5830, go for it?

[Meaker]

I have the opertunity to get an HD5830 for £170 (with warrenty) its the sapphire version.

I really cant afford ANY more so no HD5850 suggestions. What do you think?

AFAIK you can put the sapphire vapor-x 5870 bios on the 5830 card since they share the same PCB. It does not unlock anything but it does give extra voltage to the core.

[el_rasho]

No, get a 5770 and overclock it, 5830 is the worst price/performance card out there

[Meaker]

But at £170 it would provide more performance per £ than an HD5850 priced at £225.

[el_rasho]

But at £170 it would provide more performance per £ than an HD5850 priced at £225.

Nope, the performance of the 5830 is closer to a 5770 but for £50 more. Get a vanilla 5770 and OC it. BTW 5850s are coming down in price, hold out until the end of this month and Im sure you'll be able to pick up a 5850 for =<£200 (I got a Powercolor 5850 off Ebuyer for £200)

[Alvie1981]

I agree with el_rasho, even at 170quid its just not worth it imo. The thing will only lose value and fast, also with the 5850's coming down lately i would hold out for one of those or buy a 5770 for 50quid less.

[eRacer]

But at £170 it would provide more performance per £ than an HD5850 priced at £225.

At those prices the performance/price ratio of the 5850 and 5830 would be fairly close. The 5850 is almost 30% more expensive, but some reviews (like techPowerUp) show the 5850 to be more than 30% faster.

As for a comparison to a 5770, you be paying about 30% more for a 5830 and get only a ~10-15% performance increase.

I personally would go with the 5770 for the better performance/price ratio, adequately close performance to the 5830 in a vast majority of benchmarks, and for the significantly lower power consumption under load.

[TigerHawk]

I thought if you modded a 5770 bios or something like that and OC'd the crap out of it you could reach 5850 performance? Remember reading something like that....maybe it was two diff cards though.

I would def say the price/performance crown goes to the 5770 though. It's a brilliant card for what you are paying.

[Meaker]

Well the 5770 does not get close to 5850 OCed. Not even close.

That's at 1000/1400.

I think I might still go for it. I like its better cooler and it could be interesting to play with.

Thanks for your thoughts guys.

[Ninja7]

HD5830 is a turd, dont waste you time unless its cheaper than a OC HD5770.

The HD5770 is as fast, smaller, runs cooler and uses less power. Which opens the door to crossfire in future...HD5830 crossfire is a just plain stupid idea.

[Kaotika]

HD5830 is a turd, dont waste you time unless its cheaper than a OC HD5770.

The HD5770 is as fast, smaller, runs cooler and uses less power. Which opens the door to crossfire in future...HD5830 crossfire is a just plain stupid idea.

Depending on the memories bolted on it, HD5830 isn't actually that bad, it gets pretty much linear performance improvements on memory OC'ing, so let's say you can find one with 1200MHz rated chips which you can push to, say, 1300'ish, you'd get nearly 30% boost from just that