9600 GT or Radeon 3870?

[geepondy]

Guys any compelling reason to purchase one of these cards over the other? Both are rated pretty evenly at Tom's Hardware. My immediate need is to play Crysis at better resolution and quality and of course other games in the future. Right now I can only play Crysis at 800x600 at medium quality with object detailed forced on low with my Nvidia 7600GT in Athlon X2 4800+ system. The card will be run in singular mode. I am concerned with reports I read about the 9600 GT not running reliably and crashing the system, don't know how widespread of an issue that is. Also I'm hoping my 430W power supply will be up for the task. I don't have much else running off it. So any thoughts or other recommendations would be appreciated. I see these two cards are available for approximately $170 at Newegg.

 

[IL2SturmovikPilot]

http://www.techpowerup.com/rev...rce_9600_GT_SSC/7.html

Seems like 9600GT does better in Crysis than the HD 3870 @ 12x10 with 2xAA,and i honestly like to know where the 9600GT crashing systems,and if your 430W PSU is a quality PSU with at least 22A on the 12V rails,you're good to go.

 

[n7]

Look around for deals; you should be able to get the 8800 GT for a similar price or less.

At least here in Canada i've seen the 8800 GTs as low as $160 AR.

 

[Wreckage]

You can get a 9600GT with a Accelero 2 passive heatsink for $149
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814134040

 

[geepondy]

Hmm, that's a very good price and I seem to read positive reviews about the Accelero 2 cooler, do you agree and is it ok to run without additional fans cooler fans (kind of kills the purpose). I do have an Antec NSK6580 case that has an Antec 430W Earthwatts power supply and also a 120mm rear fan so I think power supply and cooling levels should be ok. Here is a picture of my Gigabyte micro GA-MA69GM-S2H mb. Obviously it's going to kill one of my PCI slots with the cooler but won't any card kill the PCI slot? Other then that, does it look like the card will fit ok?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...ro+ATX+AMD+Motherboard

EDIT: Also does this ECS card with active cooling also cover up adjacent PCI slot?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814134038

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: geepondy
Hmm, that's a very good price and I seem to read positive reviews about the Accelero 2 cooler, do you agree and is it ok to run without additional fans cooler fans (kind of kills the purpose). I do have an Antec NSK6580 case that has an Antec 430W Earthwatts power supply and also a 120mm rear fan so I think power supply and cooling levels should be ok. Here is a picture of my Gigabyte micro GA-MA69GM-S2H mb. Obviously it's going to kill one of my PCI slots with the cooler but won't any card kill the PCI slot? Other then that, does it look like the card will fit ok?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...ro+ATX+AMD+Motherboard

EDIT: Also does this ECS card with active cooling also cover up adjacent PCI slot?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814134038

Yeah, the Accelero cooler would take up a PCI slot. Plus if your system is already noisy having a passive Video Card might not make a difference either way.

The second card you listed should not interfere with your PCI slot.

 

[geepondy]

I know the higher priced similar chipset cards have faster clocked cores but other then that, is there a quality reason to pay more then one of these $150 cards?

 

[happy medium]

No, buy it for 150$ and overclock it yourself.

 

[IL2SturmovikPilot]

Originally posted by: geepondy
I know the higher priced similar chipset cards have faster clocked cores but other then that, is there a quality reason to pay more then one of these $150 cards?

Only if the price difference is VERY small and the card is OCed high enough (For example,the stock card is $150,but the OCed version is at 720 Core/2000 Memory is only $10-15 more)

 

[geepondy]

I just ordered the ECS card. Hopefully will hold me over for a couple of years.