-
Competitor rules
Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.
5850 Vs 2x GTX 260 in SLI
- Thread starter Stuff
- Start date
Associate
I went for the 5850 and mega happy, I can max everything out and in a few months i will have another loool, plus it has dx11 so your be ready for next gen gaming 
Associate
It also depend on motherboard in my case asus P6T when i went GTX 260 sli my chipset temps went up over 10 degress, southbridge is fully covered with graphic cards blocking all airflow and positioning of x16 PCI-E slots are horrible they are next to each my first card fan is blocked i got idle of 46-50 what is not so bad but after overclocking cards a bit and playing demanding gmes for hours temperature of top card is reaching 80 or more degress and sometimes got issue with nvidia driver stops responding because of overheat or artifacts starts appearing. And not all games fully supports dual card solutions. If i could go back in time i would have bought a sigle card with dual chip solution like gtx 295 or 4870x2 for better performance than single chip single card solution.
Would go for the 5850 seeing as you don't actually have GTX 260 sli. Once you overclock it hits 5870 levels plus it would be £40 cheaper then buying two GTX 260s and relying on sli. As drivers improves the 5850 should be at least on par anyway.
Last edited:
Soldato
If you already have a GTX260 and an SLI capable board then id get another 260 for SLI. Ive had SLI many many times and never encountered this microstutter issue people talk about. My last SLI setup was a pair of 8800GTX's, one of them a heavily overclocked EVGA model and the other a standard clocked POV model.
Now i dont have a SLI capable board anymore if i was to buy a new card it would either be a second hand 4870x2, a 5870 or a GTX295.
Now i dont have a SLI capable board anymore if i was to buy a new card it would either be a second hand 4870x2, a 5870 or a GTX295.
Associate
i will choose the 5850. SLi might be slightly better but try and play dx11 on dx11 games. Oh wait you cant 
Thats whats making me decide to goto ATI but theres a small side of me what still wants me to wait for nvidia.
Thats whats making me decide to goto ATI but theres a small side of me what still wants me to wait for nvidia.
gtx 260 sli will you better performance and will be more quiet than the ati vacuum cleaners. DX 11 support is a great feature but no DX11 games are out yet so I would get 2x260 and wait to see the dx 11 nvidia offerings. Its all about performance, everything else are just lame excuses.
Associate
My 5870 is no louder than my gtx 260.
Soldato
- Joined
- 2 Dec 2006
- Posts
- 8,204
Isn't a 285gtx > 260gtx sli? Because tahts ~£210
2 untrue statements in there.
1. The coolers on the 5870 and 5850 are amongst the quietest stock coolers around. Read a few more reviews and not just ones measuring furmark for noise. Certainly 2x260's will be noisier than one 5870.
2. There is already at least one DX11 game - Battleforge. DX11 games start going mainstream this year, not next. For the lifetime of his next card purchases DX11 will be important. DX11 is about performance as well (unlike DX10).
Plus, regardless of Deific 's one man crusade to make us buy 2 cards (on an economic argument that can be argued either way), one GPU is always better than 2.
- less power draw
- less heat
- no micro-stutter
- no need for profiles or driver fixes when there is an AFR incompatibility in the game.