ATI RADEON HD 3870 or EVGA 8800GTX

H

harmztl

n00b
Joined
Dec 11, 2009
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Hi, im new to this board and had a few question about a system im bulding. I wanted to get some advice on how the ATI RADEON HD 3870 and evga 8800gtx video cards are? I have a evga p55 ftw mobo. Im trying to see if i will go with a i5 or i7 and which ram. Can any one give me some personal opinions?
 
Do you have these cards currently? Otherwise, there are a great deal of better cards out there.

At any rate, the 8800gtx is faster then the HD3870. The 8800gtx actually traded blows with the 3870x2!
 
jvz555 said:
8800gtx
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What he said.

Unless if you are thinking about HTPC or power draw, then the 8800gtx will easily destroy whatever the HD3870 can even hope to bring to the table.

EDIT:
Double post....

wake up, Jeremy
 
well they are not my only choices but i can get them for about a 100 from someone i kno. I dont plan on spending a fortune on video cards. Which others would you say?
 
I was under the impression that the 4850 was about as fast as an 8800GTX, though it might be faster thanks to drivers.
 
ivandurago said:
Unless I am wrong, the 4850 will be faster than either, and is only $100 New.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814141103

$100 for either of those cards is not a good deal, maybe ~$70-75 for a 8800GTX or 3870x2
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The 4850 is about the 8800gtx level, though a smidgen higer consistently.

And it consumes far less power then the 8800gtx.

harmztl said:
well they are not my only choices but i can get them for about a 100 from someone i kno. I dont plan on spending a fortune on video cards. Which others would you say?
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depends on the warranty, at this point.
 
harmztl said:
well they are not my only choices but i can get them for about a 100 from someone i kno. I dont plan on spending a fortune on video cards. Which others would you say?
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$100 isn't an acceptable price for either IMO, but the GTX is much closer. An HD 3870 is inefficient at higher resolutions and anti-aliasing settings. You can pick them up used all over the place for about $50; I bought two a few months back for about $110 including shipping from a seller in New York. A GTX might be able to pull $75-$100, but it's not like these two cards are the only choices you ahve...

At around $100, you might be able to scare up an HD 4850, as others have suggested. It's about the same speed at low res/detail as the 8800 GTX, but its performance doesn't degrade as much as resolution and detail levels increase. The fact that the 4850 takes a bit less power as well is just an added bonus.
 
Can someone please explain what the memory on these do? 512, 1gb etc. I have built computers before but never focused on the video card. Also out of the blue but i ordered the logitech z-5500 and was wondering on the evga p55 ftw is the sound card good? Is it better to use coax or optical or analog? Should i get a aftermarket soundcard?
 
harmztl said:
Can someone please explain what the memory on these do? 512, 1gb etc. I have built computers before but never focused on the video card. Also out of the blue but i ordered the logitech z-5500 and was wondering on the evga p55 ftw is the sound card good? Is it better to use coax or optical or analog? Should i get a aftermarket soundcard?
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As with the RAM on a PC, RAM on a video card temporarily stores data related to the processing of 3D renders/images. More RAM doesn't necessarily mean that it'll be a good buy as you have to figure whether or not the RAM is GDDR3 or GDDR5 or DDR2, etc.

The onboard sound is fine for most people. Try out the onboard sound FIRST and then see if its to your liking. if not, get a sound card.

But to reiterate what everyone has said:

The 8800GTX is the far better choice of the two cards you listed. But the HD 4850 is a better buy at $100.
 
harmztl said:
LOL thanks to everyone for their help. This has ended up teaching me something and confusing me more. Whats the main difference between nvidia and ati now?
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nV has CUDA technology for PhysX processing and other parallel processing tasks, while ATI's functionality is much more limited. For games, however, I don't think it really matters all that much between the two. Apart from this, the newest ATI cards also have Dx11 support, but it also remains to be seen whether this will make any difference or not (nV should be coming out with Dx11 cards soon..)

btw for sound, digital coax or digital optical will be the same sound quality, and will provide superior sound when paired with some sort of receiver. Although I am sure the analog output would suffice as well if you can't use the digital signals with your speaker.
 
harmztl said:
Can someone please explain what the memory on these do? 512, 1gb etc. I have built computers before but never focused on the video card. Also out of the blue but i ordered the logitech z-5500 and was wondering on the evga p55 ftw is the sound card good? Is it better to use coax or optical or analog? Should i get a aftermarket soundcard?
Click to expand...

If you have time to cancel the order on the Z5500, I'd consider doing so and heading over to the Computer Audio forum on Hardforum and asking for recommendations. There are better options out there for the money.
 
yes I read the thread.
to the first question: 8800GTX
land of the real: HD 4850 or spend another $50-ish and get something a bit nicer like a 5770

jeremyshaw said:
For ATi?

XFX


For nVidia?

eVGA
BFG
XFX
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I'd like to add Sapphire to the ATi/AMD camp and PNY to the nVidia camp (I realize a lot of people seem to hate PNY, but they honestly make the most reliable cards I've ever owned or put in customer boxes (never had one die, never had one come back, I cannot say that for any other manufacturer listed above (including Sapphire))

ultimately they're all "made at the same place", so all you're buying is warranty and customer service, which XFX has in spades, I've heard a lot of back and forth on BFG recently, and I've had miserable luck with anything from eVGA even working :eek:

harmztl said:
LOL thanks to everyone for their help. This has ended up teaching me something and confusing me more. Whats the main difference between nvidia and ati now?
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one is green and one is red (oh wait...:rolleyes:)

there isn't going to be a lot of difference in terms of featureset for games, because we don't worry about whats under the hood that much, however if you're comparing cards from the same generation you can usually see some price/performance or power consumption or whatever else advantages to one or the other, although generally not much

nVidia does have CUDA which doesn't matter much for games, PhysX as well, but you can add an nVidia card to a system with an ATi card and do the same thing, OpenCL supports both flavors (so GPGPU (which is what CUDA relates to (this matters more for scientists and engineers)) will be more open in the years to come (Intel getting into the game will probably push this as well, just a guess))

450 said:
If you have time to cancel the order on the Z5500, I'd consider doing so and heading over to the Computer Audio forum on Hardforum and asking for recommendations. There are better options out there for the money.
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:cool:

-bob
 
For 100? Am I the only one that thought "5750" for just a little more? Smaller then the 4850, a tad better performance and much lower power draw is more then enough for me.
 
While the 8800gtx is better than the 3870, one thing that hasn't been pointed out in this discussion is that the 8800gtx doesn't do hardware decoding of many high def video formats.
 
obobski said:
memory on the graphics card has no influence on desktop memory
just stop worrying about it, its unrelated
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Thats all i was wondering, i knwo theres no such thing as ddr5 for mobos. Just that theres soo much out there and its really all tempting and confusing.
 
SpoogeMonkey said:
such as?
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Blu-ray, h.264, HD MKV files, etc. Those files/playback media do require a ton of CPU power by themselves. As such having the video card offload the decoding of HD content means significantly less CPU usage and smoother playback of HD content.
 
wcp6 said:
nV has CUDA technology for PhysX processing and other parallel processing tasks, while ATI's functionality is much more limited. For games, however, I don't think it really matters all that much between the two. Apart from this, the newest ATI cards also have Dx11 support, but it also remains to be seen whether this will make any difference or not (nV should be coming out with Dx11 cards soon..)

btw for sound, digital coax or digital optical will be the same sound quality, and will provide superior sound when paired with some sort of receiver. Although I am sure the analog output would suffice as well if you can't use the digital signals with your speaker.
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You are downplaying the importance of DX11 and justifying Fermi's delay, I downplay the importante of CUDA since it doesn't affect games at all, neither Hardware Accelerated PhysX games which are so few and glitchy. While ATi cards are weaker than nVidia cards in GPGPU regards, it's faster in video encoding. Definitively using the audio solution integrated in the ATi's HDMI is far more superior than using a cable connected to a motherboard solution for external output.

Back on topic, the 8800GTX will be the faster card, but bear in mind that it consumes a lot of power, doesn't support DX10.1, no HDMI audio output, also the 8800GTX series tends to die in less than 3 years of use for some reason, see the 8800GTX thread were lots of users fixed their cards baking them in the oven. HD 3870 offers better anti aliasing quality, supports HDMI audio, DX10.1, but it's anti aliasing performance is weak, overall is slower than the 8800GTX. The choice would be the 8800GTX, but if you can sell both or sell at least one of them, get the HD 4850 or better. 9800GTX or GTS 250 doesn't worth it since both are rehashes/rebadges of the 8800GTX with a die shrink and doesn't offer nothing new besides lower consumption.
 
Danny Bui said:
Blu-ray, h.264, HD MKV files, etc. Those files/playback media do require a ton of CPU power by themselves. As such having the video card offload the decoding of HD content means significantly less CPU usage and smoother playback of HD content.
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Ty..just wondering because nv supposedly has hd built in the 9800gtx...idk. I get a little stuttering since all my cpu/gpu are folding 24/7, but if I pause the processes hd plays back fine. It works for me.....and I don't give a rat's ass if it's green or red.....as long as it works :)
 
The 8800 GTX, 320 8800GTS, and the 640 8800GTS came out before Purevision HD VP2 Thus it doesn't offload hd content such as h.264, blu ray, hd mkv files etc.

All other cards of the 8000 series, as well as all future 9000 and 200 series has at least Purevision HD VP2 and thus does offload the hd content. Now the 8400gs both old and new sometimes struggles with HD due to using the old HD VP2 and only have 16 stream processors or HD3 with 8 stream processors, but the 8200/8300 is fine due to using HD VP3 and having 16 stream processors.

The new 210/220/and 240 cards use Purevision HD VP4 and has built in HDMI sound cards. The 250, 260, 275, 280, 285 all sure Purevision HD2
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The 3870 on the other hand uses the ATI equivalent of Purevision HD2 called UVD and does offload HD content. Now the first gen of UVD only did 5.1 audio over hdmi but it still better than all the nvidia options till the VP4.

The 4000 series introduced UVD2 and did 7.1 audio over hdmi

The 5000 series uses UVD2 and supports more audio features than 4000 series. Features that you used to buy a 150 dollar soundcard to achieve. I let the audiophiles explain it.
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That said the 8800gtx is much faster than the 3870. The 4850 though would be an even better card.
 
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