Quick question: 4850 worthy gfx upgrade from x1900xt?

[iBMe]

A friend has just got himself a 6850 and is offering to sell me his old 4850 for £30.

Is it a worthy upgrade for my little bro's old rig?

He currently has..

Pentium G620
Radeon x1900xt
4gb ram.

He has been moaning that he can't play some newer dx10 only games, but am I better off getting something this or something brand new like a gt430?

thanks +rep for mega fast (within the hour) responses, as im going home soon lol.

[joemtnbike]

Originally Posted by iBMe

A friend has just got himself a 6850 and is offering to sell me his old 4850 for £30.

Is it a worthy upgrade for my little bro's old rig?

He currently has..

Pentium G620
Radeon x1900xt
4gb ram.

He has been moaning that he can't play some newer dx10 only games, but am I better off getting something this or something brand new like a gt430?

thanks +rep for mega fast (within the hour) responses, as im going home soon lol.

A GT430 would be a downgrade from the x1900xt.
The HD4850 is a major upgrade.

[HL2-4-Life]

I have a HD4850 512mb as one of my reserve cards, when I was using it briefly, it was pretty good...handled games like BC2 and Far Cry 2 reasonably well at med setting IIRC. The major stumbling block for the card is that it has only 512mb of VRAM. Nonetheless, it is a nice step up when compared with the X1900XT. Source based games should not be a problem for it, but it really depends on what res your bro game at. Don't get the GT430, I believe it is lower than a HD4850 in gaming performance.

[iBMe]

Okay cool thanks for your reply, I have googled about a bit too now and it does seem pretty good for the money so I think I'm sold.

[ChrisW]

I went from a 1800XL to a 4850 and it was a nice upgrade.

[Hi2u! Tw1TcH]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...ew,3107-7.html

4850 is 7 tiers up from the 1900 on this scale. They say 3 tiers up and you can notice a good improvement.

430 is on the same tier as 1900.

[Sleepy Ben]

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards....=566&card2=644

The 4850 is definitely better than the 430 *but* what games does he want to play? A current DX10/DX11 game with no DX9 renderer is going to struggle on a 4850 unless he uses Low settings.

[mmstick]

Why are we going for a 4850 in 2012?

At least go for 6670. Any person with gaming as a hobby though would at least get a 7750 though. Anyone really serious about gaming would aim for 68xx and 78xx though.

In perspective, 6670 is about 30% faster than 4850, yet uses significantly less electricity, 7750 is slightly slower than a 6850 which is over twice as fast as a 6670. And 78xx is twice as fast as the 77xx cards, on par with 69xx cards.


Using outdated 4850 is just asking to consume a lot of electricity at little benefit. Still, surprised to see people still using X cards.

[cannondale06]

Originally Posted by mmstick

Why are we going for a 4850 in 2012?

At least go for 6670. Any person with gaming as a hobby though would at least get a 7750 though. Anyone really serious about gaming would aim for 68xx and 78xx though.

In perspective, 6670 is about 30% faster than 4850, yet uses significantly less electricity, 7750 is slightly slower than a 6850 which is over twice as fast as a 6670. And 78xx is twice as fast as the 77xx cards, on par with 69xx cards.


Using outdated 4850 is just asking to consume a lot of electricity at little benefit. Still, surprised to see people still using X cards.

he said that he is getting the 4850 from a friend. and actually the 6670 is not 30% faster than a 4850. in fact the 4850 would be faster.


EDIT: a direct comparison would be hard to find but here you see the 6670 review where, depending on resolution, the 4850 is easily faster by 25-30% or more than the 5670. http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...D_5670/29.html

then here the 6670 is only about 20% faster than the 5670. its pretty easy to deduce that the 4850 would still end up about 5-10% faster than the 6670 not 30% slower. http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_6670/22.html

[mmstick]

Originally Posted by cannondale06

he said that he is getting the 4850 from a friend. and actually the 6670 is not 30% faster than a 4850. in fact the 4850 would be faster.


EDIT: a direct comparison would be hard to find but here you see the 6670 review where, depending on resolution, the 4850 is easily faster by 25-30% or more than the 5670. http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...D_5670/29.html

then here the 6670 is only about 20% faster than the 5670. its pretty easy to deduce that the 4850 would still end up about 5-10% faster than the 6670 not 30% slower. http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_6670/22.html

Get your facts straight.
Guru3D Radeon HD 6670 Review

End Result:
Spec-Wise
Texel rate (3D graphics) = 30% faster
Pixel rate (2D graphics) = 50% faster

Real World Result
Far Cry 2 @ 1920x1080 8xMSAA
6670 = 29 FPS
4850 = 19 FPS
5670 = 19 FPS
The facts are obvious.

Why even mention 5670? There is nothing magical about it.

[cannondale06]

Originally Posted by mmstick

Get your facts straight.
Guru3D Radeon HD 6670 Review

End Result:
Spec-Wise
Texel rate (3D graphics) = 30% faster
Pixel rate (2D graphics) = 50% faster

Real World Result
Far Cry 2 @ 1920x1080 8xMSAA
6670 = 29 FPS
4850 = 19 FPS

The facts are obvious.

get my facts straight? do you have trouble reading the links I provided? the fact that you are asking about the 5670 shows complete failure on your part as that was clearly explained.

you link to ONE game that was run at unplayable settings that exceeded the 512mb framebuffer and call the 6670 faster but dismiss a review showing multiple games?

[mmstick]

Originally Posted by cannondale06

get my facts straight? do you have trouble reading the links I provided? the fact that you are asking about the 5670 shows complete failure on your part as that was clearly explained.

you link to ONE game that was run at settings that exceeded the 512mb framebuffer and call the 6670 faster but dismiss a review showing multiple games?

Would you like me to list the number of games that will exceed 512MB? Let's see, every DX10/11 game in existence. Your 'lines' aren't even related to 6670. Besides, it was two games, not one. Want another?

Tech Powerup

Feel free to skim through the entire selection of games.

I think it's time to stop carrying misinformation and trying to cover your butt and truly 'get your facts straight'.

[cereal3]

4850 is far faster than a 6670

[masterchef341]

An AMD 4850 is approximately similar to a 5750 / 6750 / 7750 in performance. It would be significantly faster than an AMD 6670 card.

Given the option to buy for so cheap, I would say it is a reasonable purchase. A newer card (one of the three listed above) might be preferable just because it will be quieter and less power hungry, but they cost significantly more as well.

Specific stats like fill-rates or FLOPS don't correlate very well with actual game performance, especially when comparing cards across generations, or when you have actual game benchmarks available.

[cannondale06]

Originally Posted by masterchef341

An AMD 4850 is approximately similar to a 5750 / 6750 / 7750 in performance. It would be significantly faster than an AMD 6670 card.

Given the option to buy for so cheap, I would say it is a reasonable purchase. A newer card (one of the three listed above) might be preferable just because it will be quieter and less power hungry, but they cost significantly more as well.

Specific stats like fill-rates or FLOPS don't correlate very well with actual game performance, especially when comparing cards across generations, or when you have actual game benchmarks available.

actually the 4850 would only be about 5-10% faster than the 6670 overall. mmstick was certainly mistaken claiming the 6670 was 30% faster than the 4850 though. that will only happen at demanding settings that exceed 512mb of vram that also renders the 6670 to be basically unplayable anyway.

and yeah the only reason the 4850 is being talked about is because the OP can get it from his friend. if this was actually a choice between the 6670 or4850 then I would suggest the 6670 since its not much slower and uses way less power.