Sapphire resurrects an improved Radeon 5850 on the cheap (Now only $139.99 @ Newegg)

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Sapphire apparently had an overstock of old Radeon 5850 chips (which actually performed better than the newer 6850 chips) and decided to resurrect the card with vast improvements and sell it at a ridiculous price (under $150). The new Sapphire 5850 Xtreme card has a much shorter PCB size, better cooling and a brand new VRM design. This card will most likely only be available for a very limited time.

I'm sure AMD aren't too happy that this new 5850 completely destroys their recently launched Radeon 6790 card which costs the more. In DirectX 10 games this card performs similarly to the new nVidia GTX 560 Ti even besting it at times, yet costs almost half the price. If you buy 2 of them and crossfire them they will wipe the floor with the GTX 580 even and will still cost you over 200 bucks less than the GTX 580. As a first gen DirectX 11 card it lags a little in DirectX 11 games that use heavy tessellation and such but when you run in Crossfire it's still perfoms a lot better than a $300 graphics card.

Newegg has had them in stock twice and they've sold out in hours both times. I managed to snag two this morning thanks to Newegg's Auto-Notify feature. Newegg is selling them for $144.99 (now $139.99) with free shipping! Here's some links:

Sapphire 5850 Xtreme @ NewEgg

Sapphire 5850 Xtreme Product Page

Sapphire 5850 Xtreme TechGage Review

At this price this is an insane deal for anybody in the market for a good graphics card but doesn't wanna spend $250-300 . For people that do wanna spend that much you can always buy 2 of them and crossfire them for great performance at $279.98. I should mention though that to cut costs Sapphire decided not to include a crossfire bridge with the card so you'll need to buy one if you wish to run 2 cards in crossfire. These are going fast and being sold on the down low as to not upset AMD so get one while you can.
 
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The only thing that sucks about this card is that they took away a DVI port. I prefer to run my Eyefinity setup off 1x DisplayPort->DVI adapter, and 2x DVI. Even at the same monitor settings HDMI always seems a bit brighter than DVI, making it tough to keep all 3 screens in sync.
 
[quote name='Blade3D']I am looking to upgrade my card because I think my current one is about to go out, and didn't really want to spend too much. I really didn't want to spend over $100 as my desktop is a couple of years old. Should I spend the extra money and pick this card up? I had been looking at getting a GTS450 or 5830, would the extra cost be justified? I am running a Q8200, 4GB RAM, and a HD46-- something don't remember exactly maybe 4650.[/QUOTE]

Yes you should, this card will run games significantly faster than the 5830 or 450 on your setup. On top of that, it's very quiet and doesn't consume very much power.
 
[quote name='Blade3D']I am looking to upgrade my card because I think my current one is about to go out, and didn't really want to spend too much. I really didn't want to spend over $100 as my desktop is a couple of years old. Should I spend the extra money and pick this card up? I had been looking at getting a GTS450 or 5830, would the extra cost be justified? I am running a Q8200, 4GB RAM, and a HD46-- something don't remember exactly maybe 4650.[/QUOTE]

get an aftermarket psu if needed too. the 5830 is also 106 right now at newegg, its a pretty close call on frames per dollar right now. the 450 is not a good choice unless you get a good deal for it (like 70/75). at the 100 dollar price point its pretty crowded with 460 768mb and 5830 cards.
 
[quote name='runsongas']get an aftermarket psu if needed too. the 5830 is also 106 right now at newegg, its a pretty close call on frames per dollar right now. the 450 is not a good choice unless you get a good deal for it (like 70/75). at the 100 dollar price point its pretty crowded with 460 768mb and 5830 cards.[/QUOTE]

I picked up the 5830 because of the lower price and the extra USB TV Tuner. I figure if anything I can sell the USB TV Tuner and have gotten the card for around $80-85.
 
[quote name='JakeNome']yay I got my 5850 yesterday and its great!
now i dont know what to do with my 5770. i hate using ebay[/QUOTE]

If it works, send it to me and I'll Crossfire it with my current 5770!
 
If I have an older MOBO that only supports PCI-E 2.0, will this card even run, or will it just run slower? I currently have a 4870.
 
not much if any speed diff from 2.0 to 2.1.
you should be fine.

"PCI Express 2.1
PCI Express 2.1 supports a large proportion of the management, support, and troubleshooting systems planned to be fully implemented in PCI Express 3.0. However, the speed is the same as PCI Express 2.0. Most motherboards sold currently come with PCI Express 2.1 connectors."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express
 
seems like everyone is selling these right around 140. Really weird that these are suddenly super available since I thought they stopped fabbing the chips for these and moved on to the 6800 and 6900 series, unless someone was sitting on a bunch of chips that couldn't pass QC for 5870 or something.
 
[quote name='wurms']TigerDirect Deal on 5830:
XFX Radeon 5830 with Shogun 2 download, Aliens vs Predator Download = $129.99 - $30rebate = $99!!![/QUOTE]

I don't know... I got screwed out of two computer parts related rebates by TD in the past. I won't deal with them personally but to each his or her own.
 
This card is funny, games think it's the old model. Section 8: Prejudice told me I should put my graphics down low when I booted it up, so I completely maxed it out at 1080 and it runs at like 90fps.
 
I recently got a new computer and put a 6970 in it, how does this compare to that? May be a stupid question but I really suck with video cards.
 
[quote name='TraBuch']I recently got a new computer and put a 6970 in it, how does this compare to that? May be a stupid question but I really suck with video cards.[/QUOTE]

If you have 6970, don't even bother looking at this thread. ;)
 
[quote name='TraBuch']I recently got a new computer and put a 6970 in it, how does this compare to that? May be a stupid question but I really suck with video cards.[/QUOTE]

Yours is better.
 
Looks like this is still available at Amazon for $149. Is it still the best bang for the buck?
 
I ordered one from Amazon for $150 yesterday. Couldn't afford to order one a couple weeks ago, but I don't mind the minor savings that I missed out on. Gonna crossfire this with my current sapphire 5850!
 
As mentioned way earlier in this thread, Tom's Hardware Graphics Card Hierarchy Chart

Quoted from the Tom's article:
"I don’t recommend upgrading your graphics card unless the replacement card is at least three tiers higher. Otherwise, the upgrade is somewhat parallel and you may not notice a worthwhile difference in performance."

Thats a five tier jump from 8800 GT 512 to HD 5850. So you should see a large improvement in eye candy if you want to turn settings up.
 
[quote name='M_A_C']Looks like this is still available at Amazon for $149. Is it still the best bang for the buck?[/QUOTE]

IDK because 6870s on the Egg are around $180 with mail-in rebates.

At $140, I think they were great. At $150, I'm thinking not as much, but still excellent.
 
[quote name='loomis1975']As mentioned way earlier in this thread, Tom's Hardware Graphics Card Hierarchy Chart

Quoted from the Tom's article:
"I don’t recommend upgrading your graphics card unless the replacement card is at least three tiers higher. Otherwise, the upgrade is somewhat parallel and you may not notice a worthwhile difference in performance."

Thats a five tier jump from 8800 GT 512 to HD 5850. So you should see a large improvement in eye candy if you want to turn settings up.[/QUOTE]

I did this exact upgrade. A BFG 8800Gt to XFX 5850. It was well worth it.
 
I got one of these and crossfired it with my current 5850. I saw a very nice performance increase. I can run all my current games with everything cranked up and still get 60fps.
 
Looks like Amazon is OOS. Newegg hasn't had the 5850 for a long time. Did they just do a limited run for these cards?
 
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