Recommended GPU

[Jarredm]

All,  I have a question that I am sure has been asked before!  If you will indulge me, however,  I have several computers with modest GPUs and am hashing around 400 MH/s right now.  I have accumulated around $230 in profit in mining and am going to get a new GPU for one of the machines.  I have been looking at the AMDs since they have better hash rates for some reason, but I wanted to crowdsource the answer to the question, which one should I be looking at from a MH/s per dollar perspective?  I have been looking at a 5850 but didn't know if I should look into a 6xxx series since they are newer. (Assuming newer is better, which I know isn't always true)

[Jarredm]

All,  I have a question that I am sure has been asked before!  If you will indulge me, however,  I have several computers with modest GPUs and am hashing around 400 MH/s right now.  I have accumulated around $230 in profit in mining and am going to get a new GPU for one of the machines.  I have been looking at the AMDs since they have better hash rates for some reason, but I wanted to crowdsource the answer to the question, which one should I be looking at from a MH/s per dollar perspective?  I have been looking at a 5850 but didn't know if I should look into a 6xxx series since they are newer. (Assuming newer is better, which I know isn't always true)

A good place to start looking is this wiki page:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison

Thanks Monoquark,  I have been looking at that page the one thing I wish it had were an MSRP which would allow me to copy it to a spreadsheet and quickly calculate the cost ratio.  I was hoping to find some sort of a generally accepted winner among the cards.

[Jarredm]

Nope, sorry, it all depends on card availability, your money and the amount of tweaking that you're willing to spend on the card. I personally like 5870s

Ok thanks for the help I really appreciate it.  I'll keep digging on the cards to decide what I want to do.  I have noticed that most people seem to lean toward the 5xxx series instead of the 6xxx.  Is this just a price advantage thing in your opinion? Being that the 5xxx is older and should be cheaper?

[ensign_lee]

Nope, sorry, it all depends on card availability, your money and the amount of tweaking that you're willing to spend on the card. I personally like 5870s

Ok thanks for the help I really appreciate it.  I'll keep digging on the cards to decide what I want to do.  I have noticed that most people seem to lean toward the 5xxx series instead of the 6xxx.  Is this just a price advantage thing in your opinion? Being that the 5xxx is older and should be cheaper?

No, it's because the 5 series cards perform bette rthan their 6 series counterparts.

For instance, the 5850 outperforms the 6850 and is only outperformed by the 6950, though not by much.

[Hawkix]

Slightly OT, but today was a sad day for my mining.

Rig stopped responding. When I returned home, it was off, totally. Cannot be started.
Soon I found that one of my 5870 OC edition card died. PSU cannot run with that card in slot, so it seems like stupid problem with voltage stabilizer etc. Damn.

The card is in warranty (one month old), but there are no 5870 cards probably, so I will be refunded. Damn.

I bought Sapphire 5830 .. nice beast, looks cheapy, but can get to 1030 MHz in core. Then, its hot even more than 5870. Surprisingly, the power consumption is roughly the same!

I went down from 425 MH/s to 320 MH/s.

For building new rigs with 3-4 cards, 5830 seems to be nice choice.