For my needs: 3850 vs 4850

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bassballboy

Gawd
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Apr 25, 2007
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Ok all, I'm between a rock and a hard place, I really want to get the 4850 cuz I like the best bang for the buck. The thing is, as of now I don't really plan on gaming, the main use of the video card will be to play blu-ray/hd-dvd. If I do game it'll likely be Diablo 3 or Starcraft 2, both of which probably have 6months to 2 years before they are released where I can upgrade.

Would the 3850 be enough for daily needs right now and get the job done for playing movies with ease and no stuttering (when paired with a Q6600)? I'm really wanting the 4850, but I just don't think I'd get the $100 extra worth of use out of it right now.
 
Basically any ATI card will be able to play Blu-ray flawlessly. It's just a matter if you're going to want to play any games between now and Diablo 3/Starcraft 2. If you don't want to play any games, an HD 3650 would easily meet your needs.
However, there may be a game that comes out in the future that you do want to play. A 3650 would not suffice for that.
 
If you're not doing any serious gaming, just stick with a 3650. If you're dead set on finding a a 3850/4850... go to the FS/FT section and put out a WTB for a 3850... you can get one for pretty cheap I imagine.
 
3650/3850. If you think you might changer your mind about gaming (or just needing 3d for something) then get the 3850 at the least or splurge for the 4850.
 
get a good, inexpensive, used, 3850 from a reputable seller on the boards... i bet you can dig one up for $75 shipped.
 
The 3850 actually offers more bang for the buck even though the overall performance is lower. It's more than enough for non-gaming stuff and actually enough for most games too unless you need to play at high resolutions with AA.
 
Thanks guys!

Looks like on newegg that the cheapest 3650 with DDR3 is $63 shipped, whereas the cheapest 3850 is $70. I'm guessing the extra $7 is worth it to get then 3850?
 
bassballboy said:
Thanks guys!

Looks like on newegg that the cheapest 3650 with DDR3 is $63 shipped, whereas the cheapest 3850 is $70. I'm guessing the extra $7 is worth it to get then 3850?
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yes. if that is all the difference then get a 3850
 
ok, so here's another thought. how about a 3870 for $90? or does it not outperform the 3850 by much?
 
bassballboy said:
ok, so here's another thought. how about a 3870 for $90? or does it not outperform the 3850 by much?
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$7 to go from a 3650 to 3850 is worth it, but if you won't even be gaming, a 3870 would be pretty pointless since even a 3450 can handle 1080p HD acceleration. Stick with the 3850 and upgrade to a better card in the future if you need to.
 
bassballboy said:
ok, so here's another thought. how about a 3870 for $90? or does it not outperform the 3850 by much?
Click to expand...

it is, though not by much, the problem is that your getting into mid range card area here any the s scale changes, for instance a 9600GT has been seen for 85 dollars (not as good at HD IMO) but the 4850 can be had for 150 dollars and outperforms the 3850 or 3870 by a wide margin. 63 for 3580 sure, lots of older games will run great on it (so long as you don't use AA) and play video back better than what nvidia can. at the hundred dollar range things change, in fact here is a good look at this, best cards for the money sorted by price points. I might argue some but....

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-graphics-card,1987.html

it list the 3850 at being the best under 100, but the 3870 being the best at 125 tied with the 9600GT. should give you an idea of where things fall
 
The 8800 GT 512 is a nice card too which is a little bit faster than the 3870 512.
And can be had new for about 125 depending on price. But for $125ish you might as well save up few extra bucks and get the 4850.
I have a 3870 and it plays besicly everything that i throw at it with AA on, but i am on a low resolutions 1280x1024.
 
Having owned both, I can tell you a 3850 uses quite a bit less power, but is still quite capable for current games at modest resolutions. Considering Blizzard's rep for making good games that run well on most reasonable hardware, I would think a 3850 will be sufficient for Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2, but for most future titles from other companies, it's probably going to be pretty limited.
 
I would recommend the HD 3850, but for some more advanced Blu Ray playback like Picture in Picture also known as Hardware Dual-Video Decoding, you would need an HD 4850 (If an HD 4600 comes, it would be great). But if PIP is not important to you, then stick to the HD 3850. I have it and It plays Blu Ray movies like a charm, my CPU usage would never go above 33% using Cyberlink's PowerDVD 8 or WinDVD 9, the only thing that I don't like is that PowerDVD 8 doesn't have upscaling of regular DVD's and WinDVD 9 can do it but through software, it cannot be enable if you use Hardware Acceleration, both looks great and DVD Upscaling looks amazing, even though it uses lots of CPU power, between 33% and 100% of usage in the worst case scenario, the DVD playback never gets choppy, powerful little chip that I have eh? WinDVD 9 is better overall, specially if you like to do fast forward or rewind with BluRays (PowerDVD 8 is slow doing it)
 
for your needs a 3850 will do fine. The 4850 is really for higher end gaming at high resolutions. Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2 are reported to be highly scalable, you wont have any problems.
 
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