8800GT or 3870 for older gaming?

[viivo]

I gave up PC gaming in favor of consoles two years ago and gave my 8800GTX to my nephew. Now a friend wants to play some older games (NWN 2 mainly) and I'd like to play Knights of the old Republic and Torchlight at 1920x1080 (I use my tv as my monitor.)

How is the onboard sound of the 3870? I would love to use just one HDMI cable for both video and sound to my tv. Would I be able to play those games, especially NWN2 which is still a hog, at the res equally on either card?

 

[NoQuarter]

I gave up PC gaming in favor of consoles two years ago and gave my 8800GTX to my nephew. Now a friend wants to play some older games (NWN 2 mainly) and I'd like to play Knights of the old Republic and Torchlight at 1920x1080 (I use my tv as my monitor.)

How is the onboard sound of the 3870? I would love to use just one HDMI cable for both video and sound to my tv. Would I be able to play those games, especially NWN2 which is still a hog, at the res equally on either card?

I know the onboard sound on the 3870 is fine, I had mine hooked up to my HDTV for a while too. I don't remember which card is the faster of the 2 cards though.

 

[SinxarKnights]

Would I be able to play those games, especially NWN2 which is still a hog, at the res equally on either card?

I think the 8800GTX is faster. For sure those games are fine at that resolution, as I recently upgraded to a 2048x1152 resolution monitor and I have an 8800GT - the GTX is faster than that, but I cannot comment on the 3870s performance as I have never used one.

NWN2... That is one great game. I still play it fairly often :awe:

According to Tom's, the GTX is much faster than the 3870: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-graphics-card,2569-6.html

and FYI the 8800GT 512MB plays new games at pretty high detail also, usually maxed settings with no AA, not bad for an "ancient" gfx card.

 

[viivo]

I think the 8800GTX is faster. For sure those games are fine at that resolution, as I recently upgraded to a 2048x1152 resolution monitor and I have an 8800GT - the GTX is faster than that, but I cannot comment on the 3870s performance as I have never used one.

NWN2... That is one great game. I still play it fairly often :awe:

According to Tom's, the GTX is much faster than the 3870: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-graphics-card,2569-6.html

I think what I wrote may have been confusing - I have the choice between a GT and 3870 - I had a GTX before, which I would love to have back, but it's not within my budget right now.

Thanks for the thoughts so far. I really don't care about newer games, so I'd probably be fine with either one.

 

[SinxarKnights]

Get the 8800GT 512MB. Might want to try and get one that doesn't have the stock cooler. The stock ones seem to run very hot compared to the one i got. Mine runs at 65C max, while i see charts that show stock cooler cards in the upper 70s and 80s.

It also supports gfx accelerated flash and physX if that matters at all.

 

[Termie]

Get the 8800GT 512MB. Might want to try and get one that doesn't have the stock cooler. The stock ones seem to run very hot compared to the one i got. Mine runs at 65C max, while i see charts that show stock cooler cards in the upper 70s and 80s.

It also supports gfx accelerated flash and physX if that matters at all.

Agreed - just upgraded from an 8800gt, and it was a great card for me. Definitely faster than the 3870, but you'd be trading away audio over HDMI. If that's really important to you, then just sacrifice a few frames per second for it, since you're playing older games anyway.

Check out the 1920x1200 graph on this page for an indication of the speed difference: http://www.anandtech.com/show/2947/11

 

[Jesusthewererabbit]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2376/6

That's from the 3870 review. Typically 15-25% slower than the 8800GT. The games you're talking about, it really shouldn't matter. Since you want audio, I would go with the 3870. I ran a 3850 256MB from release until this last December with no problems. Dragon Age ran great after I knocked the resolution down to 1366 x 768. I'm sure glad I have a 5770 for Bad Company 2 though.