9800GTX vs HD3870

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dobieg2002

Limp Gawd
Joined
May 7, 2007
Messages
234
I'm very disappointed in 9800GTX performance. I couldn't wait any longer for a new card so I decided to jump on a 9800GTX for 250 and do a trade-up to on of the new cards (Thinking the new NVIDIA cards would be much faster). I was pleased with the performance of a 3870, but wanted a bit more. The Nvidia Drivers are also a pain... The EDID info I had to override so it would work with my HDTV in DVI mode. The ATI card worked without a problem...

I originally built the system with the HD3870 rebuilt it when I got the 9800GTX Vista Ultimate x64 SP1, Latest WHQL drivers for both.


Here are some numbers:

9800GTX @ 790 x 1200
HD3870 @ 840 X 1126

3DMark06 (Default)
9800GTX = ~16000
HD3870 = ~13000

Crysis DX9 (Custom Config) CPU 1 benchmark @ 1280x720
9800GTX = 42FPS
HD3870 = 37FPS

Crysis DX10 (Custom Config) CPU 1 benchmark @ 1280x720
9800GTX = 34FPS
HD3870 = 36FPS

Gears of War @ 1920x1080 Highest settings no benchmarks just play
9800GTX = Stutter/pauses but fast
HD3870 = smooth but not as fast


I'm hoping that the new cards are worth it... but I have a feeling the ATI cards will be a much better deal...:(

Should have waited... and remembered why I switched to ATI to begin with...

All that extra power and heat for only a few FPS more...
 
Thats what you get for going NV. I would send it back if you are not happy.
 
If you had a 3870 with the new cards coming out right around the corner, its your own fault. The 9800 GTX is a better performer than a 3870, you have to turn the resolution and graphics up to really notice. If that is your max rez why are you buying a video card like these for it anyway?
 
THUMPer1 said:
Thats what you get for going NV. I would send it back if you are not happy.
Click to expand...


:rolleyes::rolleyes: lol at this fanboy...

Your resolution is too low to even utilize the power of the 9800GTX. The 9800GTX has performed better than the 3870 in pretty much every review and benchmark I have seen. It's clearly the more powerful card, however at 1280x720 you should have just stuck with your 3870.
 
If I raised the resolution to 1920x1080 Crysis is not playable on either card.... I was looking to be able to run Crysis and other new games at the same resolution or even 1920x1080 with more eye candy and no slow downs. It does perform better with AA/AF etc, but not as well as the benchmarks led me to believe.

I know it is a faster card on all the benchmarks (Which is why I purchased it), but I'm just not seeing it at this resolution. If it were indeed more powerful wouldn't I see it at lower resolutions?

Please do not say it is the rest of my system holding it back because that is just not the case.

I have 100 days with BFG to do the Trade Up... I hope the GTX260 is better.
 
dobieg2002 said:
If I raised the resolution to 1920x1080 Crysis is not playable on either card.... I was looking to be able to run Crysis and other new games at the same resolution or even 1920x1080 with more eye candy and no slow downs. It does perform better with AA/AF etc, but not as well as the benchmarks led me to believe.

I know it is a faster card on all the benchmarks (Which is why I purchased it), but I'm just not seeing it at this resolution. If it were indeed more powerful wouldn't I see it at lower resolutions?

Please do not say it is the rest of my system holding it back because that is just not the case.

I have 100 days with BFG to do the Trade Up... I hope the GTX260 is better.
Click to expand...
You should done your research then, Crysis isn't playable even with 3 9800 GTX's, at full settings, why did you think it would be different? Everyone is this forum, the first question asked is , what RES do you play at for a reason, at low res, a 80 dollar card will do what a 600 dollar one will. However the GTX will play Crysis at MUCH BETTER SETTINGS, than your 3750 will, thats a fact. And I own ATI cards.
 
Gears of war sounds like a driver issue possibly. Did you run driver cleaner? Have you reinstalled GoW? Having said that, what do you mean by 'smooth but not as fast' for the ATI? :) You should try using fraps to see your actual frame rate.

I used to run it at 1600x1200 with no issues on a 320Mb GTS. Haven't tried it on my GTX yet.
 
Gears of war sounds like a driver issue possibly. Did you run driver cleaner? Have you reinstalled GoW? Having said that, what do you mean by 'smooth but not as fast' for the ATI? You should try using fraps to see your actual frame rate.

I used to run it at 1600x1200 with no issues on a 320Mb GTS. Haven't tried it on my GTX yet.
Click to expand...

Fresh install of Vista, no previous drivers. I think it has to do with The Textures being set to the Highest. There is a tweak in the ini file to turn on Texture streaming which fixes it. I didn't need to do this on the HD3870. Both are running DX9. I should load FRAPS to get some numbers, but I have been too busy trouble shooting other things. The 3870 had no hitching and was nice an smooth. The 9800 GTX is noticeably faster, but it hitches quite a bit (Texture loading) and the tearing is horrible.

You should done your research then, Crysis isn't playable even with 3 9800 GTX's, at full settings, why did you think it would be different? Everyone is this forum, the first question asked is , what RES do you play at for a reason, at low res, a 80 dollar card will do what a 600 dollar one will. However the GTX will play Crysis at MUCH BETTER SETTINGS, than your 3750 will, thats a fact. And I own ATI cards.
Click to expand...

I was hoping to run Crysis with maybe a few more settings higher ( which it doesn't) at the same resolution @ the same FPS. Given that it is a low resolution I would think that would be no problem. I know it will not run Crysis @ 60fps @ 1920x1080. An $80 card can not run Crysis at the settings I have. I was expecting the rest of the games I have to run at the same FPS but a Higher res, the same res with AA/AF, or DirectX 10. I thought since I now have a more powerful card pushing less pixels, should free up some memory / shader power to add more effects.


I just hope the GTX260/280 live up to the hype. I would really like to run most games max setting @ 1920x1080 and maybe Crysis @ 1280x720...

I'm not saying the 9800GTX is a bad card... I just made a bad choice...

I also want the Physics capability.... I'm hoping you can run both Video and Physics off of one card without killing the frame rate.
 
the 9800gtx is more or less on overclocked 8800gts 512, so the best you should expect is 16x10 with a few settings on high and a average frame rate a little above 30 (real frame rates recorded during live game play not the benchmarks, although i do like the second cpu test). with the 3870, the best i could ever muster was 1440x900 with shaders on high and everything else on medium with average frame rates just below 30. as to gears of war, the screen tears on every card and every multi gpu setup i own; from 3870 cf to x2 cf to 8800gtx sli to ultra sli.
 
dobieg2002 said:
The 9800 GTX is noticeably faster, but it hitches quite a bit (Texture loading) and the tearing is horrible.
Click to expand...
If you are getting improved FPS from the 9800gtx you are more likely to see tearing. Vsync should sort this nicely.

I know what you mean about crysis, it would be nice to be able to run it on a decent resolution. But that is just crysis. I run it at 1280x800 with everything on high and I get 30-50fps in game. For me low res and high detail looks better in crysis than lower detail and higher res.
 
My Crysis Config System.cfg:

Before I use it I go into Crysis in DX10 set the res and all setting sto High no Vsync and no AA

Code: 
; Game Effects

g_battleDust_enable=1

; Shader

r_UsePom=1
r_DetailNumLayers=2
r_SSAO=1
r_SSAO_quality=2
r_SSAO_radius=2
r_refraction=1
sys_flash_edgeaa=1

; Particles

e_particles_quality=4
e_particles_thread=1

; Object Detail

e_obj_quality=4
e_proc_vegetation=1
ca_useDecals=1
e_decals_allow_game_decals=1
e_decals_life_time_scale=2
e_lod_ratio=6
e_lod_min=0
e_lods=1
e_view_dist_ratio_detail=30
e_view_dist_ratio_vegetation=45
e_vegetation_min_size=0
i_rejecteffects=1
e_vegetation_bending=2
sys_flash_curve_tess_error=2
e_view_dist_ratio=60
e_max_view_dst_spec_lerp=1
e_vegetation_sprites_distance_custom_ratio_min=1
e_vegetation_sprites_distance_ratio=1.5
e_detail_materials_view_dist_xy=2048
e_detail_materials_view_dist_z=128
es_DebrisLifetimeScale=1
e_cbuffer_resolution=256
e_dissolve=1
ca_DrawFaceAttachments=1
ca_AttachmentCullingRation=200
e_terrain_occlusion_culling_max_dist=200

; Shadows

e_shadows=1
r_ShadowBlur=1
e_shadows_max_texture_size=384
r_ShadowJittering=1.5
e_gsm_lods_num=5
e_gsm_range=3
e_shadows_cast_view_dist_ratio=0.80
r_ShadowsMaskResolution=0
e_shadows_on_alpha_blended=1
e_shadows_from_terrain_in_all_lods=1
e_gsm_cache=1

; Post Processing

r_UseEdgeAA=1
r_motionblur=0
r_colorgrading=1
r_DepthOfField=1
r_sunshafts=1
r_GlowScreenMultiplier=0.2

; Texture

sys_LowSpecPak=0
r_TexSkyResolution=0
r_ImposterRatio=1
r_EnvCMResolution=2
r_EnvTexResolution=3
r_DynTexMaxSize=80
r_TexAtlasSize=1024
r_DynTexAtlasCloudsMaxSize=32
r_DynTexAtlasSpritesMaxSize=32
r_TexturesStreaming=0

; Quality

q_ShaderGeneral=3
q_ShaderMetal=3
q_ShaderGlass=3
q_ShaderVegetation=3
q_ShaderIce=3
q_ShaderTerrain=3
q_ShaderShadow=2
q_ShaderFX=3
q_ShaderPostProcess=3
q_ShaderHDR=2
q_ShaderSky=3
q_Renderer=3
q_ShaderWater=2

; Physics

e_cull_veg_activation=50
g_joint_breaking=1
g_tree_cut_reuse_dist=0
p_max_MC_iters=6000
e_phys_foliage=2
es_MaxPhysDist=200
es_MaxPhysDistInvisible=25
e_phys_ocean_cell=0.5
e_foliage_wind_activation_dist=25
g_breakage_particles_limit=200
p_max_object_splashes=3
p_splash_dist0=7
p_splash_dist1=30
p_splash_force0=10
p_splash_force1=100
p_splash_vel0=4.5
p_splash_vel1=10
v_vehicle_quality=4
p_max_substeps_large_group=5
p_num_bodies_large_group=100


; Water

r_WaterRefractions=1
r_WaterReflections=1
r_WaterUpdateFactor=0.05
e_water_tesselation_amount=10
e_water_tesselation_swath_width=10
r_WaterUpdateDistance=0.2
r_WaterCaustics=1
r_WaterReflectionsQuality=4
e_water_ocean_fft=1
q_ShaderWater=2
r_WaterReflectionsMinVisiblePixelsUpdate = 0.05

; Sound

s_speakerConfig=5

; Performance

e_vegetation_static_instancing=1
r_GeomInstancing=1

; Other Handy Console Commands 

con_restricted=0
r_MultiGPU=2
r_vsync=0
d3d9_TripleBuffering=0
r_displayinfo=0
 
dobieg2002 said:
I know it is a faster card on all the benchmarks (Which is why I purchased it), but I'm just not seeing it at this resolution. If it were indeed more powerful wouldn't I see it at lower resolutions?

Please do not say it is the rest of my system holding it back because that is just not the case.
Click to expand...

That is the case at lower resolutions. High-end video cards only tend to make a BIG difference at high resolutions with high quality settings (and AA/AF). At lower resolutions/settings it's based more on your CPU/RAM, and the video card will only make small differences in framerates.

The 9800GTX isn't THAT much faster than a HD3870 either, certainly not the sort of differences you seemed to be expecting. You actually probably would have been better off (in performance and price) getting a 2nd 3870 using Crossfire.

As for Crysis, I doubt even the new cards coming out next week will be fast enough to run it at a constant 60FPS and high settings. It's simply a ridiculously demanding game, and it may be another year until we can actually run it smoothly with high settings. This isn't just down to the video card either. Even the fastest processors in existence can't really run Crysis at 60FPS constant, even at low settings.

Crysis is overrated anyway IMO (flame away) :p Yes the graphics are amazing but the gameplay is nothing special IMO. Don't get me wrong, it's a good game, but there are better games out there.
 
DO NOT base any comparison between the two cards on Gears of War. I had the stuttering problem with a 3850 myself. I started thread about it. Ultimately worked aroudn it though.

Gears on PC has some issues...
 
dobieg2002 said:
Crysis DX9 (Custom Config) CPU 1 benchmark @ 1280x720
9800GTX = 42FPS
HD3870 = 37FPS

Crysis DX10 (Custom Config) CPU 1 benchmark @ 1280x720
9800GTX = 34FPS
HD3870 = 36FPS
Click to expand...

Why on earth are you running CPU benchmarks to bench a GPU?
 
As far as tearing goes, I always keep vsync on and it works perfectly- it may cap my fps at 60, but if my monitor only refreshes at 60hz then there isn't much point in grabbing additional fps and suffering through tearing.

And, trav, we're talking about graphics cards and their performance, not gameplay. I and many others happen to very much like the first 1/3 to 1/2 of Crysis. Given that, there are dozens of custom singleplayer maps to cater to those such as myself. Additionally, there are numerous mods in production for Crysis which I am very interested in. Therefore, to attempt to diminish the need to grapple with Crysis from a performance standpoint by bashing its gameplay is greatly unappreciated and completely unfounded- truly, if you don't like Crysis itself, you may very well like its mods or maps and those are all pretty much based on the same performance scale that Crysis is.
 
I will probably be sending the 9800GTX back. I'm just not seeing a tangible benefit.

I'll throw my 3870 Crossfire in there and just wait for the 4870s.
 
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