nVidia 8500gt vs Radeon 3870

[davidy613]

I'm currently playing Fallout 3 with an 8500gt and its pretty much going at 30 fps at max on low settings.

My brother got a free 3870 from his work and I'm wondering if the 3870 is better or if I should just stick with my 8500gt right now.

If I should switch, how much better of a performance will the 3870 give me?

Thanks.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

Make the switch. The 3870 is much faster. At the very least twice as fast, and I'd say up to four times as fast.

 

[toyota]

the 8500gt is a joke for many modern games even on low settings. the 3870 is way way faster. as long as you have modern dual core cpu in there you could see 4 times the performance by making the switch.

 

[StrangerGuy]

If 8600GTS was a joke back then at launch then 8500GT is sewage material compared to 3870.

 

[LoneNinja]

Well a 3650 is much better than an 8500GT, so of course the 3870 is going to be vastly superior in comparison.

 

[nemesismk2]

Make the switch. The 3870 is much faster. At the very least twice as fast, and I'd say up to four times as fast.

I agree the 3870 is faster than a 8500 GT and even sometimes keeps up with a 8800 GT. I owned a HIS Radeon 3870 which gave me many happy gaming hours

 

[Soulkeeper]

I also owned the HIS 3870
They were great cards, can hold their own against the 8800/9800GT in most everything. They also have low power usage/heat. The only downside (for me) is they don't support OpenCL, you have to get a 4xxx model or higher for that.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

I had a 3850 as well as a friend with a 8600gts. There wasnt even a comparison between those cards. I'd imagine the 3870 is at least 4x and up to 8x as fast under load (or AA) as long as your CPU is decent enough. The 8500gt was a joke. Seriously.

 

[bryanW1995]

I also had an HIS 3870. man, those cards really got around...

Great gaming card. as mentioned, a HUGE upgrade over 8500gt. Install the 3870, make sure it works, then burn the 8500gt on your front lawn. :ninja:

 

[CurseTheSky]

The only real downside of the HD 3000 series was the fact that everyone still had a bad taste in their mouth from the HD 2000 series (R600). I think most people here were buying Nvidia at that point, though the HD 3850 and HD 3870 were perfectly good gaming cards.

 

[RavenSEAL]

3870 is going to destroy that thing, 8500gt sucks for gaming, in fact, anything that is under the 50/500 nVidia line sucks horribly. I learned my lesson the hard way and ended up with a 4870, which Uber destroys several nVidia cards.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

Dude, word choice. Get some.

**** isnt a word that should be used in any technical forum.

Edit: Good change!

 

[RavenSEAL]

Dude, word choice. Get some.

Rape isnt a word that should be used in any technical forum.

 

[Face2Face]

I had a 3870 for about two months(Then got a 9800GTX) and I was very impressed with it performance. Stomped my older 8800 GT 256mb. I have had 3 8800 GT's since then all 512mbs and they all had a little better gameplay vs the 3870. The 3870 had something about it though? I really liked that card. I still haven't had a 4 or 5 series card-- looking foward to getting a used one cheap--- In time.