MSI Radeon 6870, GIGABYTE HD5850 or SAPPHIRE HD5830

[danim1130]

Hi,
I plan getting a new video-card, but I'm new to the scene, so I could use some confirmation.
As in the title, the cards : MSI Radeon 6870, GIGABYTE HD5850 or SAPPHIRE HD5830
I would like a card which has ~300 Mhash/s (preferably without overclocking) , can make a difference between 2D and 3D use (I heard Gigabyte had problems with this), the fans that comes with it are enough to keep it cool, and keeps a low noise level while mining, because I plan to leave my computer on 24/7.
I'm leaning towards the MSI, but not sure of it.
Also, another question : in the hardware comparison, i see that the Mhash/s gets better if i downclock the memory to 300Mhz. Why is that?
Thanks!.

[Laurifer]

Hi, review this list

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison

Its contains all graphics cards and specifications in terms of mining.

I have a similar post to yours, you may be surprised to see that some lower end cards can perform almost as well as higher end ones.

[wazoo42]

If you want to cram more than 2 cards into a box then the 5830s would require a larger psu b/c they are very power hungry. The 6870 and 5850 will get you roughly the same hash rate, so I'd go with whichever one you can find for cheaper.

[InstaGx]

Also, another question : in the hardware comparison, i see that the Mhash/s gets better if i downclock the memory to 300Mhz. Why is that?
Thanks!.

I actually tried that on my XFX HD 5770. GPU/Memory clock 960/1200 is about 10% faster than 960/300. Some people seem to get better results with underclocked memory though.

[staraptor]

whichever you can get? 

[klaaster]

Hello danim,

I'm also new to mining and maybe can give you some hints.

First the prices of these cards are in 3 different regions:

5830 = ~ 90 €
5850 = ~ 115 €
6870 = ~ 150 €

I have a Sapphire 5850 Xtreme and a Sapphire 5830 Xtreme, both cards are nearly silent if you don't overclock.
Very good cards in terms of noise, overclocking ability, and price. Well designed, i am surprised.
With overclocking and a fan level of ~ 45% the cards are in my case not hearable, because the power supply is louder.

MHash/s:

Card  |  stock clock |  overclocked  (Mhz @ fan-speed)

5830  |  ~ 250 Mh/s  |  ~ 300 Mh/s  (972 @ 45%)
5850  |  ~ 275 Mh/s  |  ~ 350 Mh/s  (900 @ 50%)
....
6870  |  ~ 270  |  ~ 320  (expected, from https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison)

In case you just download a miner software like GUIminer http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=3878.0 and fire it up, you dont get these values. In fact they would be much smaler.

Some tweaking is required, here are some steps:

1. with an ati-card i suggest to use phoenix miner http://forum.bitcoin.org/?topic=6458.0 (its integrated in guiminer), it gives me 10%+ more MH/s
  ° use this extra flags (in guiminer):   -v -k phatk VECTORS BFI_INT FASTLOOPS=false WORKSIZE=256 AGGRESSION=10
    ° adjust AGGRESION to your needs, 10 and more if your pc is idle, when working on the desktop try 7 or 8. (It adjusts how much power goes into hashing, with higher numbers your desktop get lags, because phoenix is taking the power first to calculate and then at the second step, your Chrome window or office Doc gets minimized. hope that explains it. You'll see some difference in the region of  ~ 5 Mh/s.

2. downclock the memory to something like 300 Mhz, the advantage of this is a much more cooler card, which gpu can be easier and higher overclocked. I could not see any MH/s change with higher or lower memory clocks with phoenix. I think that is only important if you use poclbm or other miner-software.  

3. for down/up-clocking use a tool like:
   °  Trixx http://www.sapphiretech.com/ssc/TriXX/
   °  MSI Afterburner http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/download.htm
   °  Catalyst Control Center ....

At stock core you will not get at 300 MHash/s with all of the cards. But don't worry, overclocking is very simple and until you don't push it up to high, it is very stable. Just give it a try.

Good luck   i would suggest to buy a 58x0, price and hashpower is better compared to a 6870.

[danim1130]

Thanks for the answers!
After thinking it through, I decided to pick the 6870, because i want this video card long-term, and so, 3D capabilities would be great. Also, I've red how good the Hawk cooling-system is.

[mjoz]

Hi,
I plan getting a new video-card, but I'm new to the scene, so I could use some confirmation.
As in the title, the cards : MSI Radeon 6870, GIGABYTE HD5850 or SAPPHIRE HD5830
I would like a card which has ~300 Mhash/s (preferably without overclocking) , can make a difference between 2D and 3D use (I heard Gigabyte had problems with this), the fans that comes with it are enough to keep it cool, and keeps a low noise level while mining, because I plan to leave my computer on 24/7.
I'm leaning towards the MSI, but not sure of it.
Also, another question : in the hardware comparison, i see that the Mhash/s gets better if i downclock the memory to 300Mhz. Why is that?
Thanks!.

5830's give a great bang for the buck if you can find them at a reasonable price.

[zerohour]

Hi,
I plan getting a new video-card, but I'm new to the scene, so I could use some confirmation.
As in the title, the cards : MSI Radeon 6870, GIGABYTE HD5850 or SAPPHIRE HD5830
I would like a card which has ~300 Mhash/s (preferably without overclocking) , can make a difference between 2D and 3D use (I heard Gigabyte had problems with this), the fans that comes with it are enough to keep it cool, and keeps a low noise level while mining, because I plan to leave my computer on 24/7.
I'm leaning towards the MSI, but not sure of it.
Also, another question : in the hardware comparison, i see that the Mhash/s gets better if i downclock the memory to 300Mhz. Why is that?
Thanks!.

5830's give a great bang for the buck if you can find them at a reasonable price.

Newegg just had a new shipment of the 5830's in and sold them out in about an hour today...

[mjoz]

Hi,
I plan getting a new video-card, but I'm new to the scene, so I could use some confirmation.
As in the title, the cards : MSI Radeon 6870, GIGABYTE HD5850 or SAPPHIRE HD5830
I would like a card which has ~300 Mhash/s (preferably without overclocking) , can make a difference between 2D and 3D use (I heard Gigabyte had problems with this), the fans that comes with it are enough to keep it cool, and keeps a low noise level while mining, because I plan to leave my computer on 24/7.
I'm leaning towards the MSI, but not sure of it.
Also, another question : in the hardware comparison, i see that the Mhash/s gets better if i downclock the memory to 300Mhz. Why is that?
Thanks!.

5830's give a great bang for the buck if you can find them at a reasonable price.

Newegg just had a new shipment of the 5830's in and sold them out in about an hour today...

Damn I don't think their notify system works very well.