Best 58XX Graphics card for your $$$

[Lumograph090]

I've been looking through the 58XX Radeon graphic cards trying to figure out which would be the best for my money spent. I'm currently up too $1,100 spent on my gaming PC - probably should have taken care of the graphics card early but got caught up in everything else - lol.

Currently I'm considering buying the SAPPHIRE 100297L Radeon HD 5830 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card w/ ATI Eyefinity Technology (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102878)

However, I've heard good things about 5850s but they're as much as an extra 80 - 90$ and from all the reviews I've read a 5830 will work just as well.

However, with that said if someone could explain to me exactly what 'GDDR5' and 'ATI Eyefinity' mean, that would be very helpful!

Also! The monitor I will be using is a Samsung Syncmaster 22' widescreen 1080p. a 5830 should be more than sufficient for running games at max settings and on a 1080p resolution, no?

 

[Ghan]

> GDDR5

This refers to the type of RAM that the video card has on board. I believe that all recent ATI cards (the 5000 series) have GDDR5 as their memory type, so you are getting the best there is with that.

> ATI Eyefinity

This is an ATI technology that allows you to connect up to 6 monitors to your graphics card (depending on the card) and span your desktop across all 6. Unless you are getting 3 or more monitors, this will probably make little difference to you.


As for the decision, all of the 5800 series cards are really good cards, and you do get what you pay for with each. I have not seen where one of them in particular is a really good value for the money over the others, but all of them should be able to play the latest games for at least a year to come (though not necessarily at the highest settings).

 

[Lumograph090]

Nah. I wont be using more than one monitor with this PC. In fact I won't have anything on this computer aside from WoW, SC2, HoN, D3(when it releases), and MW2. All of which I should be able to play at max settings easily.

I plan on using my old Emachines(lol) for media and browsing the interwebs. So no need more more than one monitor. So that takes care of my choice of graphics card! Thanks.

Also! I'm aware of the different types of WD Caviar Hard Drives, however, I plan on buying a 160 GB Caviar Blue and a 650 Caviar Black. However, I'm curious, would it be ok to install my OS (I'm buying Windows 7 64-bit) on the Blue hard drive and my games on the Black. Will this be ok? or should you have your OS running on the faster Black drive?

 

[Ghan]

Why are you getting both of those drives? They are the same speed.

 

[Lumograph090]

Why are you getting both of those drives? They are the same speed.

I'm aware they're both the same speed. However, I was told it isn't a bad idea to have two drives. You can put your OS and other minor programs on a secondary drive and your main use programs on a main drive.

From what I can gather and understand it speeds things up quite a bit. No?

 

[Ghan]

If they two drives are the same speed, then you will probably only notice a difference if the OS is on one and the program you are running is on the other. It won't be a lot, but you might get some benefit.

 

[Darthfett]

From what I understand of Graphics card memory:

GDDR2 - Runs hot.
GDDR3 - Uses less power than GDDR2, making it run faster (due to the ability to increase voltage for increased speeds), and cooler.
GDDR4 - Not widely adopted. It has the potential for higher clock speeds and consumes less power.
GDDR5 - 4 clock rates in the same time other memory types clock only twice. For this reason alone it makes it a huge upgrade to previous memory types.

The GDDR5 memory with a 256-bit interface has extreme bandwidth potential (compared to the 128-bit interface in 5700 series).

 

[Slapshot136]

look at this

 

[Lumograph090]

look at this

Great read. Thanks once again!

Should have everything put together by September! Thanks for all the help to those who aided me.