8600GTS-256MB vs HD3650-512MB vs 7950GT-256MB

[americruzano]

I have ~$120 to spend and I've narrowed down my choices to one of these cards:


ECS GeForce 8600GTS 256MB GDDR3
MSI Radeon HD 3650 512MB GDDR3
EVGA GEFORCE 7950GT 256MB GDDR3($120 used from friend)

I need the card for an HTPC and it will be replacing my aging 6800 Ultra. I'd like to be able to do a little bit of gaming at 1080i resolutions, but mostly I'll be watching and recording video, surfing the net, running emulators, etc

From what I've gathered so far, the 7950 would give me the best gaming performance, but would lack HDMI and DX10. I've no need for HDMI or DX10 so far, but it might be worth it to have them for the future. Thoughts?

If I were to go with one of the other cards the 3650 would be the best performer(?) as far as I can tell, however, I will most likely be dual booting MythTV and WinXP and I'm afraid that the linux support for the ATI card might be severely lacking. So I'd probably have to go with the 8600. Again... thoughts?

I could really use some input here.

 

[BenSkywalker]

Not sure how much flexibility you have with pricing, but- this board is $129.99 after MIR. If you only have the $120 up front I can understand how that could be a problem, but this board has a component out dongle, supports HDCP and should be an overall much better option then the boards you are currently considering.

 

[Oyeve]

IMO, out of those 3 I would go with the MSI card first then the Evga board.

 

[americruzano]

Great find Ben, I grabbed one with the free 4GB flash drive which is a nice bonus. I can stomach the $150 upfront. Just need to figure out how to break the news to my wife.

Now I can't wait for it to get here

Anybody know of some benchmarks that list all 4 of these cards? I looked around and couldn't find many that included stuff as old as the 7950 and as new as the 8800GS. Toms doesn't even have the 3650... I'm curious to see some side by side comparisons.

 

[cubeless]

what resolution and cpu? the 8800 should whack all of the other cards regardless, the 3650 isn't fast enuf to let the 512mb of memory make a difference...

 

[americruzano]

I'll be running an odd resolution (1440x1080 I think) because I'll have it hooked up to a 4x3 1080i HDTV. I'm still not sure how that's going to work out since I don't suppose a lot of games offer that kind of resolution. I'm hoping I can run most games at 1400×1050(SXGA+) My processor is an AMD X2 4400+

So how much better is the 8800GS compared to the other 3? I can't find any really good benchmarks...