Longtime Nvidia user, thinking about making the switch for the 3870?

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blazingrig

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 18, 2006
Messages
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Ok, first off I have never owned an ATI card. I was initially waiting for the 8800gt, but due to these stock issues and price gouging I can't wait any longer. More so, I will put up my7900GTX on ebay to offset the price of my new card, so when it's gone it's gone, I don't want to be without a card and I know that If I stick with the 8800GT this might be the issue since stocks are unreliable and unpredictable. I saw this 3870 today, and ATI seems to have enough stocks, add to the the fact the card is priced a little cheaper and performs quite well. I have some questions for you ATI people though.

First off, from my experience I've never had any issues with nvidias distributers ie, EVGA, BFG, XFX etc. They have top notch service and support. Especially evga. Since I am going with an ATI card which manufacturer do you guys think is on par with EVGA, BFG?
The only ATI distrubuters I know of are HIS and Diamond, which can I place my trust in? are their support as good as their nvidia counterparts?

Second off I have heard things about ATI drivers, I have no experience with them. Are they very different, as far as options and the control panel, compared to nvidias drivers? I know my nvidia drivers have 2 startup programs added to the registry, and I like to keep that at a minimum. I've heard people say the ATI drivers add alot of startup programs and/or runtimes which take up alot of memory.

Those are my main concerns. Appreciate any feedback. Thanks
 
ATI drivers have a couple of plusses, one they are released on a regular schedule. #2, there are not multitudes of "beta/leaked" non-WHQL versions. Non of that "use this version for this game and that version for that game"

I miss my ATI Catalysts, but I sure like my 8800GTS card.
 
The ATI drivers are decent. Haven't run into issues while using them. Just don't install the Catalyst Control Center as it uses a decent amount of resources and requires dotNet installation. If you use Digital Vibrance on an nVidia card it would be helpful to know that ATI has no equivalent for this feature. I recommend ATI tool instead of CCC. You can OC, turn up your fan speed, use it for color correction purposes i.e. gamma, brightness etc.
 
Met-AL said:
ATI drivers have a couple of plusses, one they are released on a regular schedule. #2, there are not multitudes of "beta/leaked" non-WHQL versions. Non of that "use this version for this game and that version for that game"

I miss my ATI Catalysts, but I sure like my 8800GTS card.
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i forgot how bad it was..

i replaced my X1900XTX with an 8800GT only to find that..

A. the image quality isn't nearly as good (holy crawlies batman) even at the highest AA/AF/Quality setting..

B. the multitude of drive crap that goes on..


i love my X1900XTX, it was just install and go.. once a month install new drivers and be done..

i don't know if it was worth the upgrade for the headache..
 
The 8800GT offers 15% better performance across the board and about 30% better in Crysis.

Wait it out and get the 8800GT. Just keep checking eVGA.com or look for the $279 BFG at Best Buy.
 
NVIDIA basically threw away the argument of better IQ with the 8800 series, at least according to [H] and there reviews.
 
kumquat said:
The 8800GT offers 15% better performance across the board and about 30% better in Crysis.

Wait it out and get the 8800GT. Just keep checking eVGA.com or look for the $279 BFG at Best Buy.
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Also being a GT owner, I would have to say the 3870 looks pretty good at $220 compared to the current $270 for a GT assuming you can find one.

You pay $50 less and get only %15 ish performance. The 3870 appears it will not overclock as well as the GT however. The 3870 does have a better overall cooler and quieter fan.

Keep in mind the 3870 out performs the 8800 GTS 640MB that was the only option in this performance bracket at US$300 only 3 weeks ago.

If ATI maintain a $40 ish price gap then the 3870 will do very well indeed, its a very viable option imho.
 
Here comes the GT salesmen....

He seems to have already made up his mind and realizes the performance differences of today's cards. He asked about pro's and cons on distributors and the drivers/cc software. Yet, people are beginning to reply with performance comparisons. He didn't ask for your opinion on value or performance numbers.

Me, I have had nothing but good luck with HIS and that's all I buy. So I can't comment on other distributors. I have products from both camps with ATI being my main purchases. My ATI computers have had no issues that I'm aware of. My main gamer is on a very long XP install with multiple driver upgrades....I can't remember how m any but it's seen lot's cat upgrades. I run driver cleaner after each uninstall, install the latest cats and I have never had any stability problems as a result or any other kind of odd behavior. No BSOD's, freak outs or anything. Both control panels seem to have come along way with each having a downside here and there. You really can't go wrong with a purchase from either camp.
 
I find the driver interface to work MUCH better than Nvidia's.

Nvidia's stupid control panel always crashes for me, especially if you use nTune (shivers).

If the retail pricing of the 3870/3850's are competitive there is no reason why not to pick ATI's product.

Also they have MUCH better support for HDMI/multi-display setups.

Also the Crossfire supports extended desktop!!

Quad-fire anyone?
 
Cablespider said:
Here comes the GT salesmen....

He seems to have already made up his mind and realizes the performance differences of today's cards. He asked about pro's and cons on distributors and the drivers/cc software. Yet, people are beginning to reply with performance comparisons. He didn't ask for your opinion on value or performance numbers.

Me, I have had nothing but good luck with HIS and that's all I buy. So I can't comment on other distributors.
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Ever done an RMA with them ? I have with Sapphire cards,four times,every time was a headache for a multitude of reasons.HIS I know little about.Power Color I have dealt with once,and it was long but pretty painless in the end.
 
Manny Calavera said:
Ever done an RMA with them ? I have with Sapphire cards,four times,every time was a headache for a multitude of reasons.HIS I know little about.Power Color I have dealt with once,and it was long but pretty painless in the end.
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With HIS? Once, and it was painless. Other than that, I have never had to RMA any other HIS product that I've owned.
 
The cat drivers were bloatware when they arrived, and now they're not bad at all. It takes a while for it to respond when you mouseover the tray icon, and on my computer it takes nine seconds for it to open the CCC panel properly, but I get what I need to use from the tray icon rightclick menu.

You have some control over what background programs will run with the help of msconfig, the tray icon itself takes less than 6 megabytes of ram, nothing at all compared to the RealTek HD mobosound background software, the ATI hotkey poller can be dumped, I don't know what MOM.exe does other than give you a shitfit if you install the drivers and CCC before installing .net runtimes.

Expect something a lot more compact than Forceware, something that requires less page clickthroughs and has a few less options available - there are third party additions to the Cat drivers that'll fix that.

etc

Diamond are oldschool graphics card people, I'd trust them even if they just returned from many generations of being absent
 
Heh, Diamond is one of the oldest ones around (having flashbacks of "ancient' days)
 
Ive had ATI cards from Gigabyte, Hercules (RIP their GPU department) and Sapphire.
All were fine and worked great. I had to claim warranty from Hercules and had no trouble doing so.
I loved my ATI cards and I also love my current NVIDIA card (but feel a bit fucked up since I bought it 4 months ago....).
I had no problems worth mentioning with any of my ATI cards (excluding the POS fan the X1800XT had).
Have fun!
 
my first gpu i bought for my self in '97 was a diamond 4mb PCI, when diamond made thier own GPU chipsets :)


As for this topic, HIS ive had the best luck out of, and ASUS makes good ones and i believe their warranty is on par with all the rest. (looks like all ATI is one year, perhaps some exceptions). I use a x1550 asus on workstations that i build, run like a dream.
 
Whenever someone asks this question, I always respond by saying take a look at several reviews, and try to ascertain if the product you want to buy meets your performance needs. I use both nVidia and ATI products, and for the most part, drivers are pretty good from both companies, I’ve never really had any major issues with them. Yes, ATI has a monthly schedule which is pretty good, buy nVidia tends to update drivers with game releases, though as betas, but most nVidia users are typically running the latest beta driver all the time.

Bottom line is that you are going to get a little better performance from an 8800GT. But if the 3870 meets your performance needs, go for it!
 
MrGuvernment said:
^^^ is it true though that Sapphire still is or was the one that did this FOR ATI?
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Last I heard, Sapphire makes ALL high end ATI cards for EVERYONE. Asus, Powercolor, HIS etc.. are all really rebadged Sapphires. My last two cards have been Sapphire, and if my next card happens to be ATI again, it will be another Sapphire. They're always the lowest priced brand because they make the cards. You're not going through a middle man. I've never had any problems.
 
Stereophile said:
Last I heard, Sapphire makes ALL high end ATI cards for EVERYONE. Asus, Powercolor, HIS etc.. are all really rebadged Sapphires. My last two cards have been Sapphire, and if my next card happens to be ATI again, it will be another Sapphire. They're always the lowest priced brand because they make the cards. You're not going through a middle man. I've never had any problems.
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What about Built by ATI cards? Or are those not available in the US? That's what's in stores here in Canada all the time.
 
Stereophile said:
Last I heard, Sapphire makes ALL high end ATI cards for EVERYONE. Asus, Powercolor, HIS etc.. are all really rebadged Sapphires. My last two cards have been Sapphire, and if my next card happens to be ATI again, it will be another Sapphire. They're always the lowest priced brand because they make the cards. You're not going through a middle man. I've never had any problems.
Click to expand...

That was my understanding, or they at least made them for ATI, i dont know about the other companies.
 
Spare-Flair said:
What about Built by ATI cards? Or are those not available in the US? That's what's in stores here in Canada all the time.
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They're available. But they're really "Built by Sapphire". The only difference between the two is the sticker on the heatsink/fan. They come off the same assembly line. Nvidia doesn't actually manufacture cards either. It's more efficient to contract out.
 
Sort of but there appear to be some other changes as well. And the clockspeed is a little higher.
 
Stereophile said:
They're available. But they're really "Built by Sapphire". The only difference between the two is the sticker on the heatsink/fan. They come off the same assembly line. Nvidia doesn't actually manufacture cards either. It's more efficient to contract out.
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All very true except one point; the warranty and RMA processes. I have never owned an ATi card myself yet (though I'm open to it), but from what I've read, Sapphire has terrible customer service, while ATI's (AMD's?) is top-notch. That's the main reason that I'd definitely consider a Built-by-ATi (really Branded-by-ATi) over a Sapphire-branded card any day, even if they come from the same factory. (Not sure how good PowerColor, HIS, et al are in comparison to either though.)
 
If you want a 3870, go for it. I owned a X1900 XT and it was a great card. It's AF was better than the nVidia 7 series and it did better in shader heavy titles. I've also owned a 9800Pro, the X800 XL and a AIW X1800 XL. I don't regret buying any of them.

It should be noted again the GT does have a performance edge in most all cases, and it cost more and is harder to find.
 
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