Upgrade from HD 4850 to HD 6850 toxic for 120 €! Yay or Nay?

[AltecV1]

so yea,what to you guys think? should i do it or not?

[MUZAKKIR]

r u replacing ur 4850 with new 6850 or old one

[AltecV1]

its second hand and comes with a box and all the accessories! cheapest new HD6850(regular one) costs 153 € where i live

[Swamp Monster]

HD6850 toxic for 120€ sounds great, but HD 7xxx is around a corner. I am waiting for HD7xxx, I think 28nm will be great

[MUZAKKIR]

if the seller giving you warranty then good otherwise go with new one.....

[AltecV1]

Originally Posted by Swamp Monster

HD6850 toxic for 120€ sounds great, but HD 7xxx is around a corner. I am waiting for HD7xxx, I think 28nm will be great

yea thats what im fearing i know a 6850 would be a worthy upgrade especially for such a low price but if couple months from now new 28nm cards will be released i would be fu.ked

[Nesters]

When HD7xxx gets released, they will be costly for a while where you live, so you can add couple of months for prices to settle down.
Also by the time you get HD7xxx, you better have your CPU upgraded to avoid bottleneck.

HD6850 is an upgrade, not a great one but for 120 euro could be worth a shot.

[HalfAHertz]

You're looking at roughly 2x the performance and at the same time getting it at a lower power and heat output. If you can sell off your 4850 for ~50-60eur, I'd call this WINNING

[Completely Bonkers]

I agree with everything HalfAHertz said. But at the same time, me, myself, and I, wouldnt bother. I'd wait for the 7x series. The 4850 is giving you what you need now, and doing the upgrade now would cost money which isnt easy to come by in Estonia, and would take the excitement out of 28nm 7x. So I would wait.

P.S. Spring is in the air... you should be out with the girls... they are all up for it right now... and turn the PC back on later in the year

[Rowsol]

yay

[Wyverex]

I'll agree with "yay" sayers. It's a good upgrade (if you get the warranty with it), and I doubt we'll see HD 7000 / GTX 600 before late fall or early winter.

[arroyo]

Do not wait for the HD7000. You can wait till end of days thinking like that. New series of GPU are coming every year.

2008 - HD48xx
2009 - HD58xx
2010 - HD69xx
2011 - HD7xxx
2012 - HD8xxx (maybe)

I have changed my HD4850 to HD6950 and the difference was amazing.

[Hayder_Master]

what ur wait for ??

[Completely Bonkers]

Originally Posted by arroyo

Do not wait for the HD7000. You can wait till end of days thinking like that.

That's a bad argument. If new GPU's came out every week, would you upgrade every week? No. You need to set some performance criteria for making a positive decision to buy now, or wait until those performance criteria improve, to buy later.

My criteria are these:
1./ Don't even consider upgrading unless you are gaining an order of magnitude improvement, like 2x or higher.
2./ Or if heat, noise, or power consumption is an issue, then accept a lower performance upgrade but with significant gains in heat, noise, power
3./ Budget
4./ "need"

Now, let's look at this scenario. AltecV1 is an enthusiast, but he is in Estonia. It is not a wealthy country. People in Estonia are not big earners. RELATIVELY SPEAKING, PC equipment costs a larger slice of your income. And the alternative opportunities are much greater. Food, drink, parties, travel, etc. are a fraction of what they are in the UK/US and so therefore there IS PAIN in the cost of upgrading compared with that else you can do with the money.

Now let's look at "need". We don't exactly know what AltecV1 is doing with his GPU. Is he folding, is he gaming, is he encoding? If gaming, then we need to look at his TFT resolution which is a standard resolution, and nothing demanding. So unless he is spending a significant portion of his time gaming the really latest games I think he may be well covered by the 4850.

But if AltecV1 wants a better TFT and a GPU to drive higher resolutions fluidly, then I would say the 6850 doesnt cut the mustard. There is afterall a big difference between 6950 and 6850. The 6950 is a worthwhile upgrade IMO, but the 6850 isnt. It doesnt take AltecV1 to the next step.

The same can be said about performance/watt and therefore overall heat, power consumption and noise.

It is always very tempting to "buy a bargain", but I really don't think a 6850 is worth it for AltecV1. Wait and get a 6950 at the same price once 7x is released, or indeed save and get a 7x when it is out in the summer.

If AltecV1 has EUR 130 burning in his pocket, then I think he should put that EUR 130 into a SSD. He'd get a lot more benefit/fun out of the investment. Alternatively, trade that Core2Duo for a Quad. Of course, it depends on what you are doing with your PC.

[AltecV1]

i use my computer mostly for gaming(1680x1050 always aiming for the 60fps mark)!! and a new GPU would give my pc the biggest boost compared to a ssd or a cpu,which are not in my priority list (at least not for now).

[overclocking101]

the 7XXX will not be release for another almost 6mo i personally think the jump from 4850 to 6850 is ok but i would go 6870 first

[Swamp Monster]

I have HD4870, it's somewhat similar as HD4850 in performance, and contrary to popular belief, it's not enough for my needs (Maxed out 1680x1050 gaming). I consider it "acceptable" as I can run all games medium to high settings with AA-4x and AF-8x. But that's not "Maxed out graphics". GPU usage is 99% usually (DOW2, witcher, BFBC2), so more power is needed. I think 6950 would be what I need to max out my games and still have headroom for new games. 6850 is not worthy upgrade, because it might have more power, but it don't have headroom for new games, at least I think so.

[HossHuge]

You could get the 6850 now and then add a second card later on down the road. Does anyone know if DX12 will be out on the 7xxx series card cause that's also something to think about.

[Swamp Monster]

^Not on 7xxx, I heard something about late 2012.

[FreedomEclipse]

Originally Posted by HossHuge

Does anyone know if DX12 will be out on the 7xxx series card cause that's also something to think about.

I dont really think its something to think about. Look back at DX10/10.1 & 11 and how slow industry has been to adopt the new DX versions. we are really only just starting to see DX11 titles hitting the shelves. and with the lack of progress in the console department due to the scrapping of PS4, If DX12 were to come out today, I dont think many devs would really care.

and whats the point of having a DX12 certified/supported graphics card when there are no DX12 games to play on it on?