known brand. They also ran out of stock on Newegg.

The HIS HD 5850 iCooler is extremely similar to the PowerColor in terms of cooling, noise, overclocking, price and brand reputation, but they do have stock on Newegg.

The Sapphire Vapor-X HD 5850 is also among the coolest and quietest HD 5850, but Sapphire is ATI's biggest board partner, so the quality and brand reputation is high. It also is much more expensive than the offerings from HIS and PowerColor. It also doesn't have the voltage regulator, so it's overclocking is also limited.

The Asus DirectCu HD 5850 runs cool enough, it's not as good as the other three, but it's better than the stock, and the noise is quieter than the stock as well. It's expensive, but has voltage regulation, and is pretty much guaranteed to get almost (if not equal) performance to the HD 5870 with a massive overclock. It also has the brand reputation since it's Asus.

MSI Twin Frozr HD 5850, I have no idea how it performs and the like but reading from a couple of reviews, it's a lot like the Asus DirectCu HD 5850 except it doesn't overclock as good.

If you're talking about taking out the stock cooler and replacing it with an aftermarket one, then get an XFX HD 5850. They have great warranty in case you make a mistake or break it. Short of eating half the card, XFX will not consider your card's warranty void, and it's a double lifetime warranty too. You get full lifetime warranty, you sell it, the person you sell it to gets the warranty.

For aftermarket coolers, the Arctic Cooling Twin Turbo Pro seems popular, it's pretty much the tried and true reliable aftermarket cooler. IMO the Zerotherm Coolmaxx 3000 looks awesome, and so does the Zalman VF/GV 1000, the VF/GV 1000 works well, quieter and cooler than stock, I have no idea how good the Zerotherm cooler is, but the customer reviews on newegg are promising.

Honestly though, all that is just some reviews and google searching, my personal choice would be the Sapphire Vapor-X HD 5850, that seems to be known as a universally awesome card.

**craziii** · June 16, 2010, 02:45 AM

gonna sleep on it. it is either his[awesome custom cooler] or the xfx[unbeatable warranty].

**motiv-8** · June 16, 2010, 02:15 PM

delete, user needs to read OPs closer

**Maizel** · June 16, 2010, 04:29 PM

just get a 5870., that'll also set you up well for S2, if you're planning on playing that. The stock fan isn;t too bad, but there are some special editions out with some good fans, like the toxic vesion.

**Awqa Puriq** · June 16, 2010, 07:25 PM

I have the HIS 5850 iCooler, I love it. On stock speeds it never goes beyond 40C with fan speed on 60%, which is not even close to loud, whether I'd be running Empire, Napoleon, MW2, Sims 3, etc. Either choice of 5850 brand your gonna be happy with.

**craziii** · June 16, 2010, 08:19 PM

I just bought the his 5850, will be here on friday. googled some reviews for both and I went with the quieter choice. 5870 just isn't worth it. 40-50% price premium for 15% performance gain = no no. 1080p gaming kills old vid cards fast

**Maizel** · June 17, 2010, 06:22 AM

Originally Posted by craziii

I just bought the his 5850, will be here on friday. googled some reviews for both and I went with the quieter choice. 5870 just isn't worth it. 40-50% price premium for 15% performance gain = no no. 1080p gaming kills old vid cards fast

You could get 2 5850 in xfire, they're about as expensive, but usually a bit faster than the 5870.

**craziii** · June 17, 2010, 09:49 PM

my mobo got a x16 n x4, is it still possible to xfire? and I got to check if my psu is powerful enough. I will stay with 1 for now, let see how it goes.

**mrcrusty** · June 17, 2010, 10:54 PM

It would work, but the scaling would be bad. When you see benchmarks showing CrossFire doubling a game's fps, it's usually in a x16/x16 configuration. You would see improvement for sure, but two 5850's in that system wouldn't reach the almost 100% scaling you see in benchmarks and reviews. Much less, maybe 50% scaling? I don't know, but it would be severely gimped.

**Big Boss** · June 18, 2010, 12:22 AM

Originally Posted by Maizel

You could get 2 5850 in xfire, they're about as expensive, but usually a bit faster than the 5870.

Crossfire 5850 is complete overkill for 1080p, and are a ton faster than a 5870, around that of a 5970. Remember, a 5970 is essentially two 5850s on a PCB, not 2 5870s.

Originally Posted by mrcrusty

It would work, but the scaling would be bad. When you see benchmarks showing CrossFire doubling a game's fps, it's usually in a x16/x16 configuration. You would see improvement for sure, but two 5850's in that system wouldn't reach the almost 100% scaling you see in benchmarks and reviews. Much less, maybe 50% scaling? I don't know, but it would be severely gimped.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...caling/25.html

the PCI-E lanes don't matter that much, scaling is going to be more limited by crossfire itself than the bandwidth of the lanes.

**mrcrusty** · June 18, 2010, 01:06 AM

Guess I was basing that on old PCIe 1.0/1.1 tech. My mistake.

But I could imagine another problem rearing it's ugly head. Since the lanes aren't running at the same speed, there might be a bad case of micro stutter. It's bound to happen in any CrossFire config, but a x16/x4 setup would probably have it worse than a x16/x16 or even a x8/x8 setup.

**craziii** · June 18, 2010, 02:13 AM

thoroughly checked my mobo http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82e16813128358 it seems to have x16 + x8 I guess I can always add another one if my psu is powerful enough.