Which Video Card

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I finally saved enough to buy a new video card. I'm now not sure which one to get. I have read the reviews on both but I'm not totally sold on either card.

ATi MSI Radeon 3870 512MB DDR4 (Twin Slot)
Nvidia PNY FLB 8800 GT 512MB DDR3 (Single Slot)

What I like about the ATi setup is that I can use a HDMI cable and connect the computer to my 20" or 32" LCD without additional hookup for sound.

What I like about the 8800GT is that it performs slightly better than the ATi card and cost $20 less right now.

If I go with ATi card I am planning on changing my computer over to a HTPC system so I can record live TV and remove the PS3 and the 5 Disc DVD Home Theater system that is taking up too much room.

 

It depends on how much you're willing to invest. With my new sys I aim high, because from my perspective, having to buy an entirely new system anyway, there is no point in buying a smallish, middlish new PCI-E card now, only to buy another, better one half a year later. I'd rather buy my computer a little later.

The new ATI 4870s are offering an excellent value for the money, if you're willing to pay that much, from what I observe prices are slowly falling, and that also counts for ATI 4850s. Maybe you want to wait a bit?

The two you named are no.11 (8800) and no.12 (3870) on a comparative benchmark that I last saw (4870 being no.3 and 9800 GX2 as no.1 - 4850 ranks no.6), with about the only difference being that the ATI supports Direct X 10.1, whereas the GeForce has roughly twice as many streaming processors. The ATI is two slot, so maybe can gain some speed through higher throughput? If you only compare the two, you'd make a good choice with either card.

Just this: Your preferred ATI 3870 goes at 124,90 € in my shop. The Nvidia 8800 GT goes at about 129,90 €. You get an ATI 4850 from 140 € upwards. I'd pick the latter.

 

It is still going to be a problem to find one whit a hdmi port. I think that the audio cable cannot be avoided.

I know how it is, you have just enough money scraped for one of the cards you mentioned. However I have to second Ragusa's point on the 4850. An other thing that the 3870 does better is power usage in idle.

If you have to choose consider that I am a bit more Ati mindend after 4 ati cards in a row. It appears it has audio via hdmi and a better tv out composite.

 

Merlanni,

ATi 3870, 4850 and 4870 have onboard digital sound through the DVI port when using the accompanying HDMI to DVI connector.

 

Actually, the 3870 has 320 shader procs whereas the 8800GT has 112. However, the 8800GT's shaders dont run synchronously with its clock, they are actually clocked much higher, something like 1.5GHz.

That being said, the two are very close in performance, but the 8800GT does slightly beat it. If you want an HTPC, the 3870 would be a better bet I think. Or go with a 4850 if you can afford the price difference for vastly increased performance, although it may heat up the inside of your case.

 

I have been paying attention to reviews about the heat that a 4850 gives off; Sapphire right now has a modified heatsink and fan 4850 card for $180. I am considering that card but what is keeping me at bay is I have yet to see a review on it. Palit makes or another brand makes a 4850 with a Zalman fan and heatsink but that runs closer to $225.

I would like to keep the price below $150 if possible and closer to $100. Right now newegg is offering a good deal on a PNY 8800GT with Fuel Line of War for $110. What is keeping me from jumping on that offer is that I would rather get a 3870 or a 4850 because I want to keep my HDMI hookup.

 

HIS ice q series are as good as or better than Sapphire.

http://www.hisdigital.com/html/home.php

If you want a dual slot overclocked one that is. nAnd it will cost. Perhaps an iceq version of the 3870

 

After reading some reviews on the various GPU out there looking at price I have decided to go with the XFX 8800 GS XXX. This GPU is overclocked and out of box performance is close to the 3850. I was able to order one of these cards for less than $85 locally installed; it should be here by early next week.

After reading all I could I wanted the best bang for the buck, a card that can play NWN2 and that will last me until my next build in 2011. I was going to get a 3870 but that was extra money out of my pocket and it didn't come with a free game. The local computer shop informed me that all of the XFX 8800GS XXX that he has sold comes with Company of Hereos, hopefully mine does too...

What do you think? Did I over pay?

 

compared whit 3850: http://en.expreview.com/2008/01/25/review-xfx-geforce-8800-gs-384mb-ddr3-xxx/?page=6

The 8800 GT is the version of this series to get. If you do not want to buy the 3870, go to the 9600. I mean make a choice on a game? Look at the dx10 results at the bottom. The dx10 performance is less.

Check out this 3870:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814261030

Or this 9600: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130328

 

Yeah I thought about the 9600 and the 3870, but the card I am getting comes close to the 9600 in all aspects, because it is factory OC and I never play any game with a resolution higher than 1280 x 1024; in fact I usually play with a resolution of 1024 x 768.

I was considering both of those cards but I ended up selecting the cheapest card as I had to order other parts for my computer that pushed me out of that price range.

 

If you play in 1024*768 or 1280*1024, that card is probably all you need for a while.

Since I was buying a whole new computer this July, I got a 4850, actually. A couple of days before the official release. Never again. I mean, never again a just-introduced ATI card. I don't want to be a beta tester of drivers. And I'm probably never going to get an ATI card again. My last two have been ATI. While I won't say a bad word about performance in terms of horsepower, I do have issues with the way they deal with certain things - which are likely driver issues.

1) 2600 XT had problems with textures in NWN1. Incidentally, I hardly remember any difference in performance from GeForce 5900 XT.
2) The drivers needed manual "hacking" to install on an AGP card. And there was a lot of trouble installing drivers anyway.
3) The 4850 is a joke. The card's powerful, but it overheats and freezes. Sometimes regains control, sometimes not. I don't want any hangs-up in my multiplayer games, sorry. People say not all versions of this card have the same problem, especially that Gigabyte (which I have) is worse than Asus (which the techie I talked to tested in the other shop) and that Asus works fine.
4) The driver is a joke anyway. ATIKMDIAG, anyone? That's the exact reason for the freezes and hangs, especially the system-halting ones. If you shut down Catalyst Control Centre (which contains the guilty Microsoft libraries), it stands a better chance of regaining control and avoiding a halt. It's not 100%, but with CCC on, you have a 100% chance of not avoiding a hang.

Come on, no matter how great a card is and how cheap for that kind of performance, a driver that halts the system is not acceptable.

Therefore I'd rather go with nVidia, though I'm guessing nVidia's high-end and the 9 series (which I haven't had the opportunity to see at work since I've only had a 7600 GT and seen an 8600 GT at my friend's), have their own problems. However, this time, I'm inclined to go with nVidia.

By the way, remember about PSU. If you buy a new card, it most likely draws more power from the system than your previous one. High-end models typically require more wattage than lower-end ones. For example, you probably shouldn't run a 4870 with anything less than a 550-600W PSU - talking brand PSU here.

 

And as far as PSU are concerned, mind noise and efficiency. 82+% ought to be the norm. Don't buy anything with less, and avoid no-name stuff. Unless I find anything better at a lower price, my future PSU will probably be the (oddly unlisted) 600W version of this one - 85% efficiency, and 16dB average noise with a 140mm fan.

PS: A friend had driver issues with his 4780 as well, because initially the card would put out data at a frequency incompatible with what his older LCD screen could digest. He iirc eventually fixed that by changing the card settings. He is now a very happy user.

 

I'm thinking of selling my 8800GTS 640 and buying either a 4850 or 9800 GTX+. I'm actually thinking about the 9800 GTX+ solely because of its cooler - because it vents hot air out of the case instead of directly into the case. Its a pity the 4850 cooler sucks, it might be a deal breaker for me. I hear there are ways to make the fan run faster than its default quiet setting (apparently, by default, it is set to spin up to 24% of its maximum speed, depending on load), but even so..... that heat still has to go somewhere. By using the lousy cooler, I run the risk of affecting the rest of the components in my rig.

I could probably afford a 4870, but with the excellent performance offered by these cheaper cards, I'm not sure there is any point. I like the fact that it has a better cooler than the 4850, as well as GDDR5 memory, I'm just not sure thats worth another £60 to me. I'm glad that prices have dropped though - I paid nearly £250 for my 8800GTS last July, now if I spend £130 I get a card that performs much better.

 

MSI and Saphire both offer newer cooling methods; though the MSI aftermarket cooler is a twin PCI slot which blows the hot air out of the case.

My PSU should be able to handle the new card. I am only running a HDD, a DVD drive, mouse, keyboard, and the video card on my 425W PSU. It has one 12V rail with 22Amps.

If need I will go out and buy this Raidmax PSU.

Here is a Palit 4870 with an aftermarket cooler.

 

The Sapphire cooler looks a little.... strange. It doesnt cover the whole PCB, quite unusual. But.... I suppose for them to bother putting it on it must be in some way better than the reference cooler. I'll look for some reviews on it.

I also saw a 4850 IceQ4 made by HIS for £130 excluding shipping. I'm tempted to buy one because it has a 2 slot cooler that apparently works very well. The thing is, the offer is only this week, after that the price goes back up to £145 or so. Problem is..... I'm not sure whether I have found a buyer for my old card (I asked a guy that I live with whether he wanted it, he said he might but would like time to think about it), and to be honest I wanted to wait until I had got my next pay cheque.

To be honest, its not terribly urgent that I upgrade. I started looking at upgrades after I got tired of my PC making so much noise. So I looked at a new 3rd party cooler and some accoustic insulating material, and thought with the graphics card being the chief culprit perhaps it should be on the chopping block. Without sacrificing performance of course.

So I dont know whether to sell now, while my graphics card has some resale value at all, or wait until an upgrade would net me at least a 2x performance increase (currently we are looking at about 1.5 to 2x performance for the same amount of power used).

 

After owning two ATi and two Nvidia cards I have to say ATi cards tend to have more driver and display issues.

Yes ATi cards are fast and cheap, but the drivers issue causes systems to crash. Also, some of their cards cannot display all the graphical features of some older games.

In NWN the ATi 3200 HD in my 780G board and my cousin x700 that was given to me slows down when there are more than four opponents on the screen and I would not be able to turn on some of the higher end graphical options .

In NWN my Nvidia 2 and Gefore 6600 I would experience no slow downs and with the 6600 all the graphical features are turned on to the max.

My preference now is Nvidia. I will have to see how the 8800GS performs. All I need it to do is last me the next 3 years with new system.

AMD 8450 overclocked to 2.3GHz
FoxConn 780G Mobo
G Skill 2x2GB RAM 6400
250GB Maxtor Diamond 10 PATA Hard Drive
Lite On PATA DVD RW Drive
Just PC Mid Tower Case
Just PC 425W PSU
8800 GS being installed as I write this...

If I need to I will update my PSU as I stated in my prior post.

 

I've owned 3 Nvidia cards (Riva TNT, Geforce 256 and Geforce 8800 GTS) and 2 ATI cards (9200 and 9600XT). I cant say I've ever really had issues with any of them to be honest. So I dont really have a brand preference one way or the other. I do remember that ATI released driver updates far more frequently than Nvidia does.

I saw a passively cooled Gigabyte 4850. I'm tempted by it, because it will be totally silent, but not sure of the passive cooling. I've seen that some people have found that using the Arctic Accelero S1 R2 cooler with the 4850 gives lower temperatures without a fan than with the stock ATI cooler. So.... perhaps it is possible for 4850's to be passively cooled. Still, I have my doubts, and I havent seen any reviews on it.

I may just end up going with the 9800 GTX+. Its an actively cooled dual slot solution, so I know it will cool things well.

 

I don't think going from 8800 GTS 640 to any card is worth it unless you can give your card to someone or sell it. It might just not be the kind of difference you're hoping for. May I suggest something? http://www.gph.benchmark.pl - Benchmarks are self-explanatory, but if you're knowledgeable enough or if you look it up, you could make something of the technical data. Well, if you could get a reputed and tested version of 4850 or 4870 that works, then yeah. But be doubly careful. The driver issues are horrific. And better buy from a place that has a good RMA reputation.

So all in all, maybe go for that 4870. It's probably faster than 9800 GTX+, as well. Though you might want to check out nVidia's newest generation if you like high-res. That's where it shines.

No single-slot solution for me ever again. And if you are willing to overpay a bit for stability, nVidia is your way.

 

See, thats what I'm thinking now. It might be too soon to upgrade. Incidentally, I might have found a buyer for my card - one of the guys I live with has an 8800 GTS 640 and I asked him about buying my card. He said he might be interested in it. It would leave him with 8800 GTS SLI, assuming his PSU can take it!

The thing is, to be honest I dont play PC games all that much. The only game that really taxes my system is Crysis, and I dont even enjoy it all that much. Oh, and Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance is pretty taxing too. My most recent PC game, Race Driver: Grid, runs like a dream. 1680x1050 all bells and whistles. As I see it, the pros and cons of upgrading, for me, are thus:

Pros:
Games released soon, or next year, will run 1.5 to 2x better than my current card.
I have a buyer for my current card, which makes a new one much cheaper.
The longer I sit on my card, the harder it will be to sell it, and the less money I will receive (since its value relative to new cards decreases).

Cons:
I probably wont even notice a performance difference right now (unless I bother to finish Crysis).
The difference between the sale price of my old card and the purchase price of my new card is still £70, which could be more useful for other things.
If I upgrade next year, I will be able to get a better card and notice more of a difference.
I dont play PC games all that often anyway.

Currently I'm thinking there might be completely no point in upgrading.

Also, I have just ordered some kit to make my PC run more silent and cool. I've ordered a new CPU HSF, some Arctic Silver, some thermal interface material remover, a cable management kit including cable ties, cable mounts and cable wrap and an AcoustiPack Ultimate kit, which is a soundproofing kit for PCs. it includes 3 pieces of dense acoustic foam.

So... my PC may not be getting any faster right now, but it is getting quieter and cooler.

EDIT: PS, thanks for the advice guys.

 

Put every effort in doing things right with the paste, the cable management tools and the like. It's going to give you a lot of satisfaction. And probably a nice little "upgrade" feeling too.

As for upgrade, you can do what your friend wants to, if you have SLI - get a second card of that kind if your PSU allows, but only if you can get a mirror card for a cheap price. If not, well, forget it. At any rate, nothing you can buy today for a civilised price beats 8800 GTS 640 by a great amount. In fact, if you take a look at benchmarks, the 8800 GTS 640 beats many of the newer cards in 3D Mark 05. Given that games are a bit tech-delayed compared to hardware, 2006 games should be fine, 2007 perhaps also. You might actually find yourself noticing fps loss in some circumstances. As far as the newest games go, I doubt it's worth upgrading for the little difference that you will notice. Say, 20% fps gain for £70? Not worth it. You'd be better off buying a replacement £20-£30 coooler for your current graphics card and OCing it for as much as you can squeeze out of it while still being stable.