Bitcoin Forum

Hi,

i just looked into my rig (i bought private on this forum) and it appears that one of my 4 Hd 5830 (sapphire xtreme) does look a little different.
i did research on this but i didnt find any case where a hd 5850 was sold as a 5830, if this is the case. All four cards have written "HD 5830" on it, but one card is about 1 or 2cm longer, has this round shape "printed" on the board, a different adapter and the plastic part of the cooler is shaped a little different on the sides.

it looks like this to me:
http://i.neoseeker.com/neo_image/188449/article/sapphire_hd5850_hd5830_xtreme/Sapphire14.jpg

So, heres what a 5850 looks like, right?:

http://www.rage3d.com/reviews/video/sapphire_hd5850_xtreme//pics/r3dsap5850xtreme11.jpg

thats the same adapter this card has.

Anybody knows if there were 2 different versions? Could this be a HD 5850?

Those Sapphire 5830s were selling like hotcakes, so it's possible they used a 5850 board with a 5830 core.

A 5830 core has 7/10 the number of SP a 5870 has, and runs @ 800Mhz, while a 5850 core is 9/10 and runs @ 725MHz.

Cant tell what stock clock they run, but heres another/better comparison:

http://www.hardwareluxx.de/images/stories/galleries/reviews/sapphire-hd-5850-5830-xtreme/klein/sapphire_radeon_hd_5850_5830_xtreme-08_k.jpg
thats what 3 cards look like

http://www.hardwareluxx.de/images/stories/galleries/reviews/sapphire-hd-5850-5830-xtreme/klein/sapphire_radeon_hd_5850_5830_xtreme-15_k.jpg
thats what 1 card looks like (the bigger one)..

i set all cards to the same gpu clock/mem clock and vcore, they generate exactly the same amount of mhash/s. Would a 5850 just overclock better or is there any other way to tell what card it really is?

help is appreciated very much :)


what do you mean by "SP"?

Would there be any advantage of having a 5850 board rather than a 5830?

SP = SPU = Stream Processor Unit. A 5830 has 1120, and a 5850 has 1440. Think of them like hundreds of tiny little cores, all working in parallel.

Since the core is what really does all the hashing work, having a 5850 board really gives you no advantage while hashing.

The only possible advantage I can see was if you had a 5850 board AND a 5850 core with a 5830 BIOS. You might be able to flash a Sapphire 5850 BIOS and unlock it to a 5850. I can't think of any way of finding out if that was possible besides just jumping in and doing a BIOS flash (and hoping it works after), so I think you're better off just leave it as it is and mining away  ;)

Just download GPUz and see how many SP's the card has. They made many versions of this card, it's likely one of the 5830 on a board similiar to a 5850.

Sapphire is the main ATI partner and makes the reference parts afaik.

There were different sapphire 5830's. Some used the full-size displayport, and others used the mini displayport. But yeah just go get GPU-Z and get the info you need there. If you STILL don't trust it, set all the cards to the same core a memory speeds and hash away on them. A 5850 will produce about 28% more mhash per core MHz than a 5830. A 5830 at 800 MHz should achieve about 260 mhash. A 5850 at 800 MHz should achieve 335 mhash.