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Background: I currently have a Powercolor 6850 which will be replaced with a GTX 660 that I've already puchased. I was originally thinking I'd give my brother the 6850 for his birthday on June 1. He will be replacing a 5570 (which consequently was a hand-me-down as well) in a Cooler Master Elite 360 case (very tight quarters). I've been told that my 6850 *should* fit.

Then I saw newegg's sale today for an MSI 7770 on sale for $78.19 after entering code EMCXSXL49 that comes with a free copy of Far Cry 3 (which I think my brother would enjoy). Now I'm thinking I should throw my 6850 on ebay (where they're selling for ~$90) and give my brother the 7770 insead. The 7770 is also 1" shorter than my 6850. Sounds like a no-brainer....right?

Well looking through the reviews, there are a fair number of people complaining about lines and such (memory problem I believe?). So I turn to the TR gerbils. What do you think, ignore the nay-sayers and get it, or steer clear?

If it gets "lines" you can always RMA, yes?

But, isn't the HD 6850 faster by just a tad?

If your HD 6850 fits, I say give him the HD 6850 and buy him FC3 and you should still end up ahead.

flip-mode wrote:

If it gets "lines" you can always RMA, yes?

I'd rather not give him a disfunctional GPU if possible. I know my 6850 is fine, and I know that there's always a chance of receiving a lemon. I just want to try my best to avoid an RMA situation if possible.

flip-mode wrote:

But, isn't the HD 6850 faster by just a tad?

The 6850 is slightly faster, yes, but the 7770 pulls ~30W less under load. The reduced power consumption (lower power = lower heat) of the 7770 is the main reason for me to consider this option in the first place. The CM Elite 360 is pretty small inside, so I wonder about its ability to handle the heat from the 6850.

flip-mode wrote:

If your HD 6850 fits, I say give him the HD 6850 and buy him FC3 and you should still end up ahead.

6850 worth $80-90 + FC3 for $50? That's above my family's birthday budget. The game inclusion with the 7770 isn't really a selling point, but it's not monitarily worthless in this decision.

flip-mode wrote:

If it gets "lines" you can always RMA, yes?

But, isn't the HD 6850 faster by just a tad?

If your HD 6850 fits, I say give him the HD 6850 and buy him FC3 and you should still end up ahead.

Flawed math; I don't think Dpete27 can get a copy of FC3 for minus $11 ($90 from ebay sale minus $79 for new 7770 with FC3)

Sell the 6850; Buy the 7770; Pocket the difference! Your card has NO warranty, whilst the new 7770 will have at least 12 months of warranty - I see that as an upgrade.

I have only 7750's in the office here, but they're absolutely fine. If it's getting lines, it's defective and needs RMA'ing which is what the warranty is for but I've seen that only on "factory overclocked" cards that push too hard.

Incomplete math, perhaps. And in the time between placing the HD 7770 order and selling the HD 6850, he's out the full amount of money. So the math also has a temporal aspect.

There's no reason to freak out because the warranty is over. The card is working. There's not reason to believe that it's going to croak because the warranty is expired.

I'm tempted to say you should look at benchmarks and go with the faster card (I think the HD 6850 is a little faster). But, now I'm saying forget that. They're close enough that it doesn't matter. If Far Cry 3 is worth the trouble you have to go through, then do it. If not, just give him the HD 6850.

So I have a 5770 in my wife's machine that I was thinking of upgrading. I was also thinking of picking up Far Cry 3 for myself. Thanks to the deal you posted I just killed two birds with one stone so to speak.

I figure the game would have cost me about $50 bucks so I just got a 7770 Ghz edition for $29 bucks after code and rebate. Nice.

The 7770 should be a decent upgrade over the 5770 for both performance and power efficiency. Plus I'll pass the 5770 down to my brother's PC. Everyone's happy.

So, if it's not obvious, my advice is to snag the deal and dump the other card on Ebay. A little more effort for you but your brother get's to open up a new vid card in a new box on his Bday that's comes with a current game. That's a nice gift.

Just wanted to update this thread. I ended up going with the MSI 7770 linked in my OP, came with Far Cry 3 and retro-bundled with Far Cry - Blood Dragon. (can't complain about more free games!!)

I installed the card on my computer to make sure it worked before sending in for the MIR. Happy to report there were no issues at the moment. I didn't play any games on it (saved that for my new GTX660 which I installed immediately after testing the 7770) but I did run it through Furmark. Fan is inaudible below 40%, fan is quiet between 40-50%, max temp = 64 C @ 53% fan. Keep in mind that Furmark is a benchmarking tool constantly loading the GPU at 99% so gaming would presumably not raise temps as high. The 7770 is quieter than my 6850 overall, which is a plus.

I also did a couple coarse overclock attempts (stock voltage) and got the core up to 1100MHz (stable) while keeping the memory at 1125MHz (didn't want to push the MemClock because of the newegg user reviews). Temps and fan speed were the same as stock clocks. With the core at 1200MHz, the driver crashed when I stopped Furmark.

As I said before, the free game/s and the 1" shorter length were the deciding factors. Now I just have to sell off my 6850.