ATI 5730 vs 5850

Can someone please tell me what the real world difference is? Where do you see the major difference?

I am asking because my machine to play games, mostly Dragon Age, and Rift, and to run AudtoCad Inventor. AutoDesk products suck the life from most machines. I got 8GB of ram and in some cases that won't be enough for AutoCad. I only got the 5730 Graphics card right now, and am wondering how critical it is for me to upgrade it?

I bought the machine with an i3 (its in production) and am bidding on some 720/740 processors.

So please tell me where I will see the most improvements in going from a 5730 to the 5850.

 

I'm no expert but I believe that the 5730 is weaker overall to the GTX260m and with that said, it is a lot weaker compared to a 5850. The 5850 can be OCed to 5870 numbers though, that I am sure of.

 

Trust me the dfference is night and day. The 5850 when tuned to a good OC is a top top card. the 5730 will barely let you play modern games at 1080p medium settings. AutoCad would literally dessimate that card.

 

the Hd5850 is definitely better i think you need to order it from dell never saw one on ebay you can also get HD5870 or get the Hd5850 and oc it to hd5870 level

 

Thanks for the responses. I will be calling Dell in the morning. I have to see what price I can get the card for. Really if I had bought the machine, I would have selected the 5850, but it is a replacement for a studio XPS m1640 with the lagging/overheating issues. I got them to go AW but the only top end specs I got out of them was the 8GB of ram. They wouldn't budge on anything else, since it is a way better machine than what it is replacing anyway!

 

What is hilarious is that notebook check ranks the 5850 something like 44th in the available cards. For some reason they fail to realize the 5850 out benches a lot of the newer cards available. I noticed their vantage score is incredibly low. They have tested the worst 5850 available at the time. Anyway... For what it's worth, don't take the simulated benchmarks too seriously. Good Luck, StevenX

Mobile Graphics Cards - Benchmark List - Notebookcheck.net Tech

 

make sure you get the one with GDDR5

 

Take it from someone who actually owns a ATI 5730 (See sig) the 5850 STOMPS the 5730. However, I'm able to play the majority of modern games at max settings without any issues. No doubt the 5850 is better, that can't be argued about but for my needs which is just gaming and writing papers, the 5730 will do even if it might not be as "futureproof" or last as long as the 5850. Although, I do recommend going to the 5850 since it is considered to be more futureproof and a MUCH better card on ratings and in real life performance. And trust me, I wouldn't want to go through the trouble to replace the card so I suggest modifying your order now.

 

Unfortunately I am going to have to do it myself. The AW is a replacement for a malfunctioning Studio XPS M1640 that I bought back in 2009. I didn't exactly have Carte Blanche in choosing the specs. They first offered me a 1647, then a new XPS 17 with i5 and nVidia GT 550M with optimus, I had to ask at least 4 times before they agreed to give me AW. The specs I got are all they would give (comparable to my original build, with some upgrades).

 

You still got a kick-a replacement even with the 5730, you'll enjoy it.

 

So I did an ebay search and found 1 5730 card selling on ebay that was pulled from a new AW Mx15 for 300.00. I called dell and a new 5850 is 280.00 So if I can put my 5730 on ebay and 250 for it then I can afford to upgrade to the 5850.

Can I get anywhere near that for that card? It just doesn't seem logical. I wouldn't expect more than about 200.00 on ebay.

 

i guess $200 is good what about the cpu did you get the 720/740qm

 

I ended up with the i7-720qm, I got it on ebay for 130.00. The machine is coming with an i3-370M. So I will see if I can get about 70 bux for that on ebay too.

 

I have a 5730 and don't have any problems playing games on it. I have kicked myself in the butt ever since I bought it. Dell offered me an upgrade to 8 gigs or a 5850. I opted for the 8 gigs because I have a $3000 desktop that is my main gaming rig. Little did I know that 7 months later my M15x is pretty much the only thing I use especially after I put an SSD in it. So do whatever you can to get the 5850.

 

I think I will be able to swing it, especially if I can pull the 5730 and sell it as new as soon as the new machine gets here. Really I am going to be so glad to get rid of this laggy pos Studio XPS 1640. I have tried to rift tonight at least three times and my have gotten in 20 minutes each time before overheating and lag super lag made it unplayable.

 

You will NOT be able to get 200 for a 5730 on ebay. You'll get 100 at most. I had mine on ebay for 100 for a few weeks before it sold.

 

Thanks man, that helps with the decision making process anyway.

 

Well I finally broke down and bought the 5850, I got dell to give me free shipping and the card is "refurbished" (actually its brand new but comes from spare parts) 279.99 plus 16.00 tax. So I paid like 296.00 shipped to me. Bought some diamond thermal paste for the new cpu and gpu.

SO I am going from the i3 370 to and the Ati 5730 to the i7 - 720qm and Ati 5850, for 430.00$

That doesn't count what I can get back from selling the 5730 and i3.

I tried to get the guy to sell me an ATI 5870 but he wouldn't do it. He said he couldn't find it in the list. I explained it was technically a card for mx17 but works in the mx15. He never found the card. So I bought the 5850.

 

Been playing Bulletstorm with the 5730 at medium (probably can play at high) and it was smooth and good

 

I actually did the Processor upgrade today. Went pretty smoothly. I followed the dell manual. Took out the i3, cleaned the heat sink, put on new thermal compound. I used Antec Nano Diamond formula 6. Not sure that it matters. Put it back together and everything worked fine. Booted up, windows installed some drivers, rebooted once and it was fine.

Now as soon as my new 5850 gets here, I can do it again and then the only thing missing will be a nice hot and sexy SSD. I think I will wait for the 300gb intels to hit the market though.....