8800gt or hd3850 ??

[drextremeops007]

Hi there fellow anand'ers.

I have about $250 to spend (inclusive of tax if possible) on a new video card.

cards i am considering
- 8800gt 256mb (do i get a lot of improvement with the 512mb's??)
- hd3850 512mb
- or if i go on a diet the next week or so, hd3870 512mb

which one would you recommend? I am not a heavy gamer, but I want this purchase to last me at least 2 years or more.

any recommendation on brands? I am mainly interested in the gigabyte for the radeons and XFX for the gt's.


Thanks in advance. FYI.. i would probably be purchasing thru newegg or mwave.

 

[Cookie Monster]

What are your screen resolution and rest of the system spec?

However if i did make a choice now, i would get the 8800GT 512mb. Im sure you can find one for $249. Its the fastest out of all the above.

 

[CP5670]

Yeah, the 512MB GTs are down to $240 now and should fit in your price range.

 

[Rike]

8800GT @ $239.99 w/ free shipping ASAP

Best short and long term value based on your plans.

 

[drextremeops007]

oops.. apologize. i forgot.. i will be running a 22" ws. (right now i m on 19", but 22" will be on my list next, or the 24").

would the evga 8800gt be a problem in a antec solo case?

how bad is the 256mb 8800gt for a 22" WS display??

 

[daveybrat]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814129102

The Visiontek 3850 512MB Overclock edition card would probably be perfect for you. It's only $189 w/free shipping. It also has the nice 2 slot cooler so it should be very quiet and cool as opposed to the single slot Nvidia cooler.

Since you said you don't game a ton, why spend the extra $50 for the 8800GT?

Visiontek also has lifetime warranty as well.

The 8800GT or this card are both perfect for you, just decide how much you need.

 

[Keysplayr]

So right now you're probably playing games at 1280x1024 on that 19" (if not a widescreen), correct?
With a 22" ws you'll probably be playing at 1680x1050. Now we need to know which games you will be playing. And it is really impossible to buy anything today, to last you 2 years or more. At least not for 250 dollars.
If I were in your position, I would most definitely go for an 8800GT 512MB card. For that is the best you are going to get right now for that money.

And yes, the 8800GT should fit in your Antec Solo case. Looks like a regular standard ATX mid tower from newegg pics.

 

[funboy6942]

Things to consider:

ATI HD3870 has 10.1 direct x support, the 8800gt does not, so future eye candy is on tap already when they start to use it.

Yes granted the 8800gt is faster in a single card situation, BUT, if your like me and going to go CF in a few months when people start to ditch their HD3870 for something else, the HD3870 in CF mode is very close, or beats the 8800gt is sli mode.

Proof for the pudding on that one

I been saying I am not a fanboy of anything but my money, so way I see it the HD3870 gives you better eye candy, better direct x support now so no having to upgrade anytime too soon, and in CF mode, it really doesnt matter which you get, they are pretty much neck and neck at that point, your graphics would just look better without a doubt. ATI is know for that, ditching speed for eye candy, there is no question that.

Just my 2 cents in what also helped me decide also, in conjunction with some other problems I took notice of, against a 8800gt, I already bought, to sell it and go the ATI route again. More bang for my buck

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: funboy42
Things to consider:

ATI HD3870 has 10.1 direct x support, the 8800gt does not, so future eye candy is on tap already when they start to use it.

Yes granted the 8800gt is faster in a single card situation, BUT, if your like me and going to go CF in a few months when people start to ditch their HD3870 for something else, the HD3870 in CF mode is very close, or beats the 8800gt is sli mode.

Proof for the pudding on that one

I been saying I am not a fanboy of anything but my money, so way I see it the HD3870 gives you better eye candy, better direct x support now so no having to upgrade anytime too soon, and in CF mode, it really doesnt matter which you get, they are pretty much neck and neck at that point, your graphics would just look better without a doubt. ATI is know for that, ditching speed for eye candy, there is no question that.

Just my 2 cents in what also helped me decide also, in conjunction with some other problems I took notice of, against a 8800gt, I already bought, to sell it and go the ATI route again. More bang for my buck

You sure about that Funboy? If you're gonna link to benchmarks, better link to more than one.

expreview
Expreview review from November 26th. Using Cat 7.11's and FW 169.02's
Legion hardware
Legion hardware review from Jan 20th. Using Cat 8.1's and FW 169.28's

 

[BlueAcolyte]

But then you need a Crossfire capable motherboard, not that that's very expensive now. Plus, most HD 3870s are at 8800GT prices.

 

[Munky]

The 256mb 8800gt is a bad idea if you plan on playing at a resolution higher than 1280x1024.

 

[Tempered81]

Originally posted by: Rike
8800GT @ $239.99 w/ free shipping ASAP

Best short and long term value based on your plans.

best advice^^^

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: funboy42
Things to consider:

ATI HD3870 has 10.1 direct x support, the 8800gt does not, so future eye candy is on tap already when they start to use it.

Problem is in the latest games HD series gets its ass kicked. By the time DX10.1 games come out, you'll be lucky to get 10fps at 1024x768.

COH: Opposing Fronts & World in Conflict
Bioshock
Tomb Raider: Legend
COD4

Also 8800GT 512 is faster in Crysis, STALKER and is worth spending extra $50 imo if you plan to keep it for a while.

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: jaredpace

Originally posted by: Rike
8800GT @ $239.99 w/ free shipping ASAP

Best short and long term value based on your plans.

best advice^^^

agreed.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: funboy42
Things to consider:

ATI HD3870 has 10.1 direct x support, the 8800gt does not, so future eye candy is on tap already when they start to use it.

Yes granted the 8800gt is faster in a single card situation, BUT, if your like me and going to go CF in a few months when people start to ditch their HD3870 for something else, the HD3870 in CF mode is very close, or beats the 8800gt is sli mode.

Proof for the pudding on that one

I been saying I am not a fanboy of anything but my money, so way I see it the HD3870 gives you better eye candy, better direct x support now so no having to upgrade anytime too soon, and in CF mode, it really doesnt matter which you get, they are pretty much neck and neck at that point, your graphics would just look better without a doubt. ATI is know for that, ditching speed for eye candy, there is no question that.

Just my 2 cents in what also helped me decide also, in conjunction with some other problems I took notice of, against a 8800gt, I already bought, to sell it and go the ATI route again. More bang for my buck

He didn't say he was considering multi-card, actually he said the $250 was a stretch.

The answer to his question is 8800GT, 512MB version, for higher performance in almost all games than HD3870.

I personally don't know of any upcoming DX10.1 games, and MS themselves have said 10.1 is a non-issue.
http://www.next-gen.biz/index....=view&id=6824&Itemid=2

But Glassenberg stated, "It's a minor update, so we don't expect any developers to say, 'oh, this game is DX10.1 only.'

So your path is clear OP.....

 

[Hauk]

Wow, $239 for a 512mb 8800 GT is a smokin deal. No break for the 3870.

Rollo? I thought you were abducted...

 

[Nemesis 1]

Does anyone have a link to what DX10.1 brings to the table. I really can't remember but their is something about DX10.1 that is important to Intel for some reason. Something to do with Global.

 

[RussianSensation]

Oh my! Rollo is back with tripple SLI! :wine::music:

Finally, we'll be able to get benchmarks no one else can provide.

---------

According to unofficial sources, DirectX 10.1 is going to be the first and only subset of DirectX 10. It will be officially added into Windows Vista as part of Service Pack 1 to be released in the first half of 2008. The main innovations in DirectX 10.1 include:

Cubic map arrays allow achieving a good speed when using global scene lighting by addressing several cubic maps during one rendering pass. This global lighting method involves the calculation of indirect scattered light, refractions, soft shadows, and more accurate reflections.
Improved deferred rendering and FSAA: support of independent blending modes for each MRT; obligatory support of 4x MSAA; writing pixel coverage mask from the shader; pattern sample selection; multi-sampling buffer fetch; support for filters to determine pixels requiring antialiasing.
Increased number of vertex shader registers: 32 as opposed to 16 in the DirectX 10 specification.
Gather4 support: similar to the Fetch4 feature in ATI Radeon X1000, it allows fetching a 4-pixel block (2x2) from a single-component texture. It accelerates the processing of shadow maps and improves the quality of shadowing.
Improved blending and filtering techniques: support for the LOD instruction that returns the level of detail for a filtered texture sample; INT16 for blending and FP32 for filtering (as opposed to INT8 and FP16 in DirectX 10).

Source: Xbitlabs

Only thing is by the time DX10.1 games become abundant, they'll be pretty advanced for HD 3870 series.

 

[Nemesis 1]

OK. I went and looked myself. There is a lot to read . I also just found that. THE new ATI cards are infact DX10.1. Never new that. I have read alot that it doesn't matter much because of older games. THIS part is interesting.

This magic feature is the multi-sample buffer reads and writes(MSBRW). If you are wondering how you missed that big one in the feature list, well shame on you, read better next time.

What MSBRW does is quite simple, it gives shaders access to depth and info for all samples without having to resolve the whole pixel. Get it now? No? OK, we'll go into a bit more detail. DX10 forced you to compute a pixel for AA (or MSAA) to be functional, and this basically destroyed the underlying samples. The data was gone, and to be honest, there was no need for it to be kept around.

Games like Quake3 would do a lighting pass, then a shader pass, and another lighting followed by shaders and so on until everything was rendered right. This was quite precise but also quite slow. Dog slow.

To optimize around this, a technique called deferred shading took was invented. This does all the lighting passes followed by a single shader pass. If you have five passes, you basically can skip four trips through the shaders. The problem? Because the pixel isn't fully computed, just a pile of AA data, there is no way for it to be read. This is horribly simplified, but I don't want to go into the low level stuff here, go look it up if you really care.

 

[praesto]

Kewl, so another hd 2900xt with more high-tech than what is good for it's own?(aka none of it will be useful when the software to compliment the hardware arrives, simply because it will lack raw power). Get that 240 bucks 8800gt, OP!

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: RussianSensation
Oh my! Rollo is back with tripple SLI! :wine::music:

Finally, we'll be able to get benchmarks no one else can provide.

Heh.

I haven't really done "mini-reviews" since my days here, but let me know if there's something you'd like to see benched and I'd be glad to help.

 

[Tempered81]

Originally posted by: Nemesis 1
Does anyone have a link to what DX10.1 brings to the table. I really can't remember but their is something about DX10.1 that is important to Intel for some reason. Something to do with Global.

it sticks a .1 or tenth of a whole on top of a pile of steamy dogshit called dx10

 

[taltamir]

lemme copy paste from the thread
http://forums.anandtech.com/me...id=31&threadid=2146375
where I compared prices:


http://www.ncixus.com/products...X/Galaxy%20Technology/
Galaxy GT with custom cooler... for 237$ -20$ MIR with 12$ express shipping (second day)
Anyone knows about the quality of galaxy? Long lasting hardware? decent warranty?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814143119
BFG GTS with stock cooler... 310 -30 MIR +7 shipping
I heard BFG was really good, or am I confusing them with someone... how is their warranty?

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/...p?ProductCode=10007490
250 + unknown shipping
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814121224
260 with free shipping.
Asus GT with custom cooler. Asus makes quality mobos, but what about video cards? anyone got a take on their warranty?

http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=PLT-88GTXT
Palit GT 250$ with free shipping.
I heard the name palit dropped a few times, but all I know about them is that they always make creative coolers for GPUs... never heard if they are actually any good, or how reliable they are warranty-wise

How about the good old evga?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814130325
eVGA GTS for 320 - 20MIR + 7 shipping


Normally I couldn't give about warranty. But the undercooled 8800 series has been dropping like flys. I got an evga 8800GTS 512 from frys and it died the first day... i got another and had to push the fanspped up from 29 to 52%.. its still working, but I payed 390$ for it. This is bull. I am gonna return it and buy something online at close to 100$ less, or almost 200$ less for a GT...




UPDATE:
I decided to go with this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814150261
310$ - 20 MIR + 6.30$ 3day shipping.
XFX GTS

The XFX is unique in that the lifetime warranty lasts for as long as YOU live (not expected lifetime of product, aka 3 years)... while there are two other companies that do the same, they don't allow you transfer the warranty to another person... which is what I am gonna do in a couple of months (probably) when I buy a 9800GTX (if its not overpriced as hell) and sell this on ebay.

I would NOT go with eVGA step up because they do NOT cross ship... and limit availability of new cards for the step up plan... I don't see any reason to be stuck for weeks without a video card.

 

[zeroburrito]

Originally posted by: munky
The 256mb 8800gt is a bad idea if you plan on playing at a resolution higher than 1280x1024.

1900x and higher...there is a slight difference. mostly when aa is used.

 

[taltamir]

1680x1050 shows a difference in 512MB... one that reasonably scales with cost of cards.
1920x1200 and above, 256MB will cripple your video card. Get 512MB of ram.