Need recommendations for low-power, high ppd Eyefinity capable card

[twilyth]

Right now I just have a 5770 folding. I need another 3-monitor card and would prefer to stay with AMD but I will try to have an open mind.

My parameters
1. up to $200 street price (that's a pretty hard limit)
2. must use under 150w under load (also a hard limit)
3. eyefinity/other 3-monitor support

According to the behardware survey earlier this year, for the mid to high-end AMD cards, that limits my choices to 6850, 6870, 5770 and 5850.

I've checked the ppd database on OCN and while there are a number of data points for the 5770 and 5850, there's nothing on the 6850 and only one entry for the 6870.

Any help is appreciated.

 

[entropy13]

5850.

 

[95Viper]

Hope this can help in your decision process...

F@H Core 16: Taking AMD GPU Folding to the Next Level?

 

[twilyth]

Hope this can help in your decision process...

F@H Core 16: Taking AMD GPU Folding to the Next Level?

Very helpful. Thank you. Although the 6870 bests the 6850, the later seems to provide the better combination of ppd and power usage. The 6850 jumps into an early lead.

 

[entropy13]

Very helpful. Thank you. Although the 6870 bests the 6850, the later seems to provide the better combination of ppd and power usage. The 6850 jumps into an early lead.

But the 5850 trumps both.

5850 - 49.54 PPD per (peak) watt
6870 - 47.33 PPD per (peak) watt
6850 - 44.49 PPD per (peak) watt

 

[twilyth]

But the 5850 trumps both.

5850 - 49.54 PPD per (peak) watt
6870 - 47.33 PPD per (peak) watt
6850 - 44.49 PPD per (peak) watt

True but I was looking more at total power usage. The 5850 is right at the border of my power requirements with 151 watts on furmark and 142 on 3dmark, while the 6850 is well below the limit with 116 and 107 respectively. But thank you for pointing that out and doing the math.

edit - it definitely would rule out the 6870 in favor of the 5850 though, so that is very helpful.

 

[twilyth]

OK, last call. I have a Powercolor 6850 queued up on Newegg along with a couple of PCI to IDE/SATA/eSATA expansion cards. Tell me why I shouldn't get it or I'm going to tickle a puppy.