Nice review, Ibrin. I've been eyeballing a 5850 upgrade recently and will hopefully be able to pull the trigger within a month or so. The Toxic 5850 with 2GB had been where I was aiming, but after reading through this review I am reconsidering the 'need' for 2GB RAM. I will be gaming @ 3840x1024 for the foreseeable future using my TH2Go (still on XP so EF is a no-go), and based on the numbers here I think I could get terrific performance with a standard 1GB 5850 and save myself $50-80 in the process. I'm currently on a G80 8800GTS 640MB, so a 5850 of any sort should be a substantial bump in performance. I'm also not a graphics whore (kinda obvious from my machine specs).
So what do you think? 1GB or 2GB model? I'm leaning to 1GB.
Another quick question. My intent is to connect my TH2Go via DVI and also have an HDTV connected via HDMI to the 5850 for an extended desktop. I assume this will work with the card and ATI's CCC. Do you forsee any problems with this setup?
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Should I have any reservations at all about switching to an ATI+TH2Go setup from NVIDIA?
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OK this worries me a little:
ATI Eyefinity multi-display technology2,3
* Three independent display controllers
o Drive three displays simultaneously with independent resolutions, refresh rates, color controls, and video overlays
SOURCE
So is Eyefinity required for ALL multi-display configurations or will my proposed setup work with XP?