Dell has VisionTek 5850 for $252...

Albuquerque

Red-headed step child
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Or if you've already got a Dell Preferred Account, you can grab it for $244. And it comes with free "slow" shipping too; I just ordered one to replace my pair of 4850's. I'll buy a second one later when Fermi comes out and makes all the prices go down the toilet ;)

http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1799167

I should have it before the end of this week :D
 
have you just spend $250 for no improvement in frame rate ?

:???: A pair of crossfired 512mb 4850's is going to give the same framerate as a 5850? Crossfire scaling isn't that great, to be sure. Perhaps you're thinking of 4870's? Don't take this the wrong way, as I love my 4850's, but every review / benchmark I've seen suggests these cards are going to get mauled by a solid 10-20% in even the best crossfire-scaling games, and by far more in things like Crysis. And the extra 512mb of framebuffer room is already something I've needed for a while now.
 
"mauled" by 10-20% :LOL:

I think I'll wait until NVIDIA shows up at the party and causes some price changes and/or some interesting new games come out that my ultra-long-lived 8800GTX can't chew up at my funTV 1360x768 rez.
 
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"mauled" by 10-20% :LOL:

I think I'll wait until NVIDIA shows up at the party and causes some price changes and/or some interesting new games come out that my ultra-long-lived 8800GTX can't chew up at my funTV 1360x768 rez.

Well, yeah mauled wasn't what I was originally going to type ;) hehehe...

Still, given how well this performs against a 4870x2 1Gb at my native rez of 1680x1050 when using copious amounts of AA, this was the best option for me. And when I get tired of the performance of this card, I can add another one later.
 
I wish I was rich enough to think $250 for 15% was good value
I think you're oversimplifying here. You assume that the 4850's have zero return when I sell them? You assume that every one of my games scales 100% with crossfire (the only possible way that a pair of 4850's is going to keep up with a single 5850.) You assume that doubling of my available framebuffer (from 512Mb to 1024Mb) will provide no additional benefit at my native 1680x1050 resolution?

You've made quite a few assumptions to come up with that figure, whether you admit it or not. 15% is probably the least benefit I'd get out the games that I play the most...
 
a solid 10-20%

Didnt assume anything I got the figure from you!

@mize Gtx260
When I upgrade I look for 80 - 100% increase(anything less isnt worth it), and I dont think there is a single card around that could give me that certainly not at a price I could afford
 
I tend to have similar upgrade paths of late, but more because of the hassle and lack of time for gaming than the cash. I just went from an 8800GTS to a 5870 and it was definitely worth it.
 
Damn, wish I'd seen this thread yesterday. I would've replaced my GTX 285 with one.

Edit: thought it best to preempt the inevitable questions. The 285 sounds like a Boeing 747 taking off once it gets hot, and DX11 support to more important to me than PhysX at this point. Performance is roughly the same, but I could sell my 1-year-used 285 for $100, so $150 for a 5850 would be worth it to me.
 
Are VisionTek's posted spec's off base?

On Newegg, their own site, the link from AMD's site, BestBuy, and elsewhere, the following is posted.

450 Watt or greater power supply with one 75W 6-pin PCI Express® power connectors recommended (600 Watt and two 6-pin connectors for ATI CrossFireX™ technology in dual mode)

http://graphics.visiontek.com/video/5000/5850.html

I've yet to see another card maker not say that two 75W 6-pin PCI Express® power connectors were required.

This is a great deal from Dell, I'm tempted.
 
Dunno, but the newegg page pictures show 2 6-pin PEGs...

Edit: But the Newegg description follows the same verbiage that you saw:
General
Code:
RAMDAC    	        400 MHz
Max Resolution       2560 x 1600
CrossFireX Support	Yes
Cooler	With Fan
System Requirements	450 Watt or greater power supply with one 75W 6-pin PCI Express power connectors recommended (600 Watt and two 6-pin connectors for ATI CrossFireX technology in dual mode)
Power Connector       	2 x 6 Pin
Dual-Link DVI Supported	Yes
HDCP Ready	        Yes
 
Damn, wish I'd seen this thread yesterday. I would've replaced my GTX 285 with one.

Edit: thought it best to preempt the inevitable questions. The 285 sounds like a Boeing 747 taking off once it gets hot, and DX11 support to more important to me than PhysX at this point. Performance is roughly the same, but I could sell my 1-year-used 285 for $100, so $150 for a 5850 would be worth it to me.

LOL. I put my old 8800GTS in my rig for PhysX and it was louder than the rest of my system! This is in a Cooler Master HAF case so lots of fans too but you couldn't only hear the GTS:)
 
If you look at the last photo on Newegg the Visiontek comes with one molex to 6-pin so you only need one in the case to begin with I guess?
 
So, slow shipping was indeed VERY slow shipping -- card arrived today ;) The reason was obviously a big pile of backorder rather than truly slow shipping, but whatever. Anyway, now that I have this thing on my desk at work, it is indeed two 6-pin PCIE connectors for power.

I'll upgrade the one remaining / functional 4850 at home to Catalyst 10.2, and then swap it out for this new 5850 and give some first impressions tomorrow.
 
11-Jan till 23-Feb? Damn! I would just pay retail and standard ups ground.
:LOL:
I wasn't in a hurry, one of my two 4850's was still functional, and really there isn't anything I couldn't already play in my pile of games. Still, another big pile of AA (and the supersampling option) made it very interesting for my older stuff.

So, gutted the Cat 9.6's I was using, shut the machine down, removed my loner 4850, put him in the box next to his dead brother, installed the new 5850 and loaded up the Cat 10.2's. No issues on boot, no issues on install, no issues turning up the ATI Overdrive sliders all the way to full tilt (775 / 1125), and no issues in any of the games I threw at it.

Oblivion with all of my texture replacement patches and tweaks at 8xSSAA, 16xAF is absolutely fantastic. Fallout, Stalker, and pretty much every other DX9 game that I own all worked the same. Obviously Crysis and Warhead needed to have it all turned down a bit, but both were still playable at native rez with all in-game DX10 menu settings maxed and at least 2xAA. I went in and continued massaging the CVARs for a bit more oomph, but I already love this card.

Before the movers face-planted my 2nd 4850 card, I took a decent series of benchmarks in various games with my Q9450 at 3.6Ghz and both the 4850's at 700/1050. At the first attempt with my 5850 at 775/1125, it generally outperforms my prior setup by about 30% in the lowest cases, and a few games (with the higher AA settings) it really trounces the 4850's by a wide margin -- 60% or more.

At least part of that is the 1Gb of framebuffer versus the prior 512mb; I know a few of the games ran into framebuffer issues with all the AA turned on. Still, for $250 that I paid, I feel that I got my money's worth.

Especially since most of the money came from the insurance company :cool:
 
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