Radeon vs. Nvidia

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Blacklash

Member
Feb 22, 2007
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I've got a couple of 3850s in my third rig. They aren't bad cards at all. They idle @ 45C with a single slot cooler. I use Rivatuner to kick the fan up to 55% when I game because I have them overclocked to 760|2038. I got 'em back when HD3870s were 249usd and 8800GT cards were closer to 300usd. Now they have 512Mb 3850s for 119usd and 3870s for 149usd with rebate.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814131096
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814103050

I've got a 8800GT in my second rig and it's @ 700|2000 1750. It will kill either of the cards I mentioned in DX10 with AA active. Typical scenario would be 29FPS vs 38FPS. That's a lot when you are talking FPS that is that low.

Still I like my little HD 3850s and together in Crossfire, when it works, they do very well. Stock 3850 Crossfire is shown here-

http://techreport.com/articles.x/14524/6
 
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Lithan

Platinum Member
Aug 2, 2004
2,919
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Yeah, I'm not saying that 38xx's are bad by any means. They just aren't priced low enough to justify buying them right now. 3850 512MB is right where the 9600gt is, which beats the 3850 in everything, and is arguably a better card for most gamers than a 3870... which is an additional $30. And at that price, you're in 8800gt territory which the 3870 can't touch in any case that I've seen. It seems to me the majority of guys buying 38's these days are buying them with Crossfire in mind, which of course changes price/performance calculations to the point where they must be dealt with on an individual basis. But for a single card solution, ATI needs to drop the 3850 to 8800gs ($100) price and the 3870 to 9600GT ($115) price after rebates to really compete.
 
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ther00kie16

Golden Member
Mar 28, 2008
1,573
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Best to wait a little longer at least, 8800gts already dropped $20+ since this thread was started.
 
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Lithan

Platinum Member
Aug 2, 2004
2,919
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That deal is a joke. $30 cheaper than what I paid for the card I got four days ago.
 
AzN

AzN

Banned
Nov 26, 2001
4,112
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3850 does beat 9600gt in oblivion raw performance. Some of us know shader will come handy and it will be a different scenario when games like Fallout 3 comes that is also built on updated oblivion engine. We are just tapping the power of SP. Honestly 208 FLOPS is the lowest out of all cards far as shader performance goes in it's price range and I have to wonder about a card will do that are more shader intensive than games out today.
 
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Blacklash

Member
Feb 22, 2007
181
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The 9600GT is a very good card and back when I bought my HD3850s it did not exist.

Many of the HD3850 512Mb cards will OC beyond HD3870 stock speed levels and it is true HD3870s often OC higher.

Another plus for some is the HD3850|3870s can be used in Crossfire on an Intel motherboard. If you want to SLi 9600GT cards you'll be buying an nVidia mobo. I prefer Intel chipsets.

HD3850 cards do well in Crossfire in "Oblivion" outdoors with grass and trees on full viewing distance. They pass my overclocked 8800GTX (661|2040) by 8FPS @ 1680x 4xAA +HDR|16xAF in those situations.

My overclocked 8800GTX puts up 32FPS at the below two points. Again, this is full grass full tree viewing distance, no ini tweaks, or grass is iMinGrass 80. Everything is on and all distance|detail sliders are slammed far right. 4xAA+HDR|16xAF:

http://img520.imageshack.us/im...200712150214540qc9.jpg

http://img132.imageshack.us/im...200712150207374xi6.jpg
 
AzN

AzN

Banned
Nov 26, 2001
4,112
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Lithan

Platinum Member
Aug 2, 2004
2,919
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"This benchmark is very repeatable, but the first run is the most consistent between cards, so we only run the benchmark once through and take that number."

Need I say more?
 
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JACKDRUID

Senior member
Nov 28, 2007
729
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Originally posted by: Azn
Originally posted by: Lithan
You don't seem to realize that the fact of one review showing an abnormal result while every other review shows the opposite does not constitute evidence. It constitutes an abnormal result.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articl...gt-512gs_15.html#sect0
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardwa...rce_9600_gt_oc_512mb/8
Click to expand...

What site are we at? Are you doubting anandtech? I respect anandtech hell of a lot more than tom's sold out hardware or bit tech.
Click to expand...

all of above are reputable reviews.

there is absolutely no doubt that it is possible to OC 3850 to 9600gt speed, but its not worth the effort nor risk when:

1. 9600gt sells for $109 , cheaper than some of the 3850, while offering vastly superior performance without OC.

2. 8800gt for $159 cost $50 more offering 30-60% more performance at stock. When both overlocked, 8800gt is still 30-60% faster.

3. Every .. EVERY other benchmark 9600gt beats 3850 to the ground...

3850/70 are good cards, but as of now they are too expensive price/performance wise.
 
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Nomel

Junior Member
Apr 24, 2008
4
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Well I have decided to wait a little longer and see what's going to happen in the next couple of days/weeks maybe month. Thank you all for your answers! :)
 
AzN

AzN

Banned
Nov 26, 2001
4,112
2
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Some of the guys are fan bois or not technically inclined to give their 2 cents worth. They stopped listening to reason a long time ago. Some of these websites are the same, sold out by companies that endorse them.

Now I'm not an ATI fan boi but I am technically inclined and a PC enthusiast since 1989 and know the gaming trend tendencies in the PC industry and consoles as well. I have a Nvidia card in my system but I give an honest opinion when I see something skewed or when the readers don't see what I'm seeing as well.
 
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nRollo

Banned
Jan 11, 2002
10,460
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Originally posted by: Azn
Some of the guys are fan bois or not technically inclined to give their 2 cents worth. They stopped listening to reason a long time ago. Some of these websites are the same, sold out by companies that endorse them.

Now I'm not an ATI fan boi but I am technically inclined and a PC enthusiast since 1989 and know the gaming trend tendencies in the PC industry and consoles as well. I have a Nvidia card in my system but I give an honest opinion when I see something skewed or when the readers don't see what I'm seeing as well.
Click to expand...

I don't think this is fair to the members, or the websites. You don't have any evidence of the "paid off" websites, why make baseless allegations against them?

I won't believe AnandTech is paid off, and they said the 3870 only beat the 9600 in one more game

I won't believe Anandtech is paid off, and they said the 8800GT is faster than the 3870

In the absence of software to test, it's pretty much impossible to speculate on which card will be better for "future games" and always has been.

There's also the problem of even if there is some "future game" that will take advantage of one GPU architecture better than the other, you're still left with a. all the other games that still run worse on it b. the possibility that most of the other "future games" will also follow the current trend. (partly because they're often based on existing engine, partly because it's unlikely devs will start coding for the arch with the far smaller installed user base)

Last but certainly not least, we're talking about cards that cost as much as two tanks of gas here, not buying a house where once the decision is made, you're stuck.

In the unlikely event the gaming market totally shift over the next year and all the new games coming out were coded to take advantage of of ATi's VLIW arch, you could just sell your NVIDIA card and your maximum loss is the cost of a good dinner or a tank of gas.

For these reasons, I don't know why anyone would buy the cards that are currently losing most of the benches.

Everyone and their brother knows where my preferences lie, but you can't say all the web reviewers are bought and paid for and all the other posters are just fanboys who don't want to acknowledge ATi's current hardware will "own the future".



 
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Lithan

Platinum Member
Aug 2, 2004
2,919
0
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NRollo, he's not saying Anand is paid off. He's saying every single other review site, mag, and blog in the world is.

And I'm not suggesting that anand is paid off. But anyone who's ever benched anything... down to the ten year olds asking how to install a gfx card on oc.com know that you don't run a bench once and take first run results to test gfx performance. It's benching 101. And their results with a 256meg card crushing everything else by a huge margin should have tipped them off that maybe they were doing something wrong... like maybe preventing gfx buffer from working properly by making the game wait on disk access. Maybe that game really works fine with 256megs. But I look at those results and immediately saw something was wrong. I read their test procedure for it and almost laughed out loud.
 
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nRollo

Banned
Jan 11, 2002
10,460
0
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Originally posted by: Lithan
NRollo, he's not saying Anand is paid off. He's saying every single other review site, mag, and blog in the world is.
Click to expand...

LOL- this is pretty funny!
:beer:
 
J

JACKDRUID

Senior member
Nov 28, 2007
729
0
0
Originally posted by: Azn
Some of the guys are fan bois or not technically inclined to give their 2 cents worth. They stopped listening to reason a long time ago. Some of these websites are the same, sold out by companies that endorse them.

Now I'm not an ATI fan boi but I am technically inclined and a PC enthusiast since 1989 and know the gaming trend tendencies in the PC industry and consoles as well. I have a Nvidia card in my system but I give an honest opinion when I see something skewed or when the readers don't see what I'm seeing as well.
Click to expand...

I'm very technically proficient and I have been a PC enthusiast ever since 3dfx era, and I'm not a fan bois. Yet I disagree with your conclusion that 3850/3870 is a better buy...
because its not.. not with current ridiculously low 9600gt/8800 prices.
 
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