Video card comparisons (Re: 38xx series)

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Biggles604

Weaksauce
Joined
Nov 23, 2004
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So with the release of the 38xx series, it's got me thinking about upgrading again.

A while back, there was a really great videocard roundup that covered all the way back to 3dfx cards and I found it was a really good baseline comparison for when you are upgrading after a couple of years.

I have an ATI AIWx1900 at the moment and am thinking that the 3850 would be a huge improvement, but can't find any way to compare. (I'm running a C2Duo 6300)
 
That review really did it for me when thinking about upgrading my own system, although for myself on an X800XL there would be an even more dramatic improvement. I really wish more sites would go back a bit farther than one generation in their reviews so I didn't have to rely on shoddy databases like tom's.

I'm still planning on forcing myself to wait it out a tad bit longer for a couple more product launches tho. I set my limits a long time ago as a poor student that I would not spend over $200 on a video card (I cheated a bit for the X800 at $210 but it was an amazing deal atm). That means the 3870 is just out of reach and the 8800GT more so. I would definitely like to see a 512MB 3850 variant at $199 come out soon, I would buy that in a heart beat. I just see the 256MB as a limiting factor in the future as I plan on using this card for at least a year or so. The 8800GT 256MB is definitely interesting and I'm waiting to see numbers from that as well, but again the 256MB thing doesn't rub me the right way considering my card right now from 2+ years ago has the exact same RAM on it just at slower clockspeeds.

I'm using this "generation" as a stop gap as I will probably continue to fly under the DX9 banner until I find some compelling argument to go DX10 and Vista. I figure my X800XL is getting a bit long winded to go the distance until that happens so a 3850 or 8800GT will satisfy me until there is some really beefy hardware out there that can make Crysis and next year's games its bitch (Alan Wake, I'm looking at you, buddy). Hopefully I can hold out until an R800 part or whatever NVidia has to offer at that time which should be around holiday season 2009 *hope*.
 
Gads looks like even AnandTech couldn't find a 8800GT to put in the comparison :eek:
 
nailzer said:
Why not?
Click to expand...

Completely different price ranges? And the 3850 was compared to previous high ends to show how a cheap mainstream today is so superior to what were once the kings of performance as well as being compared to the 8600GTS, the closest Nvidia card in price, which it easily massacres

And besides, they already did 8800GT versus 3870 as well as 3870 vs. 2900XT and 3850 as well. You can just infer from that
 
ZerazaX said:
HD3850 vs. the old 7950GT and X1950XTX:

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3151&p=9

Pretty clear than even the HD3850, despite having 256MB of RAM, handles itself quite well against the old kings of performance
Click to expand...

Also pretty clear the R580 lays the smack down on G71 with Bioshock and Crysis. They were on equal footing at the beginning, but ATI's chip was definitely more forward looking.

3850 is a decent bump. Almost twice the fps in Crysis. For the money, it's a good deal. I'm holding out till next year. I want something that will bury my old card. :D
 
i was hoping the {h} review would be ... a benchmark in the original sense, i.e. you put the same game through the same test, and see how the video card does the job that it's alternative would.

you don't really change resolutions, detail settings, AA, etc. in a decent benchmark just to see the figures look more respectably similar on a bar graph. if you could do that and call it a benchmark, you could compare a GF5200 AGP to a 8600gt AGP and call it fairly "close"

it just seems wrong.
 
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