Thinking of crossfire with HD3850's 512MB or 256?

[Jhatfie]

I am currently running a old 7900GT, which is obviously not cutting it with games like crysis. My Abit Quad GT is crossfire capable so I am considering giving it a try. Running 2x3850's seems like a good deal based on some of the reviews I have read. I was wondering if going with the 256MB versions would offer much lower performance than the 512MB 3850 versions considering there is about a $30 price difference at the moment for each card. Reason I ask it it appears when compared to the 3870 crossfire, even though they have 512MB, the performance seems to be hampered with the 3850 crossfire more to memory and gpu clocks rather than 256 MB memory limitations. My monitor is a 20" dell widescreen do I will not run higher than 1680x1050.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/605/1/ has the 3850's and 3870's in crossfire with more recent drivers. Most scores between the 3850 and 3870 crossfire are pretty close. 1920x1080 w/ 4xAA in COD4 shows a the biggest performance gap of all the games tested at about 15%.

 

[soccerballtux]

You know, Might want to just get an 8800GT if you can find one.

I'm thinking of upgrading to 1920x1200 sometime and when I do games won't run native. With nVidia you can tell it to render the game at one resolution and then map that to a higher resolution like the native one on your screen. ATI's can't do this.

 

[Jhatfie]

I have totally thought about the 8800gt. I have seen them as cheap as $260 after shipping from time to time. So one 3850 is $159 and 2 is $318. Almost 8800GTS 512MB range which are $340-350-ish right now. It really is a toss up on what to do. As long as the drivers are there 3580's is crossfire appear to be about 0-20% faster than a 8800gt, but they also cost about 20% more. A single card is easier to setup, but the enthusiast part of me wants to try crossfire especially when it is fairly cheap in this instance by comparison and I already have the hardware that supports it.

 

[taltamir]

wait for the geforce 9... I have a 7900GS and really the price per fps game is just not enough on anything short of the 8800GT... and its currently overpriced... If I could nab one for 220$ I would. Otherwise I am waiting for the 9 series in march.

 

[CrystalBay]

Buy the cheapest 256 mb 3850's crossfired , best bang for buck.... Although they may be cheaper after x-mas

 

[tuteja1986]

2x3850 256mb = 8800GTX :!

 

[darkxknight]

Originally posted by: tuteja1986
2x3850 256mb = 8800GTX :!

if you're gonna buy 2 3850s, u might as well get 8800gts 512. same price, pretty much same performance.

 

[bryanW1995]

there was an xfx 8800gt on newegg this afternoon for 255 shipped. they had an evga for 265 shipped yesterday. At those prices it's hard to recommend spending 350 for xfired 3850's.

If you do decide to go xfire on 3850, get the 256 mb cards b/c they're much cheaper and there is minimal difference between the 256 and 512 mb cards, especially in xfire.