Geforce or ATI ?

[DaUff]

Assuming that I'd upgrade now, which card would
[snip]
-ATI HD3850 512

Please don't suggest a 8800gt 512, 8800gtx or HD3870x2. The cards I mentioned cost 160 to 175€ These others costs, 230, 400 and 390. I may go for the 8800gt or 3870x2 if I smoke something really strong, but that's not really the point of my post [snip]

I run the HD3850.. works fine for 95% of the players out there and it is cheap! Though I am thinking of upgrading, I would suggest that card if you are not after Ultra Performance.

Da

[Gareee]

Only fools with too much money to burn buy newly released videocards, For the best price/performance, alway sbuy something at least 8 months old. (Odds are the card will be about 50% of it's original price at that point.)

Check Tom's hardware for the best monthly videocard deals, separated by price.

[D-Hunter]

First off, I have owned both Nvidia an ATI cards. More or so ATI cards have been my favorite for the past 6 years, I havn't had a Nvidia card for that long. So with that said, I do not doubt they have good cards or that some are infact better then others. But to spew out something that is totally incorrect about ATI , just makes you look like you don't know what your talking about.

Any review you read on tomshardware, hardop or twocanucks is always mostly one sided. Depending on the game one will outperform the other. I have respect for both companies an without this war we would be stuck with **** cards and minimum upgrades year to year. Appreciate the competitor don't rag on it.

ATI cards are on top as we speak. 3870X2 is the best price and performance per dollar. Simple and to the point. I run a single 3870 and have no problems running this game on high @ 1920-1200 w/ 50+ fps.

OP pick what you want. Either choice will be good. And appreciate that you have that choice.

Maybe you shouldn't put words in my mouth. I wrote that post entirely based on experience, not biased reviews. I've owned 2 ATI cards (an X300 and an X1600) and 2 Nvidia cards (a 6600GT and a 7600GT). While its obvious that the 6600GT should outperform the X300, it pretty much matched the X1600 (which is one series newer), while the 7600GT destroyed the X1600. In ALL of my games, including BF2, COD2, FEAR, Doom 3, Prey, HL2, ET:QW, and UT2004 (I didn't get UT3 until more recently). Most of these games carry the Nvidia logo, and do perform better on Nvidia cards. Also, Catalyst drivers have given me problems with all of the games listed above, as well as 3ds Max and Maya. The only problem I've had with Nvidia drivers was a beta driver with UT3, but that wasn't too hard to fix. And Ageia PhysX is a huge plus for people who can't afford expensive CPU upgrades (like me lol).

[BlueTrin]

Only fools with too much money to burn buy newly released videocards, For the best price/performance, alway sbuy something at least 8 months old. (Odds are the card will be about 50% of it's original price at that point.)

Check Tom's hardware for the best monthly videocard deals, separated by price.

Or for some peeps 300£ isn't that much ...

[Sincreator]

Assuming that I'd upgrade now, which card would you suggest from these 4 ? And why? OC potential, temperature, image quality, future proof, etc...
-NV 8800gs 384
-NV 9600gt 512
-NV 8800gt 256
-ATI HD3850 512

Please don't suggest a 8800gt 512, 8800gtx or HD3870x2. The cards I mentioned cost 160 to 175€ These others costs, 230, 400 and 390. I may go for the 8800gt or 3870x2 if I smoke something really strong, but that's not really the point of my post

edit: if some of you guys play on TFT w/o native res, how does it look like?

I'm going to buy a 22'' or 24'' TFT monitor. I intend to use the CRT as a service monitor for the 2nd PC. The 8600gt and 1152x864 is good enough for me atm, maybe I go cheap and I don't even mind to stick with it and play at some non-native res, but the CRT has got to go, my eyes deserve better

Since the 9600gt came out the prices on the 3870 512 have severly dropped. They were around 240$, but now they can be found below 200$. The 3870 is the clear winner.(not by much though.) http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/02/...gt/page17.html
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3235

[[TT]BrundleFly]

For the best price/performance, alway sbuy something at least 8 months old. (Odds are the card will be about 50% of it's original price at that point.)

People keep saying that but it is simply not true from what I have seen. The 8800GTX Ultra has been out for what like 2 years now? And it still costs just as much as it did 2 years ago:

Water Cooled Version
http://www.canadacomputers.com/index...id=999.243.390

Ultra
http://www.pccanada.com/viewitem.asp?id=6176

[junk_man32]

the core clock is extreme, just thinking that the memory clock would be higher and also the shader clock, somewhere around 2200 mhz and 2400mhz

[Octavean]

Well you have to give the HD 3870 X2 a nod of distinction with respect to performance although I wish the performance was achieved on a ingle GPU card.

It is worth pointing out how ever that the HD 3870 X2 cost something on the order of ~$449. Its probably more cost effective to go with 2x HD 3870 cards at ~$199 a piece,….which as I understand it should be comparable in performance with respect to Crossfire. Although, while we are at it, 2x 9600GT cards in SLI mode can cost as little as ~$169 a piece and can out perform 2x HD 3870 cards in Crossfire mode (in many cases):

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/...ance/page3.asp

2x ~$169 = ~$338 is a sight cheaper then ~$449 for an HD 3870 X2 too.

Anyway, again to revise, I’d go for:

9600GT
8800GT
HD 3870

In that order.

For what its worth my last ATI (AMD) card was an AIW X1900 and I came close to buying an HD 2900 class card (and still later an HD 3870). Instead I ended up with three 8800 class cards. I don’t think you can go too far wrong either way though,…. HD 3850, HD 3870, 8800xxx its all good. The 9600GT pushed down prices of the HD 3xxx series so we are all enjoying great prices for outstanding cards!!!

Let the good times roll

Game ON!!!